Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Strange dreams of Alfred Hitchcock

In the dream, I was attending some sort of odd experiential-training program, where a group of people, in a house, were bullying and analyzing and probing each other, in the hope of making elementary school teachers out of each other. I felt myself an outsider, with little hope of success; the other teacher-trainers had been persecuting me, no one seemed to understand what I needed, and I was at my lowest point, convinced that I should just drop out of school and forfeit my deposit. I decided, to get me through the night, to watch a DVD - one of many that I'd brought: The Son by the Dardenne brothers. No one else was around; I had some trouble finding the DVD, and then couldn't get the school computer to work to play it, so I was going to watch it on a somewhat old fashioned TV (placed in regard the rest of the room, it seemed, like the TV we used to have in the place I grew up, as a child). Sitting by the TV, about to place the DVD in the player, I was surprised to see (the ghost of) Sir Alfred Hitchcock enter the room. He told me to buck up, made some comments about movies today - he snapped a home-burned DVDr in two, to show his contempt for downloading - and was in the process of giving me spiritual advice when my sleeping brain realized I was late for an appointment and woke me up. I don't remember anything else in the dream, but Hitchcock's physical presence and voice were very tangible elements. My dreaming brain usually isn't good with getting details like that right, but in this case....

I really do have to go, but how can I not mention the Cinematheque's ongoing Hitchcock series after a dream like that?

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