Last night I had the strangest dream: I was trapped in the house on “the Addams Family.” But it wasn’t the relatively harmless creepy, cooky family from the sitcom. They were truly evil, viscous, satanic Manson-family style killers. Their house seemed more like a fortress, surrounded by a lake-sized moat, from what I remember. For some reason, the normal, all-American daughter from “the Munsters” was part of their family, but she had “Wolverine” type claws coming out of her hands. (she was perky and smiling, but she still wanted to slash my throat.) I remember I was sneeking through a secret passage looking for a way out of the house, knowing that if any of the family members found me, I’d be toast with a bloody-smear across the top. At some point, I had trapped Cousin Itt in a cage, and he was screaming bloody murder and threatening me (in, well, a normal voice - not a voice from the show.)
The worst aspect of this whole sorry experience was not that I was dreaming about a tv show, not that I was dreaming about a tv show I haven’t seen in at least 25 years, not that I was having a nightmare based on a sitcom-scenario, but that it wasn’t the first time this has happenend.
It’s not very often, mind you (I’m not a complete & utter vidiot!), but occasionally I do have dreams that have been ahem “influenced” by tv shows I’ve seen. I recall having a dream about “That 70s Show”, but I think that was because I’d been in the routine of watching reruns of it just before going to bed.
My question is, does anyone else experience this? God, I hope so. 'Cuz the idea that tv has so permeated my subconscious memory that I’m dreaming about it is either one of those utterly normal things that people just don’t normally talk about (like dreaming you went out in public in your underwear), or I’m a total freak!
I dreampt I was the animated Bruce Wayne from Batman:TAS. I was watching TV in the batcave, a news report covering my (Bruce’s) recent engagement to a famous blonde doctor. During the news coverage, there was an emergency, and the doctor had to save a man’s life in the emergency room. Afterwards, she wiped the sweat off her brow, and two orderlies came up with hoses and calmly asked, “Your deodorant, ma’am?” She nodded and they each put a hose up one of her sleeves and turned a valve. But the deodorant had been replaced with acid, which killed her. As she lay dissolving, I (as Bruce Wayne) ran up to her and screamed “Who did this?!?!” She croaked out: “You should know. You killed him.”
Then the “camera” panned around through the crowd and focused on the face of Eric Draven from the Crow. End of Dream.
Back around '82 to '84 my absolute favorite show was You Can’t Do That On Television. I had a number of dreams that I was one of the kids on the show, usually involving the lockers or the main stage and its metal tube dome-y thing. I don’t think I ever dreamed that I got slimed though.
let me preface this by saying that i sometimes have hyper-realistic dreams. like i sometimes dream stuff that happened to me the day before, pretty much exactly as it happened.
now back in junior high, i was a huge videogame nerd. i used to ride my bike to walmart and play nba jam in the vestibule just about every day after my paper route. the day before this particular dream i went to wal-mart and bought a sega game, walked out, and put a couple quarters in the machine to play nba jam before i went home.
so that night, i have this dream that i do my paper route, i go to walmart, i buy the game… the dream identically matches my real exploits that afternoon. but when i’m leaving, i play a different, slightly better basketball game in the walmart vestibule. and then after i play it i see some stock boys with a handtruck, and i fugure they’re hauling it away.
so the next day, i think the dream is real, i go to walmart, i find the game gone, and call my equally videogame nerdy friends to try and get the name of the arcade game they took away. i think i checked for a week or so to see if the thing maybe went out for repairs or something. it took me a couple more of those wierd dreams to realize that it didn’t actually exist.
Oh yeah, that reminds me. i also dreamt about being one of the Scobie gang on “Buffy.” And the dream seemed to reference “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” as well, because there was this conspiracy in which everyone had Sunnydale High School (bare in mind that I’m already in my 30s when I had this dream!) was being replaced by mystical, evil clones. Willow got replaced. Dawn got replaced. I think it got down to me & Buffy as the last people not replaced by a doppleganger. Don’t remember how it all came out in the end. I think it simply morphed into another dream. The one where Oz & I…but, that one’s private!
We were on an elevator and Trump was criticizing one of the other contestants for poor performance. Then he turned to me, looked me directly in the eye and asked “John, what’s the first rule of business?” When I replied “I don’t know” because I really don’t know, he rolled his eyes at me turned away and shook his head in disappointment.
I dreamed I was in a weird sort of hybrid Star Trek episode (Kirk era) once. I say hybrid because it was in black and white and for some reason I believed everyone was speaking Chinese. Honest to God. It was about an away mission in a forest; Kirk and Spock were there, and I was a local. The whole dream was about walking. Pretty dull, actually.
(However, I’d like to live in the world of Simon Pegg’s Spaced. I actually do already, sort of, but it’s like three houses down where things aren’t quite as interesting.)
When I was a wee lad (maybe five) in the 60s, I woke up screaming from this nightmare. I was walking down the hall & this picture of the Virgin Mary that we really had turns her head to me & starts crying. Then my family gathers around and they all turn into evil Munsters & that’s when I awoke in hysterics.
I was never bothered by the Munsters in waking life but that Mary picture kinda made me uneasy.L
Also, a few years ago, while I’d seen the first two Hellraiser films several times with no problems, reading Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart induced this dream. I’m sitting with some people who have the Lament Configuration. In spite of my warnings, they start playing with it until it starts shifting on its own. Tinkling music & ominous tolling bells & cracking walls with ghostly blue light shining through ensues, and we’re all tensing up in fear of the coming Cenobites, but fortunately they never show up & the dream fades out.
I’ve dreamt I was like a third party observer during scenes of the '60s Batman and the '70s Wonder Woman. Other times I had dreams on same said shows, I wasn’t a major character, only a henchman.
I had a dream I was on a rural New England vacation with the characters from “Seinfeld.” I was playing golf with Kramer, there was a dispute on a tee time with two other golfers and then it downpoured with rain. Elaine asked me to buy her tampons at a grocery store. Jerry & I walked down a rural road in the dark, with our luggage in tow, trying to hitch a ride to the airport.
I had a dream I was a “Survivor” contestant. But we taped all our outdoor scenes for a better part of the day and stayed in a nearby hotel if players weren’t needed. Me and the contestants must’ve been sworn to secrecy. I won the final immunity award. But in a twist of the game, the other players didn’t vote on the winner, they left it to be determined by the audience online and by phone. I lost the vote 90% to 10%.
I have theses type of dreams fairly often. Usually, they start out with me dreaming that I’m watching a TV show, or movie on TV, and then suddenly I’m in the show, either as myself or one of the characters; I’ll even switch pov from one character to another in the course of a dream. I can remember ones involving Hogan’s Heroes, various versions of Star Trek (a whole lot of these over the years), Back to the Future, a number of horror films, and LOTR. Godzilla seems to show up a lot of times too.