Have Barack Obama and John McCain turned up in your dreams? I've had one dream about each candidate now. A while back, Obama turned up in a dream. He was just a nice person who said hello. Last night, McCain finally turned up. He was wearing a thin, sweat-soaked shirt, and he angrily challenged me with a question about the war -- did I think it was almost over? -- and when I answered -- yes -- he stomped off and loudly declared that I had proved his point that everyone was getting that question wrong.
ADDED: Perhaps at some level, I perceive McCain as a father figure and Obama as a son figure. My age is about midway between the 2 candidates, so I need to be aware of the risk that I'll be affected by irrelevant psychological forces. A father figure you may respect or fear, follow or resist. A son you instinctively support and hope to see succeed.
October 31, 2008
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I've had two dreams about the election. Both were nightmares about Obama winning. Neither involved meeting the candidate in person--I wish I could have those dreams. It'd be far better than the ones I've had.
"He was just a nice person who said hello. "
And you fell for that?
Mine involved me in between a Cindy McCain-Palin sandwich. Then Obama walked in and said something about Hope and Change and was immediatly hit in the head with a pipe wrench by Joe the Plumber.
That's a dream I can believe in.
My own dreams all involve quirky female law professor bloggers wearing thin, sweat-soaked shirts.
I know -- sick.
cruel and quirky.
You should lay off those late night egg salad sandwiches.
"And you fell for that?"
I created it.
"When we are young
We read and believe
The most fantastic things.
When we are older
We learn with regret
That these things cannot be"
Words on a Victorian sampler in the movie "Blithe Spirit."
The war in Afghanistan is lost, apparently without massive escalation, commencing no later than January. NY Times story buried today. Very gloomy. Bush is already getting 8,000 more. Commanders want another 15,000
My fear is that Obama, out of a need to prove his manhood and even loyalty, will be far more prone to want even more substantial escalation than McCain.
Draft, anyone? I hear that the blitheMcGeorge Bundy is available for National Security Adviser.
I think some part of you realizes that it is not too late to loose this war.
Well, what a surprise! I dreamt about finding a bottle with a note attached that said to rub the bottle and a genie would appear. And rub it I did. Then out popped Obama who said: "You have three wishes." I responded "yeah, like anything good is going to happen." I awoke and made a fresh pot of coffee, and then checked the internets.
"I created it."
And you - a law professor!
I don't usually remember dreams. Isn't that sad?
But if I had a dream with a politician in it, I think my eyes would pop open and I'd sit up in bed screaming in terror.
LOL, MM.
I am still under the effect of Peggy Noonan’s post-hypnotic suggestion and I still believe I am a chicken.
I had a dream last night that involved Ann Hathaway rubbing me with butter and spices and promising me that she would make me hot all over.
It was one of those weird, inexplicable dreams because I wasn’t really a chicken.
Instead, I was a middle-aged, completely ordinary guy overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed.
Cluck, cluck, cluck . . . SQUWAAAAK!!!
You know, I *do* drink wine out of a box and I've never had dreams like those.
I dreamt that both candidates were 45 minutes late to a final exam, for which neither had studied, while dressed only in underpants.
My own personal rule is to never ever tell someone I know that I had a dream about them last night.
Unless it's your spouse, just don't.
"I created it."
After McCain stomped off, you looked down and saw your reflection in the pool of sweat that he had left on the ground and realized that you were Barack Obama!
And nearby, the sound of a million sitars swelled upon the breeze and Andrew Sullivan rose out of the pool of sweat and began to sing:
We were talking
about the space between us all
and people who hide themselves
behind a wall of illusion
never glimpse the truth
then it's far too late
when they pass away
We were talking
about the love we all could share
When we find it
to try our best to hold it there
with our love, with our love
we could save the world
if they only knew
Try to realize it's all within yourself
no one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small
and Barack flows on within you and without you
We were talking
about the love that's gone so cold
and the people who vote McCain
and lose their soul
They don't know, they can't see
Are you one of them?
When you've seen beyond yourself
then you may find
peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come
when you see we're all "That One!"
and life flows on within you and without you....
Bissage, you might seriously think about hiding the receiver. Things are getting out of control.
And, dpb, the war has been loose for way too long. I myself prefer a tightening.
I haven't dreamt about McCain or Obama.
Bill Clinton, however, made an appearance a few nights ago. He came up to me while I was eating at a ski lounge restaurant and shook my hand. He smiled. I said to my friend, "he looks so much younger now that he's really throwing himself back into campaigning."
I want to make it quite clear that none of Obama, McCain or Biden have ever showed up in any of my dreams for any purposes.
The extra "o" is in honor of Halloween:
Its noooot tooo late to loooose this war. Booo!
Professor/Dream Creator: How come McCain didn't say My Friend in your dream.
That omission is highly significant!
I've had two Obama dreams. In one, he was discussing racist films of the 1970s, and showed this one film where neo-nazis and confederate gentlemen drove race cars loaded with spikes and ran down African-American midgets.
The other dream was where I was late for work and it was pouring rain and my car wouldn't start. But then Obama rode by on a horse, and said "Get on my horse!" but I chose not too. He rode on away, including up an overpass that was crumbling down as he made it up it. I walked to work and got soaked.
