Thus revealed, the creature buried its nose in the tire-tilled soil...
June 10, 2010
Who needs social outings when one can dream?
Category: Dreams

I had a pretty satisfying dream last night! I dreamed that I'd gone out to dinner with a bunch of people -- some of whom appeared to be former high school and college classmates; I have no idea where others came from (one looked a bit like an extra from some cop drama) -- and had a generally decent time hanging out with them. What made the dream feel especially great isn't that part of it, though, but rather how I felt about it after I woke up.

See, on the rare occasions that I actually spend time with people, any enjoyment I have during the experience is usually muted by the aftermath. Sure, it might be kinda fun while it lasts, but there's almost no prolonged benefit for me. It's not as if I'm building lasting friendships with these people; I always end up spending more money than I'd like to spend (I'd like to spend nothing); and I typically don't leave with anything tangible to show for the monetary and temporal loss (though if I remember, I'll try to squeeze in a photo or something -- at least then I have a keepsake of sorts).

For instance, a couple of weekends ago I went to the goth club to see this DJ and singer I like -- more in a personal/friendly capacity than for her talents, though she's a very compelling singer (I'm not that up on music and really can't evaluate her DJ skills, but her playlists don't suck). And yeah, it was very cool to visit with her... but after metro and entrance fees and drinks and food, I ended up spending around $50. Plus social situations like that tend to leave me feeling physically drained, and I always end up with a raging headache after spending several hours in a noisy club. Generally speaking, even when my social outings don't involve nightclubs, I tend to come back wishing I'd stayed in and watched a DVD.

But the dream! The dream actually started to go south a little bit towards the end. Like many of my outings, spending time with the people was enjoyable -- but then it came time to divvy up the check. Now, not wanting to spend very much at all, I had ordered a cheap crawfish appetizer for my meal. Apparently, however, the waiter had mistakenly thought that we meant to order the larger size for the entire party and had brought it out with the appetizers rather than the meals -- but since I was on the other end of the table, I never saw it and didn't look for it until the entrees were served, at which point the amount left was the right size for a single-person appetizer. And since one person had pretty much eaten the bulk of the appetizer before leaving when the meals arrived (and thus wasn't there to split the cost with me; the little bit of cash he'd left behind was barely enough to cover his drink), it looked like my group was going to stick me with the full $29.98 cost of the party-sized appetizer rather than the $6.98 I had expected to pay for the individual version. An extra $5 to $10 would have been tolerable (though still annoying), but this was seriously upsetting.

And then I woke up, and actually spent the next five minutes lying in bed thinking about how much it was going to suck that I had to pay this... until I realized, "Wait, that was a dream! I don't have to pay that shit!" And then suddenly it was awesome. All the benefits of social interaction and good food -- what remained of the crawfish appetizer had been pretty tasty -- and the most unpleasant aspects of these encounters had been completely averted! Plus I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time and could have been doing something else instead, since I had been sleeping (something I really needed to do) and woke feeling fairly well rested. Of course, it did mean that I didn't get to hang out with one girl in the party afterwards -- when I'd commented that I kinda wanted cheesecake but decided against ordering dessert at the restaurant, she'd suggested that the two of us hit up the nearby Giant afterwards and split a cheesecake (cute girls and cheesecake = epic win) -- but ah well. 😛

Before this one, I also had another cool dream last night -- I dreamed I was at Five Below and found a whole bunch of superarticulated 9" Nightmare Before Christmas and Final Fantasy action figures, as well as some cool, obscure DVDs and a wall of comic books selling 4 for $0.79. I also woke up from that dream without having to pay anything, though I was less enthusiastic about that since I didn't get to keep the merchandise. Those Sally figures (in several different outfits, none of which actually appeared in the film) were bloody awesome.

-posted by Wes | 10:07 am | Comments (2)
2 Comments »
  • greybob says:

    I sometimes have dreams where I receive lavish gifts, such as books, comics, games, usually things that I wouldn't mind getting as gifts but don't have the money or desire to buy for myself. For example, back when the PS3 and XBox 360 were newer, I had a dream that I received both as gifts, and another dream I had around the release of the Watchmen movie involved me getting some sort of really fancy, collector's edition of the graphic novel.

    I always wake up from those dreams feeling disappointed.

    • Wes says:

      Those dreams can be upsetting! But at least you wake up knowing that they were dreams. I used to have dreams as a kid in which I'd get new toys, and I'd swear that they were real and had actually gotten the toys... and would spend insane amounts of time tearing my room apart looking for them. Even now, I keep an eye out for some of those items when I'm going through old piles of stuff.

      Apparently several of my absolute favorite toys never existed outside of my subconscious. 🙁

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