Ah, it’s too deep
I’m in too deep
Drowning in the fire
Burning in the lake
Dying from desire, dying for desire
Dying from desire, dying for desire
Dying from desire, dying for desire
     —Matthew Sweet, In Too Deep

I know something’s gone off the rails in my head when I start to dream about unusual stuff.

One of the big ones for me is when I dream about work. I almost never do, so when I do I know work’s gotten under my skin in a bad way. I have those dreams rarely and not for a long time.

When I dream about friends, it’s usually a good thing. It usually means I’m feeling positive; I dream pleasant things about pleasant experiences.

Interestingly, when I dream about family – and this has always been true since I was a kid – like as not it’s angry dreams, arguing, fighting, dreams of frustration or sometimes violence. I had that sort of dream often about my brother when I was a teenager. I’d dream about fighting, sometimes about hurting, and once in a while, about killing.

Sex dreams about people I know in real life are all too rare. I can think of only a handful of them (and if I’ve had one about you I’ve told you, I always do) but to a one, they’re wonderful, and I wish oh-so-much that I could tap into them more. Sex dreams are one of my best sources for erotica, and sex dreams about real life friends give me this pleasant feeling when I see them later, like we have a secret.

But the ones that sort of puzzle me are dreams about people I’ve never met. I’ve had a few of them, dreams where my subconscious constructs a person from a few photos or a cartoon drawing, a lot of words or a voice on the phone. Alas, almost never sex dreams, though sometimes romantic. Dreams where a person I know and a person I don’t know at all are collaged into a whole with a heartbeat, breath, facial expressions. I’ve had a few dreams like that about other bloggers, and longer ago, about people I knew from USENET. I had one such last night.

Such dreams leave me puzzled and pleased, wondering how far off my subconscious mind is from reality; wondering if the person I invent exists, or if said person is, like many women in my dreams, almost entirely the product of my own psyche.

Last night, however, I also had an entirely new kind of dream.

I dreamed about video games.

I’ve been playing Resident Evil 4 obsessively for quite a while now; I played it all the way through, then, after obtaining lots of upgraded weapons, played again. Being sick around xmas, I didn’t do a lot else but play and play, working up to super-exclusive weapons, beating the game over and over. Last night, after drinking tequila, I played a particularly difficult sub-game and was up well past midnight losing over and over and over to the final boss (I finally beat it, at almost one am).

I’m immersed. I’m, shall we say, a little too immersed. This became clear when I realized I was dreaming about playing the game, and then later, after waking only enough to wonder what the fuck is wrong with me and then dropping back off, I dreamed about actually being inside the game, with a Striker shotgun in my hands.

I woke up wanting to kill something. Which isn’t really unusual for me I guess, but in this case, I woke up wanting to collect the items they’d drop.

I’m not sure what it means. Maybe it’s something in me finding a way to escape. Maybe lines between reality and unreality are getting blurry. Maybe I just need to feel a gun in my hand again (it’s been too long). Or maybe my subconscious is converting lust and desire into rage and violence in a safe, controlled way (Bam! Bam! Bam!).

I’ll tell you though, it doesn’t make me want to stop playing.