No, I’m not Martin Luther King, Jr., but I did fall asleep at my desk an hour ago because of my raging insomnia. I did sleep well, however, for I had a very vivid dream, and dreams occur only during deep, restful sleep. This was a weird one, and though I’m not a Freudian who interprets dreams, I have no idea why my neurons created this scenario:
I was in a restaurant with tables and partitions between them, and at the partition by the next table was George Harrison with a guitar, singing “Blackbird.” That in itself was weird because that song is solely a Paul McCartney song, written and sung by him alone. But Paul McCartney himself was also there, standing right next to me at a partition with his arm around my waist. As Harrison got to the last line, “You were only waiting for this moment to arise,” McCartney leaned over and gave me a big wet kiss on the cheek. Then I woke up.
Before I fell asleep, I was dispirited at the state of America, and of my friends, all of which depresses me. Between our crazy President doing one stupid thing or another, and my Facebook page having all my friends saying constantly how bad Trump (and ICE) is, I cannot get away from American politics and its divisiveness.
Why do I keep looking, you ask? I will give Mencken’s quote from his great 1949 collection, Chrestomathy (everyone should have this book):
Q: If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?
A: Why do men go to zoos?
Here’s Macca singing “Blackbird”; this, at least cheers me up (the last line of the song here differs from that above):
Were you recently listening to, or thinking about those members of the Beatles? That of course can trigger what goes into a dream.
No, it came out of nowhere
You can avoid Facebook. Maybe suspend your account or something like that.
But that is where I get a lot of animal pictures and memes and there is no place comparable.
There seem to be some human mental biases at play. Biased Attention – paying more attention to immediate risks/bad things, and Biased Memory where memories of past risks/bad things fade more swiftly than good things.
As a consequence people become concerned that The End Of The World, or The End Of Democracy, are happening in their generation, right now. Therefore Trump, or Biden, Covid, China, Climate Change, or just about any -ism problems appear to be brand new problems.
And brand new problems seem much more worrying than the old stuff we used to worry about.
And perhaps the adrenaline bathed hive brain like minded groups can weave for themselves when sufficiently motivated?
This sounds like a very uplifting dream to me. I might awaken with a sense of- everything is alright. A sense of reassurance? I would like to have such a feeling as I am still mired in grief and anger.
Emily, that worries me. I humbly suggest reflecting that nothing President Trump or the ayatollahs do actually affects you personally. Your only lever to affect the system is the one you pull in the voting booth on Election Day, which I assume you did. You’ve done your bit. The Executive has no obligation to listen to the voters after that, and so it doesn’t. And the only foreigner that powerful foreigners listen to is the President of the United States, not you. The influence of the individual citizen on world affairs is meant to be tiny, and it is.
The National Lampoon back in 1971 wrote (in Radio Dinner I think) a satire of “Desiderata” that started,
Please get off social media if you are mired in grief and anger. Really. Unless your family is falling apart, none of that matters.
Yes, Leslie and Emily. As a twitter/X fiend I can affirm it is important to detach emotionally.
D.A.
NYC/CT
Thank you for your kind words. I am not a social media person, I am a news junkie. I am working on staying informed without drowning in it.
I respect those insights. But as compassionate beings, we can’t just tune out the news about all the injustice.
I don’t have problems with insomnia, but I too am near the end of my rope with the divisiveness, hatred, and tribalism of today. I accept the proposition that things are objectively much better today than 150 years ago, but our trajectory today is decidedly downward. irreversibly? I think so. I am increasingly glad that I will be dead soon. No loss at all, in the wider sense. Wouldn’t even make a ripple. But I’ve had enough.
“I am increasingly glad that I will be dead soon”
Wow. I’m surprised to see anyone write that here. I feel similarly. I’d never have written it, but since you did, it seems only fair to let you know you’re not the only one. I’d rephrase it a bit. I’m not actually glad I’ll be dead so much as I find living in this current state of affairs intolerable. I saw Leslie’s reply to Emily up there.. trying, I think, to help her put politics in its proper perspective? There’s more to it than politics, though. It’s a deep subject and I’d just say that the state “of things” make for a miserable backdrop if one is experiencing other, more personal challenges.
I have to admit, it’s doesn’t seem a good time to be young (I’m old and not even an American…)
“Why do men go to zoos?”
I love that answer – I can think of a number of answers to that… answer…! 😆
“As Harrison got to the last line, “You were only waiting for this moment to arise,” McCartney leaned over and gave me a big wet kiss on the cheek. Then I woke up.”
