Dreamlife March 18 - Robin

Dream One

Type: Everyday life (with fictional details but true to our life)
People:  Nancy and Steve L, Leslie
Featured:  a $10,000 loan to our friends

I introduced my good friend Alphonsa to another friend.  But she corrected me and said, "My name is actually Phonsa".  Really? I had been calling her by the wrong name for years??  Yes, so it seems.

Phonsa morphed into my friend Nancy L., who was depressed.  I asked why and she said that it was time to pay tuition (for the expensive private school for their child) and they were $10, 000 short.  I said I would be happy to lend it (though I needed to check with Leslie).

I asked Leslie and she gave me that "here you go again" look and said—as she always does when I check with her after my lending-money offer is already out there—"sure".  Steve (Nancy's husband) came to write the contract and arrange for the money to be direct-deposited in the bank pronto.

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Annotations

Steve and Nancy don't need our money and have no kids.  If they did need money, though, we would certainly lend it to them.

I do tend to offer to lend—or give—money to people a lot.  And, it is true, I sometimes do this before asking Leslie.  But I do always ask her before I actually give the money.  She is very, very sweet about this habit of mine and always says yes because she knows it is important to me (and she wants to help our friends, too, of course).

I don't know any Alphonsa or Phonsa.


Dream Two

Type:  Cultural/ Entertainment
People:  Thomas Mann, the cast of the TV show Superman
Featured: an operatic concert and "The Further Adventures of Superman"

Thomas Mann and I were watching a concert featuring some excerpts from Wagner.  We were enjoying it when it changed to Verdi excerpts.  Neither of us liked that change.

On the side of the stage, there was an ad for "The Further Adventures of Superman" in which the original cast of the TV show was reunited, and our superhero is now an old man as are, of course, all the others.  I thought that was a great idea!  An old superhero!

Jimmy is still a cub reporter.  I thought that was sad that he hadn't been able to go up the ladder in his career choice.  It also featured two little people who looked strange.  I didn't remember them specifically from the show but I thought they must have been in the two-part, "Superman and the Mole Men" episode.

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Annotation


Thomas Mann was a big Wagner fan early in his life and a great influence to him.  That said, he was also very critical of Wagner as well.  His marvelous essay, "The Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner" led directly to his exile from Germany.  A capsule summary here.  Anyway, it was no surprise in my dream that he was there... (I assume everyone knows that I am a big Wagner fan and still plan to write my Blagner someday...) [ed note 2013: here is my Wagner blog]

Superman was one of my all-time favorite TV shows.  I watched it incessantly as a child.  Though some of the cast members are dead, most notably George Reeves. (For the record, I think he was murdered.)  In the dream they were all alive and older.  I only "saw" Jimmy and Lois though, probably because I do know what they look like now, having met Noel Neill at a comic book store in Santa Cruz and having seen lots of pictures of what Jimmy looks like now. Here's a picture (Note that Jimmy—Jack Larson—should be cast as Ron Paul.)  I loved the superb two-part "Mole Men" episodes from the first season (actually released as a film prior to the TV show, but then shown as part of the show) so having them as part of the dream makes much sense.  (By the way, I actually preferred the dark first season of Superman with the no-nonsense Lois Lane played by Phyllis Coates.  But in this dream, it was going to be the more silly Further Adventures, the Mole Men notwithstanding.)