Dream [Adventure]

 

[Adventure 75]

I have some strange dreams. Really strange dreams. 

I've had strange and vivid dreams all my life, but I am now on two different medications that promote vivid dreams, and now they're at a whole new level. 

I dream in technicolor. I smell things in my dreams; feel things like the heat of the sun on my face or the pain of a dislocated hip; taste things ... all my senses work in my dreams. This makes dreams difficult to remove from reality. 

Last night I dreamt that we were back at Epoch Arts, putting together a theater production as a last minute fundraiser. The cast of Beautiful Things had been reassembled, had quarantined for fourteen days, gotten covid tested, and were now living together in campers on Epoch Arts property. There would be three rehearsals and then the play would be livestreamed because they'd already done the play and, as dream logic dictates, already knew their lines. But the problem was this - I was in charge of costuming everyone, of creating many of the blacklight set elements, and learning a part for one of the cast members who was awaiting news on whether or not they'd gotten a job and needed to leave the country to pursue it. All in twenty-four hours. 

I pulled costumes and hats and props and created set pieces overnight and in between rehearsals. I blew on my freezing hands to warm them up while in the draftier parts of the building and sweat dripped down my face under the bright lights of the stage while I set up set pieces. I got to see cast members I hadn't seen in years and chatted with them while making dinner for the cast one night. I tasted the pasta sauce to make sure it was just like the sauce I made years ago during the original production. It needed more oregano. It was all very real.

When I woke up, I was a mixture of disappointed and relieved and incredibly exhausted. It had been a lot of work, and very emotional, and there was no way the production was going to go well under the circumstances. (And why didn't we build the set and get the costuming done during two weeks of quarantine, anyway???)