dream a little dream of me

Some dreams are so strange you have to share them. Last night I had just such a dream.

The strangest part of last night's dream is that I was in it twice. I was there, experiencing the action and then there was another me, the omniscient observer. As the dreamer of the dream, the real me (at least I'm pretty sure it was the real me) could hear the thoughts of both participant me and observer me and, here's where it gets really strange, I was not agreeing with myself.

The dream took place in a tattoo parlor. I had just received my first tattoo. The dream started just as the artist was wiping down the finished tattoo and saying, "There you're done. Do you want to see it?" Participant me went over to the mirror, took a look and was thrilled with the result. I couldn't stop looking at it and saying things like "it's so beautiful! I love it!" The artist was there beside me equally thrilled with his work. "It turned out so well" he said. "You've got an amazing piece of art."

And while the party over by the mirror celebrated, observer me was less enthusiastic. "I got it on my left calf?" I asked. "I would never get a tattoo on my calf, left or right. And it's so big, look it goes almost all the way to my knee and wraps around the sides." Observing me was not impressed with myself. Participant me then turned so that the tattoo was visible to the other me and we got quite a shock.

What the first me and the artist had been gushing over was the worst tattoo I have ever seen. Inexplicably it featured a life-size tube of toothpaste, a few playing cards and a hand written list done in the artist's own hand writing. I think it was a list of song titles. The other two continued to marvel at the brilliance of this piece of ink while observing me went a little crazy in the corner. "I got that?!" I asked myself (although I don't think I could hear me). "What was I thinking?"

It was certainly an odd experience to watch myself celebrate and rail against a single thing at the same time. Three dimensional me really never would get a tattoo on my calf. I'd be much more likely to go with back of the shoulder. And I think it's safe to say that it wouldn't feature toothpaste, playing cards or song titles.

I checked my leg when I woke up, just to be sure.

Photo courtesy of Jawad Zakariya. Used with permission under Creative Commons 2.0 license.