Oh, that guy!

Rain, wind, and weird warm weather gone. Now partly cloudy and seasonable temps. Me feel better.
Remember the movie Moulin Rouge! a few years back? Some loved it, some hated it. I liked it the first time, disliked it the second time (on vid). No matter. This is about a guy in the movie, where the fake movie curtains open and all this lush orchestral music starts. It's near the opening. There's this guy in the bottom of the screen, a little shadow figure, crazily waving a baton, as if he's conducting the orchestra. But his wild gestures don't always fit the music, almost as if he's going off track deliberately, and we're left wondering, "What is this?"
The movie is about a writer in Paris who isn't doing so well. To get away from his troubles, he drinks some absinthe and passes out. While he's out, he dreams about going to Moulin Rouge ("Red Muslin"* -- I looked it up. That's the color and fabric of the can-can dancers' underskirts). When the writer first falls off to sleep, that's where the dream "curtain" goes up, and the little shadow guy appears at the bottom of the screen (I'm writing from pure memory here, so the exact sequence might be off, but bear with me).
The little shadow guy is the writer's 'dream director.' When I'm dreaming (and I'm guessing you're the same way), it's like things are happening at random, but not entirely at random. We're not in control of the situation, and it's unsettling to see things shift suddenly, or go spinning off the deep end, or whatever. If you review the dream events later, you'll probably find that there's a character in your dream who is in control -- but may not show his or her hand at first, if at all. This is your dream director. My latest had Captain Kirk, and he was directing the action, but as a character in the dream's story -- not off to the side. That can happen. Other times, a voice is talking to me outside of my visual field, as if he or she is at my shoulder, but I can't see them. That's another "incarnation" of the dream director. Sometimes the director is not present at all -- as far as I can tell. But then, who's directing the action? See if you can spot him (or her) in your next dream.
There's also someone else to look for -- but not necessarily in every dream. I'll talk about her (or him) next time.


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*I may have looked it up at the time – but it's still wrong. Moulin Rouge referred to the attention-seeking red windmill on the front of the building.


LJ orig.: 12/02/09 (estimate)