Only In Dreams

I have weird dreams. I know, I know, "everyone has weird dreams" is always the response I get but seriously, I have really bizarre dreams, more bizarre than most everyone else I know. I don't have vivid, strange dreams all the time but when I do they are always memorable and detailed, even if those details make little or no sense when I awake--I'm always amazed at what my subconscious brain allows itself to interpret as real and plausible.

Last night I dreamed that I was repeatedly traveling through time. But I wasn't helping to solve anyone's problems like Quantum Leap or Journeyman or even trying to solve my own problems. I was mostly traveling back to 2004 and 2005, visiting a lot of my current friends that I was not friends with then-- essentially doing a background check, I suppose. I attended a show at First Avenue and ran into several of my friends that I go to and document shows with now. They, of course, did not know me (and most of them didn't know each other) but, strangely (or predictably, since it was my dream), I had conversations with all of them. They weren't about anything substantive it was simply "Hi, good show." etc. and then I had to act like I did not know who they were, but seemed to not be doing a very good job of pretending--I would probably be a terrible candidate for actual time travel, I would approach people that didn't know me yet and somehow tear a hole in space-time continuum, ruining everyone's lives. I don't remember who was playing but I do remember hearing "A Punk" from Vampire Weekend being played in between sets and thinking "Wow, someone is way ahead of the curve here." Yeah, even my dreams are sort of pretentious sometimes.

After a little while at the show, I left and somehow ended up at a party at the building where I used to live in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood. It was 2005 and the party was attended by people from my high school days, college and now. They all knew each other in that weird dream way where all of your friends from the span of your life just know each other and seem to hang out all the time while you aren't around. I am always surprised when all of these people know each other, but just accept it and continue on with whatever weird-ass situation I am in. At this party everyone seemed to have been waiting for me to show up (the future me, mind you not the 2005--or, in the dream, "current" me), but when I showed up they all just kind of ignored me or didn't see me. I was also dating some girl who was not my now-wife who in 2005 was my then-girlfriend. I was talking with a current friend of mine who was also a friend then--he was the only one talking to me--and I explained I was really from the future and it was ok that I was dating someone here because I was actually "future me" and not "current me", I also rattled off some time travel mumbo jumbo that sounded an awful lot like a mix the time travel premises from The Terminator and Back To The Future but he didn't seem to notice. At one point the party guests all gathered on some rickety wooden bleachers that were set up in the alley to take a group picture, but everyone was actively avoiding eye contact with me and I was avoiding being in the picture because of the space-time continuum, again. I decided I needed to get back to 2008 but had no idea how I had been time traveling in the first place, so I seemed to be stuck there. I had been jumping through time suddenly, randomly, by just opening doors and "ending up" in a different place but now I couldn't get it to work, and finally, anti-climatically like all dreams I simply woke up and wondered, "What the hell did that all mean?"