Things I Wrote Before I Was Fully Awake
Rediscovering the dream journals I forgot I kept—and the strange world they preserved.
I’ve been writing things down for almost as long as I can remember.
As a kid I’d fill notebooks. In high school I became a reporter and photographer for the school paper. Through my twenties I kept journals, notebooks, scraps of paper—anything that seemed worth preserving.
Then, sometime in the late 1980s, I started keeping a notebook beside my bed.
Whenever I woke from a memorable dream, I’d reach over, turn on the light, and write it down before it disappeared.
The habit lasted for years (I can’t remember the last time I actually wrote down a dream).
In the late ‘90s I replaced the notebook with a digital recorder. Instead of fumbling for a pen at three in the morning, I’d simply describe the dream while I could still remember it. Somewhere on a hard drive are a few hundred recordings of dreams that would have otherwise vanished before breakfast.
Recently I stumbled across a small collection that I’d completely forgotten about.
It wasn’t even a dedicated dream journal. It was an old sketchbook from the late 1980s. At some point I’d turned it upside down and started writing dreams from the back cover forward. Maybe twenty or thirty pages.
Reading them was fascinating—not because I suddenly remembered the dreams. I didn’t.
I barely remembered writing them.
Instead, they became little postcards from my subconscious.
A note before we begin: These dreams mention real friends, family members, coworkers, and the occasional celebrity. I've replaced most names with initials—not because the identities matter, but because they don't. The dreams are the story.
Like the time George Harrison stopped by a radio station my buddy worked at:
Oct 29, 1987 - 7:33 am
George Harrison was visiting AD at the funky radio house, so I stopped in (after stopping at Z100). George was in good spirits; he signed a couple of albums for me (just happened to have my record collection with me) — and George answered questions about old rockers like Hendrix & Morrison.
Another night I traveled back in time to meet my two-year-old self, wondering if my father recognized me.
October 31, 1987 - 3:35 am
I was watching a movie filmed in 1958 around Halloween that had two people going back in time, going down the west coast to Hollywood to make a movie, and watched the show stop in Oakville, and the film went thru the church and house I grew up in.
I walked through the house and out the door — as we came out the back, I saw one of the neighbors and realized the other kid playing with her was my older brother.
Also that the kid asleep in bed in the back room I’d just come through had to have been me!
I stuck around because I wanted to see me as a kid.
We went up the stairs to go in when out came Dad and Mom to greet us. I explained to Dad that I was a distant cousin of his adopted brother. He seemed to accept it without raising an eyebrow.
Then this little blonde kid came running in—it was me!
I had an idea—
“Dad, take a picture of us together!”
He grabbed it and took a shot.
I told him that was on my way to Hollywood — that I’d been hired to work on a movie.
Just as Dad was taking the second photograph, he hesitated and met my eyes. The look in his eyes seemed to say that he knew me, who I was.
Just moments before he & Mom had been marveling at how much Tim & I looked alike.
If Dad guessed who I was, he didn’t let on.
Mom started talking about Tim. After I asked how old he was, she said two years and a couple months.
She said he was lucky he was alive, apparently somewhat premature, because there were problems.
The thought that went through my head at the time startled me.
If Tim’s only a couple of years old, then my time machine that brought us here is malfunctioning — it’s supposed to be Halloween!
These took place when I lived with a roommate, Gregory, in a 100-year-old house on a 100-acre farm near Hillsboro.
One night I had a dream about a rock concert on the grounds. The mention of jelloheads that made me laugh.
10.5.87
There was a live concert across the field from the landlord’s that was to feature Buffalo Springfield. Of course it brought all sorts of whackos and jelloheads around, and our backyard became backstage at the show.
Then it started raining. They had a big table piled high with money. Black tarps covered everything.
My bedroom became a dressing room for the girls in the show somehow.
At one point, I grabbed some money off the table. I think I got $31. But one $5 bill was phony.
Then a girl was trying on a wedding dress in the kitchen. She was a bit snotty.
I came upstairs.
Hell with her.
And then the one where Billy Gibbons had shaved most of his beard (by this time in my life, I’d me Billy five or six times).
12.20.87: 8:48 am
Ran into Billy Gibbons at Buck’s, although Buck wasn’t there, and not too many other people were.
Had a long talk about lots of things.
He shaved most of his beard, which I noticed as I was leaving.
Said new LP was coming out (Arizona test pressing—that night).
Funny that I didn’t know ZZ Top was playing in town that night.
He had several cartoons on the wall that he’d drawn—pretty good artist.
As I was driving away, I noticed I was driving a black & silver VW Golf.
Then the time Quincy Jones supposedly produced “Workin’ For a Livin’” by Huey Lewis and the News. Even in the dream I didn’t believe him:
12.8.87 — 10:13 AM
Jam session at a movie house.
My drummer was there, and my car was a part of the set.
All sorts of guitars were everywhere.
Some girl was with me (Shannon?), and before the movie I told this elderly lady she wouldn’t smoke inside.
Also before the movie, Mom was with me.
I had some Rickenbacker hybrid guitar.
Guy thought it had monster sound.
Right after the movie Quincy Jones told me that he helped produce Huey Lewis’ “Workin’ for a Livin’.
But I don’t think he was telling the truth.
Somewhere else there was an air hole in the backyard, quietly growing something beneath the earth.
January 2, 1988 - 2:34 am
G & I are living in a funky beat-up old house.
In the backyard is an air-hole in the ground.
One day I’m out looking at it, and set a cup or globe or something over the top of it, suspended.
The hole is about two feet across.
(I smell something funny—from the earth?)
Then a skin-like substance—like glass—starts to form over the hole.
The globe glows red.
I look closer, then decide to duck into the house to watch.
Soon the hole is pushing the globe up & out.
The glass-like substance is blowing.
One little globule shoots off slowly, and I think,
cheap special effect
…and a piece of glass hits the back window.
I figure it’s time to alert a team of scientists or something.
I don’t know why I started writing my dreams down. Probably just something fun and interesting to do at the time.
Maybe I thought they’d reveal something profound.
Maybe I just didn’t want to lose a good story.
Whatever the reason, I’m glad I did.
Not because I can analyze them now.
Because forty years later they’ve become something I never expected: a record of the landscape inside my own head.
We spend a lot of time photographing the outside of our lives. Dream journals do something stranger. They preserve what was happening when no one—including us—was paying attention.
Dreams are cool...(when they're not scary).. and the fact that you wrote them down is cooler. Where the heck is the 100 year old house in 100 acre field, pooh bear? Lol! Love that.