I guess he wanted to get you into his life 😉
Mencken probably thought his comment was clever, but it isn’t applicable. No one who goes to a zoo is planning on staying there and living with the zoo inhabitants.
Mencken clearly meant that he was entertained (and got writing material) from observing the American social and political scene.
Two stories from The Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens. A man climbed into the lion enclosure after sneaking in one night. He was of the opinion that his inner peace would render the lions harmless and cuddly. For him, it was the experience of a life time – for the lions, he was a late supper.
Another person stripped off all his clothes and swam the moat to the gibbon island. I think he was there for a couple of days before he could be removed.
Depressing times indeed. There doesn’t seem to be an escape from the decline of our civilization (The West).
I love the Beatles but have still to have them feature in a dream.
My musical “pick me up”, though, is a bombastic piece by Muse. It’s aptly titled “Survival”. This is, unarguably, the best live musical performance on YouTube.
For those interested, it’s titled: “Muse – Survival Live at Rome Olympic Stadium”.
I like Muse. Lately I have been going thru YT videos about the history of Pink Floyd, and that has gotten me back into playing their albums on iTunes. And that brings me right back in the dorm room, with trippy but great music.
My guess is that your dream relates to yesterday’s post about the TAMI show. Reading through the list of artists, the Beatles are notable for their absence. I suspect you had some conscious or unconscious cognitions about the Beatles that formed the basis of the dream, which is itself meaningless.
Good call!… VERY good call, wow!
🎼🎶🍿
(That’s a nod to James Brown’s Mother Popcorn – also not on the list).
A bit of trivia: while the Beatles weren’t there, three of the four songs performed by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas were written by Lennon/McCartney and donated to the band (“Bad to Me,” “I’ll Keep You Satisfied” and “From a Window.”) The two bands had the same manager, Brian Epstein.
I have dreamed a cheerful dream involving the Beatles before, in which I was going to high school with them. No kisses from any of them though. Lucky you.
I wonder what will happen next time. In my experience, if I discuss my dreams, the following night they become vivid and emotional, and I usually wake up shouting in fear. So I ignore them, and that makes them stay nice and peaceful.
What a wonderful dream!
Much more heartening than had George sung All Things Must Pass. It’s true, but not as inspiring.
Indeed, Susan. Great song, fantastic album.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Paul McCartney said that the song ‘Blackbird’ referenced the civil rights movement in the ‘60s and the struggle of black people for equality. The black bird symbolised a black woman ‘standing up’ – (bird was a slang term for woman at the time in England). I’ve wondered whether this is a post hoc rationalisation since Paul didn’t say anything about this at the time except allegedly to the singer Donovan. He wrote about it in a book in the 1990s. Bird doesn’t seem much like a term that Paul would’ve used and if the context was as described, why is there actually a recording of a blackbird (Turdus merula)in the song?
The Power of Bad: How the Negativity Effect Rules Us and How We Can Rule It
Book by John Tierney and Roy Baumeister is an eye-opening read about (among other things) how U.S. news organizations are very negative in their reporting…on purpose. The NYT is very negative, to a large degree, to keep readers checking the site and clicking. If there’s a bad storm on the horizon, you keep checking the weather to see how bad it will be or is getting. European sites are less so.
We can’t be depressed for four years, whoever the president of the U.S. is.
Since Harrison was the quiet, serious demeaner Beatle thinker and therefore he added weight to the song by singing it… and since the years have gone by after his death… Macca really enjoyed the version too and the sole listener was rewarded by his exhilaration to hearing his long time friend’s rendition.
A happy ending and I think I would have enjoyed that and kissed all including the restaurant staff, but I think J Baldwin’s above comment was onto “something” here.
What serendipity! I’m about to read the final chapter of Civilization and Its Discontents by S. Freud. Not that I’m an expert on Freudian interpretation, I would, however, guess that your pleasure principle, the desire for happiness, is alive and well… your dream gives you hope.
I sincerely hope that the West, with the Enlightenment values we brought to the world, does not fall to authoritarians. I do worry about that, and sometimes, like EdwardM and Debi above, I’m glad I won’t be around to see that happen — if it does.
But I don’t obsess about it (much).
One thing that helps me is remembering that we’re literally a bunch of apes. Yeah, we can be awful. We can also be pretty damn cool. Look at everything we’ve figured out about life, the universe, and everything. We’ve walked on the moon! I don’t really want to die. I want to see what happens next.
I think we tend to mentally set the actual beside our ideals, and so wind up appalled. But that’s not reasonable. Better to recognize each in its place.