I dreamt about

I had a dream this weekend, about me and me son. We were out driving, I don't know where we were going, it didn't seem like we quite knew. I think we were someplace near home, it was all open and flat landscapes, just like central Uppland. After a while we came to a place. Somewhere that tries to be some place, it had a parking lot and some houses. The parking lot was sort of big, in several sections but not in that industrial way like outside a big well planned shopping mall but like near some ancient attraction where the parking spaces are just sprawled about all around in little pieces. People were walking everywhere, it must have been a pretty popular place. Some houses where nearby, several of them pretty big though we were in the countryside. Two cars were just ahead of us and they were revving and playing, going much too fast, there were people everywhere. It was summer or late spring.

Strangely, it didn't turn into a nightmare where I hit the gas to get away from the kids driving too fast.

One of the cars, I think it was a small BMW estate, had pulled ahead, then turned around and came back full throttle. I could imagine him showing off to the rest of us and he wasn't looking at what he should have been looking at. People were milling about. Some young men were loitering and not paying attention to the cars, too cool to care. One of them was just standing in the street and that BMW just ran head on into him. It was a nasty accident though not spectacular. Just real. Except I knew I was dreaming, just waiting for it to turn nightmare-nasty.

In my dream I thought huh? Am I not supposed to wake up now? But it wasn't a real nightmare.

I pulled my car over diagonally behind the run-over kid. The BMW sped away and went off. I hit the warning blinkers and fumbled for my phone, stepping out.

Nobody else was moving. Nobody was doing anything. The driver was gone. The kid's friends melted away into the scenery and nobody else was stepping forward. Frantic, I found myself trying to do the right things, calling for an ambulance and doing what I could for the kid.

My son was awkwardly moving around and I tried to tell him how to act.

In that instant I understood that this wasn't a nightmare about something I did or had to do but a nightmare about my son.

And then I woke myself.

Later the next day, I went to get some movies at the library. I found two movies I knew my son wanted - The drunken angel and A streetcar named Desire, the old one with Brando and Leigh. Yep, that's his taste. But best of all, I found Cyrano, and Axel sounded like he'd really like watching it. For some reason, library movies are in much worse shape than rentals. I don't quite understand why, people must be less careful with them maybe because they're free. Maybe these movies just see more traffic.

After dinner we popped Cyrano into the player and started watching. Cyrano is such a delightful movie. Axel just discovered knowing languages is fun and though he doesn't know any French he does know a bit of Spanish and I'm trying to encourage pretending you know languages just so you can pick up a smattering of it.

"Holy crap he's speaking in verse all the time!"

Delightful. Of course, just then the movie just... ceased. Popped out the disc and sure enough upon inspection it's clear this disc isn't playable. It's so scratched it's a miracle we could even watch the first ten minutes.

We are not to be deterred however, it's Saturday and we're set for a movie. Next we try Streetcar. Inspecting that disc would have been cheating so we didn't and the first ten or fifteen are just fine. We sit there adapting to new manners, new language, another way to condense drama.

Of course, that one didn't work either.

Now we're laughing at the hopelessness of it all. I say we'll check the online rental. We're talking about other times when movies haven't worked for us and we're agreeing that this is worse than all of them, even worse than when Queen of the damned failed in the last ten minutes.

We find 8 1/2 in the rental menu, but there's an Almodovar as well, and Axel really likes those, partly because it's Spanish. So we choose that one - All about my mother. I hadn't seen it, don't know what it's about.

Turns out it's about a kid being killed in a car accident. Freaky, with the dream the night before. Then the film changes. This film turns around so many times, you never really settle into the story. The kid's mother is into theater and one play is in focus for most of the movie. At first we don't notice what play it is.

After a few minutes more Axel suddenly exclaims, holy crap, it's Streetcar.

And it is. It's Blanche and Stella and Stanley. I just sit there taking in this weird situation and it's like the whole dream the night before and the whole evening, everything has just been leading up to this story about Spanish prostitutes.

Nothing else of consequence happens this evening but I will never forget the BMW and Streetcar named Desire. I'm not the one to believe in hidden life messages in dreams but sometimes it's hard to stop your mind from wandering.

Now I just have to figure out what that dream meant.

frustrated

I've had problems with my lower back for about 15 years. I've been to doctors and therapists and they've confidently given me training programmes and told me to quit smoking.

Side note: There *is* a possible connection between a bad back and smoking - smoking hinders the blood flow and if the muscles in the back are a little too weak the smoking can be what breaks the camel's back, so to speak. None of the doctors bothered to explain this so I just thought they were bullshitting me with the standard "quit smoking" formula.

I've had x-ray of spinal discs. I've been more or less handicapped at times. Especially in later years it has been worst in the mornings and I've had to become careful with what beds I sleep in, as some could almost paralyze me. In the mornings after getting up I sometimes get a sharp stabbing pain in the lower back that hurts so much my whole body just shuts down. I just fall to the floor like a ragdoll. Way scary to feel it coming while walking in the stairs.

This new year's, I slept on one of those new air matresses while we were visiting my folks. It's about 2 ft thick and they come with an integrated reversible electric pump, I'm sure they're being sold everywhere.

I slept like a baby and had no back pain when I got up. That has not happened in years, literally.

So last weekend I went and bought one just to see if it was really true and not some freak coincidence. I've slept on it every night since then and ... wow. I'm like a new person. I'm 25 again.

Rumour has it it's similar to sleeping on a waterbed. I'll be shopping for a really good bed shortly. Right now I'm so relieved, and at the same time so frustrated at all the professionals I've paid to help me and who never considered this or asked about it. I thought my bed was as good as they get but evidently I was wrong.

At the same time I'm angry that I've been so ignorant and naive, myself.