PARAPHRASING FREUD

There are occasions when a dream is just a dream, not meant to make any sense at all.

My weekend was mellow-- Saturday I visited the family in Lancaster for the first time in months. It just so happened to be the night of the Trinidad-Mayorga bout, and my brother had the fight on PPV. We ate, drank, smoked, played Dominoes, and watched the match go nearly nine rounds.

Trinidad won by TKO.

I stayed the night at my brother's house. We stayed up, watching SNL and chatting. My brother and I didn't get into any political arguments-- we just caught up with each other and had some casual but serious things to say back and forth. It was stellar.

I went to sleep and dreamed that some friends from middle school, Derek and Jeremy, were telling me the "truth" about John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Some background: Derek and Jeremy were more like acquaintances than actual friends. We attended the same grade and middle schools but we never hung out together. They were good friends with each other and I was cool with both of them, but we didn't get together outside of school. I haven't thought of either of them in over a decade.

I used to be a serious JFK assassination buff up until a few years ago, but the information never leaves you. Amassing that much knowledge on something that seems so marginal and yet also vital to the nation's history leaves brain stockpiles that need to be neutralized.

But nothing triggered any thoughts of conspiracy in my mind that day. Sure, I hold the belief that every boxing match Don King is in on is fixed, but that's not the same as believing that the military-industrial complex played a part in the murder of the President of the United States in 1963.

And yet, there I was, in a deep REM state, discovering that a Lee Harvey Oswald "double" traveled from the future and landed in Dallas around November of 1963 to kill the President, in an attempt to change the charted course of history.

According to Derek and Jeremy, the assassination was a "necessary evil" that saved the fate of the world. The Oswald double came from a bleak future, where Kennedy's actions in his second term (yes, had he lived, he would've been re-elected, or so I dreamed) created an irreparable "Domino Effect" that would lead the U.S. and the rest of the free world to annihilation.

Hard to believe, but in the dream I was totally receptive, and asked a lot of questions:

"Does this explain the Magic Bullet theory?"

"Not necessarily, but it does support the Man with the Black Umbrella theory, as well as the Three Mystery Tramps enigma."

"You mean... there were three time travelers who went into the past to correct the future?"

"It was a team effort."

"Ahhh... and who ordered this hit, from the future?"

"Aristotle Onasis."

"Okay... and what year were the future hitmen hailing from?"

"1979."

"Oh shit!" I said, in my dream, expecting to hear a number from the 21st century or beyond. "Time travel technology before the '80s, in an alternate future? Heavy."

"Unfortunately, with Kennedy's demise went the planted seeds for the eventual discovery and implementation of pan-dimensional time travel, among other things."

"So, in the alternate 1979, there's time travel... but the world is fucked up beyond repair?"

"Basically." They spoke in unison the whole time.

"Strange," I surmised. "Who'da thunkit?"

"Who indeed?"

"So, did 9/11 ever happen?"

"Yes... but according to your current timeline, it happened in 2001. And according to the other timeline, it happened in 1974."

I shook my head. When I woke up, I was in a strange bed, in a strange room. The blinds were open. The light of morning sunned my half-slumbering face. I realized that I was at my brother's house, in the newly-furnished guest room.

I told my brother about my dream, and he said he had a trippy dream also-- he was fighting oversized insects in his. This ties in with his recent battles with ants making their way into the house. My sister-in-law had a dream that she was kicking my brother's ass. This ties in with her bottomless patience for my brother's mischief and antics.

Their dreams were related to their lives. Mine wasn't, unless you connect the fact that I was playing Dominoes that day with a dream about a political Domino Effect taking place.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, to paraphrase Freud.


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BTW: Heard the rumor about President Bush using an earpiece during the first debate? Go to The Soapbox for more details.