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Laughing dreams and stag heads
Jun. 6th, 2008 12:53 amDo you ever wake yourself up laughing? I believe this to be one of the most underappreciated activities humans can engage in, though it be involuntary. It happens to me once a year, perhaps.
Happened early this morning. In the course of my dream-self's travels, I encountered a machine which, after you urinated into a pocket in its side, dispensed ketchup. I'm sure this was meant to be some sort of unsettling psycho-sexual construct, but instead it struck me as so hilarious that the dream gave up and kicked me out. I continued laughing for several moments after waking.
Only a couple of weeks ago I had a more traditional dream, but one with an image so striking that it's stayed with me as if it were a memorable and surreal story I read long ago.
There was, you see, a certain monastic sect, who for time immemorial had run a school. The school itself wasn't very unusual, but for a single tradition: when one of the teaching monks achieved a singular level of age, wisdom, and respect, his brethren would recognize this by ceremonially decapitating him, replacing his head with that of a taxidermized stag - an animal which this sect revered as a symbol of wisdom. The monk so honored would continue to teach in this state for the rest of his life, which could sometimes involve several years, even though the procedure rendered him mute.
In my dream, I learned about all of this the same way nearly everyone else in the world had - through the Internet, because this sect happened to have performed this rare ceremony for the first time since the advent of blogging, with no anticipation of the level of surprise and lurid scrutiny that they would bring down upon themselves. As I woke, a couple of weeks had passed since the story broke, and I was only starting to wonder how it all worked, since as far as I knew they didn't transplant the brain...
Happened early this morning. In the course of my dream-self's travels, I encountered a machine which, after you urinated into a pocket in its side, dispensed ketchup. I'm sure this was meant to be some sort of unsettling psycho-sexual construct, but instead it struck me as so hilarious that the dream gave up and kicked me out. I continued laughing for several moments after waking.
Only a couple of weeks ago I had a more traditional dream, but one with an image so striking that it's stayed with me as if it were a memorable and surreal story I read long ago.
There was, you see, a certain monastic sect, who for time immemorial had run a school. The school itself wasn't very unusual, but for a single tradition: when one of the teaching monks achieved a singular level of age, wisdom, and respect, his brethren would recognize this by ceremonially decapitating him, replacing his head with that of a taxidermized stag - an animal which this sect revered as a symbol of wisdom. The monk so honored would continue to teach in this state for the rest of his life, which could sometimes involve several years, even though the procedure rendered him mute.
In my dream, I learned about all of this the same way nearly everyone else in the world had - through the Internet, because this sect happened to have performed this rare ceremony for the first time since the advent of blogging, with no anticipation of the level of surprise and lurid scrutiny that they would bring down upon themselves. As I woke, a couple of weeks had passed since the story broke, and I was only starting to wonder how it all worked, since as far as I knew they didn't transplant the brain...