I'm outta here. You've imbibed way too much of the Kool-Aid. I can get this, in a more entertaining format, at the Daily Kos.
When I was young (maybe 10 or 11) I dreamt that I threw a rock and hit the front of my school bus, precipitating an awful accident. One classmate on that bus - well, the ambulance hauled his bloody broken body out of my dream. It was so real. I woke up sweating and shaking, with the realization that when I went to school and if that kid was not in class that morning, then the dream was real and I was a killer. The shaking didn't stop.
I can't remember if he was there that morning, or was absent. However, the realization that my dreams not only had meaning, but through them I had the power of life and death over others stayed with me for years.
Crap, now I need to interpret this and tie this in to your dream ... or perhaps allen garvin's dream.
Ah - it's all the bodies under the Obamabus.
Ann, I read this dream to mean that you are being haunted by a betrayed father-figure. I read this as a perception of accusation, and it fits in with perception of about the last week's worth of posts from you , that you are begging for forgiveness, for understanding of what it is you're doing. That you have been making excuses.
Because at some level, you understand that what you are doing, and what you are planning to do, is a betrayal. You are following the interests of your class, putting your social and professional interests above that of the greater good and of love of country. You *want* to vote for someone like you, someone of your class. You want to show that you are a member in good standing in Madison society, a good liberal. You're tired of conflict, and serious matters. You want to go back to frivolity, and silly little dreams, reality shows, ephemera. You're ready to let go.
But there are such things as principles, and such things as ideals, and you know that your wants - peace, racial unity, social and professional acceptance - conflict directly with your duties as a citizen and a member of humanity. Because you know that Obama is a demagogue, and an idoloter of the state, and is fundamentally hostile to civil society and free enterprise, and will cripple the American economy and the American military with his inexperience, his executive incapacity, and his demonstrated disregard for constitutional norms.
You want forgiveness. Only sins can be forgiven. And what you are doing is a sin.
We're not your confessor, we cannot absolve you of your guilt.
Only you can make things right. Let go of your class prejudices, and willful self-delusions, and intellectual pride.
Don't do what's easy.
Do what's right. Even if it doesn't matter. Even if it's futile. Even if no-one knows what you have done. Do what's right because it's right, and not for any other reason, not even success, not even victory, not even peace of mind.
Because we cannot perform miracles. We can only do every last thing that is in our power consistent with our honor. It is only when we have done every last thing within our power and consistent with our honor that we can dare to ask for miracles.
well said, Mitch
Women eventually want to tell you about their dreams.
Ones you know well will tell you what you did in the dream as well, and they'll be mad about it for several days.
I myself take dream-telling as evidence that men and women have nothing in common.
The Chinese restaurant is the seven lean years.
I think dream analysis is a fool's endeavor. If you have a weird or disturbing dream, it means your brain was going crazy re-wiring itself; it doesn't mean there is something weird and disturbing about you. I know too many people who let bad dreams affect them the subsequent day. It's just a dream! There is no meaning to it.
I don't know why all these people tell me their dreams, either. Really, is anything less interesting than the content of someone else's nocturnal brain wanderings?
Shoes are a vagina symbol, according to Freud.
Last night I dreamed I was courting the daughter of a very powerful Saudi leader. His country, his rules. The etiquette was excruciating. I mean, even your feet had to be arranged just so.
I was playing it super cool just to get out of there alive. But that Saudi babe really had me going. Just knowing she was in the next palace over was giving me a royal stiffy.
I woke up before any of her brothers put a bullet in me. Now I'm hoping to meet a harem girl or maybe a lady Hashshashin at tonight's Halloween party. Damn.
"...is anything less interesting than the content of someone else's nocturnal brain wanderings?"
Organic chemistry.
Most cats.
Bill Maher's stand-up routine.
Any book by Noam Chomsky.
Tofu.
Toe rings.
Toe cheese.
The Hills on MTV.
A George Will column.
Edward Said.
Most of Phillip Glass's oeuvre.
A Michael Moore film.
Photographs of barns in the snow or children eating ice cream.
Unicorn paintings.
A city council meeting.
Flan.
30% more fiber.
Bills in the mail.
Stuffed animals.
High school geometry class.
Katie Couric's colonoscopy.
Doonesbury.
Sally Forth.
Ziggy.
Marmaduke.
Mandatory diversity training.
Mandatory safety training.
Anger management classes for refusing to stop sleeping during mandatory training.
Since I've grown up I've found their are only two kinds of dreams:
1 Dreams that women have
2 wet
Ditto MM on politicians in dreams and dream analysis.
I took some kids to a church camp weekend a couple years ago. It turned out that the theme for the weekend was Jungian dream interpretation! Awful. And no, I have no idea what that theme had to do with church. I think it had more to do with too many pseudo-intellectual adults gathered in the same place.
As a psychologist (although not of the Freudian ilk), I have to say that McCain's "wet shirt" is very suggestive of a sexual fantasy.
I expected Ann to have such fantasies about Obama. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that she is struggling (on many levels) with her support for the Messiah.
