Dream State

Dream State

I just got up. Still groggy, but I wanted to get this down. I dreamt about watching a movie last night—the entire movie. A full hour and a half feature film that doesn’t exist. When I first woke up my first thought was “This isn’t real. I’ve been dreaming. Damn!” because I knew I’d forget and it was a very affecting film.

It was about a mom and her two daughters and a relationship they have with a girl, who was the main character—yep, a total chick flick. I can’t remember much of it, only the final scene, the sound track, which as far as I know isn’t real music (if I were a musician I’d write it down, because it’s good), a few scenes that are fading as I write, and some very vivid, beautiful, and haunting shots of Toronto. This is strange, since I’ve not been to Toronto. And the only reason I know it was Toronto, and that I was watching a film as opposed to in the film, is that I read a review while watching it because I was surprised I hadn’t heard of it, being a film-0-phile and all, and one of the reviews had said, “Toronto has never looked so beautiful.”

This is pretty strange. I’ve never dreamt an entire film before. I do, however, have a vivid dream world. I dream in film scenes. I’m usually in the film but see the world as camera shots. I have a couple of different dream worlds, where places exist, relationships happen, people try and shoot me, new climbing areas are found, developed, re-visited, etc, etc. It’s very vivid. But, as far as I can recall, I’ve never watched a movie—certainly not an entire movie—in a dream.

The nature of the film is also odd. Not that it’s a chick flick; I watch plenty of those. It was an art house chick flick. Think Allison Anders, not Penny Marshall. Kind of a Blue Car meets Gas, Food, Lodging meets The Five Senses (the only Toronto movie I could think of). But I also watch plenty of “guy” films. And last night, prior to bed, I was watching Deadwood, which is about as un-chick flick as it gets.

So do I have a point? I guess it’s the way training affects ones dream state. Lately, my dreams have become extremely vivid and I’ve been exercising less and less. Last night, they were too vivid, I think. Dreaming that I’m in a movie is one thing, but watching a movie. Hmmm. I’m saying this is a signal to begin to get more serious about my training.

I had a pretty big year last year. During the winter, I trained hard for climbing and was in my best climbing shape in probably a decade. But only for a short time before I got hurt. Then I trained a lot on the bike, had a lot of epic days, and attempted something that hadn’t been done before, where I also got hurt. Then I went off to Australia and started climbing again, since my knee was out of commission. Over did it and hurt my shoulder, which I exacerbated over the next few months until finally I was forced to just shut everything down and take a big break. So, for the last couple of months, I’ve focused on work and life and have done less exercise than at any point since, probably 1999. Mainly just rehab and easy cardio.

Over the last month, my dream world has really picked up, getting more and more vivid. Something this made me think of was that it had, to a degree, disappeared. And since I was probably bordering on overtraining much of last year, I think I can now utilize my dream state to gauge my training. If it shuts down, I’m probably doing too much and should begin a recovery phase until it returns. But when I start watching entire movies in my dream, the recovery phase is over, and it’s time to pick up the intensity again. I think I’ll go get on my bike.

PS – For the record, I’m aware I didn’t address, at all, the nature of the film. I’m going to have to think about that one. In the final scene, them mom, who’d tried to kill herself, wakes up. The three girls are in a hospital room with her. There’s no dialog but you can tell by her actions that whatever caused her to try and take her life was a mistake, and she’s grateful to have a second chance. The music starts (the song that doesn’t exist except in my head at this moment). FADE OUT.

ROLL CREDITS (yes, there were credits. Unfortunately, I don’t remember any of the names.)