Dream, No Fever

 Did a little drawing on the block today, working from home.  Mostly filling in values, based on source material already acquired.  But what I am writing about today is a dream I had, for which there is no art, yet.  It's a dream I've had variations on many times before, so maybe someday it will be art, and worth putting down here.

This was actually during a late afternoon nap, a short time in bed, but long enough for this, and probably a lot more, but this is what I remember.  It was a big building, people in it, large rooms, small rooms, etc.  But at some point I realized that it was just about time for me to be hosting a radio show, as a DJ.  Got myself quickly to the air studio.  I had theme music all set, and in the dream it was stored on my watch.  I rapidly set up the mixing board for what I would need, pressed a button to open a small drawer, much like the place where one would insert a compact disc.  I put my watch in the center of it, tucking the watchband into holes in the drawer, and pressed a button to close the drawer, then started it, as it was top of the hour and time to start.  Pieces of magnetic recording tape (like a cassette) popped out of cracks, but somehow the intended theme music also started.  I let it run, set up a song to be played next.  I left the small DJ booth, and found myself in a very large bar. The first room had a large bar with stools,  which seemed kind of empty, though a lot of small European flags were festively draped everywhere.  In another room, mostly booths, more flags, but some people at least.  All were dressed in black leather, with a punk vibe, or maybe a little bit biker.  (my radio show is playing over the bar sound system, and these two groups have some known appreciation of blues music, so this could work out) Go to another room, more people at a booth, but dressed in more conventional bar clothes. I recognize one as a friend (in the dream), the one who gave me a ride to this place.  I should get back to my radio show. 

And that's all there was.  I woke up,  realized that it was past the time I had planned to get up, and decided I should go ahead and get up and get ready for dinner.

So, is there any art here?  I don't know.  The part that is common, is the sudden need to be ready to do a radio show.  There is a common nightmare called "test anxiety" where the dreamer suddenly finds themselves in a classroom (high school or college), about to take an exam in a class they never attended or something they forgot to study for.  As a student who had mostly studio art classes, the exam dream had little meaning for me.  I did have to occasionally proctor an exam, and once saw one of my students, who had missed so many studio sessions, he had already failed the class, and I told him nicely that there was no point in sitting for the exam.  But he decided to anyway.  May have been a bit high.  On another occasion, a student asked me to read the projected section numbers, as he didn't bring his glasses and couldn't see anything.  I realized he was one of my studio students, unrecognized as I hadn't seen him in about 13 weeks, and gave him the same advice, especially since without glasses he would do very poorly on the largely slide ID test he was about to take.  Like the first student, he decided to go for it.  May have been in the same condition.  Since I had no inborn fear of exams, my variation on this nightmare either involved being back in the grill area of McDonald's (where the never ending beeps of timers going off echoed though my head as I tried to sleep at night) or doing my radio show and needing to cue up another record before the current one ended, and in dreams the current record was always so short. 

The sound board set up was more like a component stereo system than any sound board I have worked with.  (and it was the same hardware at all three colleges, but different components hooked to the sliders in each case)  And very dark, just the lit up displays to see by.  I could probably draw my watch (inexpensive Timex with two hands that never held a song in any kind of memory) in the compact disc drawer, but I'm not sure what the point would be of that artwork.  I could probably also draw the bar scenes well, lots of wood, bottles, flags, though finding models for all the customers would be a challenge.  Again, though, I don't have an artistic use for the idea right now.  So for now, I write it down. Some of the items depicted in my current Fever Dream work go back to my youth, so you never know when ideas will come in handy.