Pogo - also, kaballah and all kaballah-related products; the latin grammies; the real grammies; the Yankees' payroll; all the blue states, all the red states, everything, everything, everything - and Hugh Jackman!
Yes. I talked about that already. It was as close to a nightmare as I ever get. Obama publicly groped me, dragged me by the bell end like a pull toy and with the clear intention of buggering me. I was compromised, helpless, gravely embarrassed and filled with an oppressive fear. Then, thankfully, abruptly woke up, my single defense against what I still feel strongly is his intention in real life.
McCain, on the other hand, reminds me of my own father. In the dream world, they're blended.
I put great stock in these lucid dreams. I take them as my own subconscious trying to communicate with my conscious self. I take them as my soul speaking directly to my mind. I take them as my mind examining the situation in various ways. This dream life is one reason why I tend to watch these people as little as possible. The other reason, the main one, is annoyance.
Ann feels guilt toward McCain, because she was originally for the effort in Iraq, and now feels she's betraying her own position. Part of her mind (the healthy part) is calling her to account.
pogo: touché. :)
Hey, the Kaballah is fascinating from a historical perspective.
This recent trend seems to me to be some sort of New Agey watered-down version of it, however.
Wake me when Madonna produces a golem.
I don't have many dreams (and please, don't take this as an opportunity to lecture me on how I have dreams but don't remember them) and I've never dreamed about a political personality or, come to think of it, any celebrity I didn't personally know.
In the last week, however, I've had a couple of dreams about socialized medicine. I'd say they're nightmares, but they're too dull gray to be scary. More oppressive, like that East German movie Das leben der anderen, though actually, not quite that bad.
It's probably a racial memory. (See what I did there? I tied that in to Freeman's Jungian church camp!)
Kirby Olson said..."Ann feels guilt toward McCain, because she was originally for the effort in Iraq, and now feels she's betraying her own position. Part of her mind (the healthy part) is calling her to account."
I wasn't blogging when the war started, and I have never stated a position about whether I was for the war originally. I certainly never promoted it. Nor did I protest it. After it started, I was always for winning. At this point, however, I believe both Obama and McCain will conclude the war in a responsible way. That wasn't how it looked a year ago, and if it were still a situation where Obama was for declaring defeat and pulling out, I would have to vote for McCain. So I have no feeling of betrayal. My conscience is clear.
On the father-figure issue, I do think McCain was a father-figure type in that dream, and in fact, my father was also in the dream. I do not see Obama, who is quite a bit younger than I am, as a father figure. Maybe he's almost a son-figure.
Ann Althouse said...
"After it started, I was always for winning."
Which seems such an obvious, commonsense position, yet to take it makes one a pariah in some quarters. Never did understand that.
They dodge they used, Simon, was to claim that it couldn't be won.
Now, just as obviously, you wouldn't be for a war you couldn't win, right?
They never admitted that they were undermining the chances of victory, and many still maintain that we "lost" militarily in Vietnam, as opposed to simply being PRed into a loss.
That wasn't how it looked a year ago, and if it were still a situation where Obama was for declaring defeat and pulling out, I would have to vote for McCain.
I never would have thought you were the gullible type. You honestly, truly believe that he isn't going to pull the rug out from under our military? And you believe in a "chicken in every pot", too, don't you?
Cannot wait until this is over..... the past few weeks has been so disappointing here at one of my favorite blogs. The absence of cruel neutrality has been beyond cruel.
I had a dream, several months back (in April I believe), which was very bizarre. John McCain was Batman, and the Joker was running for political office and Batman had to stop him. I wish I could find what I wrote about the dream because there were more details, it was really pretty vivid.
No, they haven't.
Althouse writes:
so I need to be aware of the risk that I'll be affected by irrelevant psychological forces.
Based on being 98.97 percent committed to Obama, I'd say it's too late.
Jungian analysis explains soap opera, mostly.
I often have dreams where i get around via brachiation, or swinging from objects hand over hand like a gibbon .
The other night, I was doing this among HVAC vents on the ceiling of a gymnasium. Sen. McCain was perched on a lower vent, and was urging me to come down to him. I urged him to come up to me. Neither of us budged (I don't think he was able to because of the arm thing), and eventually I went on my way.
I did like McCain prior to this election, but think he has run it as a low-brow affair.
spice
Ann: "Perhaps at some level, I perceive McCain as a father figure and Obama as a son figure."
Holy polymorphous perversity Ann...you've managed to combine the most tabooed and depraved elements of both the Oedipal and Electra complexes. Congrats!
Ann, down deep part of your mind is really saying that Obama is going to wave the white flag of surrender.
You have to know that, and that's why your conscience just won't let you vote for him.
Interesting. Obama is older than I am, but within dateable age, I suppose, and so I find it impossible to take him seriously. :-)
I had a dream with him and Michele at least a year ago- maybe a year and a half. They were already heavily astral campaigning as a team. I liked them alright, but I blew off the function and left the building for critical family business.
And that reflects reality. Obama's policies are not good for my family's particular situation - in critical ways they are very negative - and my family comes first over any pie-in-the-sky ideology or personal preference.
Note: There are two different PJs
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