Stress Dreams

If dreams are movies, what plays in your mind theatre when you're stressed? Selfishly, I'm asking because I just had the most awesome stress dream. Sort of a cross between... Ocean's Eleven and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We were in some major city with lots of water--a cross between Vienna and someplace in Japan? (Old Italian architecture plus bamboo grass. Go figure). My consciousness of being in a cool dream began as we were in a WWII transport boat turned supercharged houseboat (See the show Small Space, Big Style--a show I watched yesterday). We were dressed in tuxedos and gowns and being chased by the Vienna police. The ring leader was a Rupert Everett (the movie star not the media mogul) type guy and we were speeding through the waterways, jumping police boats, careening wildly, splashing slower moving boats and gondolas carrying American tourists...finally coming to rest in a boat garage mascarading as a chinese food restaurant. No one spoke for a moment. Then two moments passed. Then we all started laughing hysterically. We were all law students who were in one way or another on the outs with "The Man."

The last scene in the movie was me, in another chase. I don't know if I was by myself but it certainly felt like it because I was now driving the houseboat. In order to drive it I had to lay on my stomach in the front of the boat and manuever it with what looked like an old Atari joystick, supersized. It was a lot less fun than the first chase, given that the police were now shooting to kill, having been looking for our "gang" since the first chase. Picture: machine guns, rocket launchers, etc. After narrowly evading a super explosion in which my vehicle emerged from a ball of fire, I found myself just ahead of the police, and around a bend in the river. I turned sharply and ran the boat up on a steep embackment and started running, then dropped and hid in the long grass as police moved within inches of me. When I thought it was safe, I started crawling through the grass to an alley that led to a tall building, climbed up the fire escape, in through an impossibly small window, and I began descending a back set of stairs that was at times really wide, then really narrow, then ceased to be stairs at all and became an M.C. Escher-esque splayed, crooked, downward ramp, then eventually became stairs again and ended it up in some small-time Italian officials' cramped secretary's office. I snuck by her and into a great hall, shoes clicking on the marble. There were tables of people all talking in the excited hush that happens before a big moment. A man in a kiosk was selling last minute emergency robes. I was at a law school graduation. I made a left and headed out of the building into the sunshine. As I looked out on the city, I felt as if someone was watching me. I turned slowly. A slightly pudgy, short white guy turned as if he was looking for someone but didn't see them and went back inside. I followed him, a few steps behind, as if I was looking for a restroom. He led me to the end of the hall and at ten different tables I spotted each of my friends chatting with nondescript movie-extras. One by one I caught their eye and they gave me an almost inperceptible nod, or a wink, or a half smile, and continued talking. It's funny--none of us were as glamourous as any of the Ocean's Eleven crew--an older white lady with big eightie's glasses and feathered hair, me, an older, balding man, an Asian chick with glasses and a ponytail, etc. I realized where we were at, then, and was impossibly happy that we were all going to graduate without going to jail. A policeman walked casually up and down the rows of tables, looking for us, I assume. "Rupert" was sitting casually on a table, now fully bearded and wearing horn-rimmed glasses. The policeman stopped, Rupert looked at him and smiled and then continued talking to his conversation partner, and the policeman smiled back and kept walking. We entered the great hall and took our seats as the ceremony began. We were scattered through the crowd of hundreds and even though I sat alone, I felt at peace knowing I was there, in the same room with my partners in crime. And then I woke up.