A Dream on May 24, 2009

Text © Robert Barry Francos

When the part of the dream starts that I remember I am sitting at a table in a darkened restaurant in a huge room. At the front of the room is an unlit stage. Sitting at the table are a few members of the Media Ecology Association, and Terence M– (one of my professors at New York University when I went for my Masters), and some friends/ex-coworkers, including Cindy.

The waitress comes over for drink orders. I try to tell her I want one drink for myself, one for Cindy, and a shot for Terry, and that I’ll treat. She is an expressionless Russian-looking woman who is in the later ‘50s or early ‘60s. I get into an argument with her about the order, and eventually tell her I’m going to get the drinks directly from the bar, so she doesn’t get the order or the tip.

The L-shaped bar in the back has a line of about 6-7 people ahead of me. It takes a while, but I finally get the three drinks on a tray, and come back to the table. Cindy has already left by that point, and Terry is leaving, not wanting his drink. I down all three, but am surprised I don’t “feel” them.

In dream logic, I realize I am wearing only boxers and a t-shirt (which is what I am wearing while having this dream). While not embarrassed, I am annoyed when I see that my clothes are not at the table, and I wonder if the waitress has taken them.

I walk over to the cloak room at the left side of the stage, and see if they are in there, but all they have is my black, puffy down jacket. After putting it on over the t-shirt, I notice that my friend Dermot is sitting on a bench at the rear of the cloakroom, reading a magazine. I say hello to him, and tell him about everything that has happened, while he is quite bemused by it all.

When I emerge from the cloakroom, there is a comedian on the still unlit stage, who keeps talking through the rest of the time I am in the room, but nobody – including myself – pays any attention to him. It is just a droning background noise.

I head back to the table, which is now an L-shaped booth. There are many MEA faces I recognize (not real-life people), and their families, including children. I think I see Thom G–, but it ends up being someone else I know, and I ask him if he had found my clothes, and he replies negatively.

Figuring it is time to see if there is a Lost and Found, I walk to an ascending staircase just before the bar, and walk up into the lobby of a hotel to which the restaurant is part.

Disgusted, I walk to the front desk, which is located near the top of the stairs. There are two male hotel employees behind the marble desk. An older one is familiar to me within the dream; either I dreamed him in an earlier part that I don’t remember, or it is just dream logic. He avoids me because of our previous encounter, and I start asking about the Lost and Found, and telling him the story of what happened.

That’s when I woke up.