A mysterious dream

The dream woke me up around 5:00 AM the other morning. The setting reminded me of an English pub. Not a lot of ambient light, but it was cozy with lots of old leather chairs and barstools with the walls covered in dark wood paneling. A friendly (and portly) barkeep with graying beard drew a pint for me. He seemed like he’d been born behind the bar. The place was nearly empty.

Suddenly, a young woman showed up in a rush and joined me at the bar. A quick hug and the usual how’s the family. Was I busy and traveling much? She then took the bar stool next to me and ordered a pint from the barkeep, who quickly poured it. A quick toast to the old days followed.

At this point in the dream, I’m trying to remember who the woman is. She must be an industry colleague. But how do I know her? Did we work together on a project at some point? But I didn’t have much time to ponder things because she immediately launched into a line of questioning.

“What’s with you?

You’ve been trying for a long time, right?

Why hasn’t it happened yet?

Don’t you feel strange walking around like that?”

None of the questions made sense. They rarely do in dreams. But it was precisely at this point that I realized the woman, whoever she was, had a case of wine on top of her head. An actual cardboard box with dividers that held 12 bottles. It was open at the top so you could see the bottles sticking out. But there’s more. It was like the case was literally growing out of the top of her head, right up out of her hair which was dirty blonde and short. Then she took out a cigarette and lit up.

“You of all people.

What will everyone say?

I know they talk behind your back.

It should have happened long before now.

I’m really concerned.”

OK, so this was all cryptic. And it was obvious I should know what she was talking about. At this point, I noticed other people beginning to enter the pub. Only then did I snap to what she was saying. Everyone who came in had things sticking out of their heads. One guy in dirty grease-smeared overalls had a large wrench coming out of the side of his head right above an ear. Mechanic? An older woman had a hard cover book sticking straight up out of the top of her skull. A writer? Then there was the salumist. He had to be. The term means someone who makes artisan sausages. Said gentleman had several large schnitzengruben sticking out of the top of his head at various angles like a meaty jester’s hat.

It made me think of the Italian 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who was known for creating portraits like the one above, with human heads made from fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and even books. Suddenly, I was snapped back to the conversation by the woman with the wine case head. She’d lit another cigarette and was pointing it at me like a weapon. I wondered how she could be smoking, even in a pub in the U.K., with the laws. I didn’t have time to think about that either.

“Hey, pay attention to me. I’m talking to you.

When’s it going to happen?

You’ve had more than enough time.”

Then it dawned on me. She wasn’t the problem. Neither were the other people with random things sticking out of their heads. I was the problem. I was the only one in the joint who didn’t have something growing out of the top of my head. So this meeting was about me, and what was wrong with me. Wine case head woman kept staring at me waiting for some kind of response. The silence was unnerving.

At this point, I woke up wondering what the hell the dream was about. People with things growing out of their heads, and everyone was fine with it. And my not having something sticking out of my head was definitely not OK—like some kind of abnormality.

In the past, I’ve used a strategy for unsettling dreams/nightmares. After waking up, I’d review the dream and then redo the bad parts so I wouldn’t fall off a cliff, get squashed by the grand piano that just fell out of a fifth floor window, or get shot by the two-dozen banditos who had just ambushed me. The idea being to change the script to get the ending I wanted and then everything would be ducky. But as I lay in bed, I still couldn’t figure out who the woman in the dream was. Was she someone I knew in real life? The only thing I could come up with was that she looked a lot like Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol’s running partner from the 60s, when he started making short films. Edie was rich and beautiful—but lived a short, hard, and tragic life, addicted to everything in sight.

Then I thought about going back to the dream with some wine growing out of the top of my skull. Maybe it should just be a six-pack instead of a full case. Or a case of half-bottles so as not to be conspicuous. Definitely not a bag-in-a-box. Too trashy and Walmart. But none of it seemed right. I mean how do you walk around with a case of wine on top of your head? After all, a case weighs almost 40 pounds. Think of the neck and back problems you’d develop in short order.

In the end, I opted for another strategy altogether. I closed my eyes and zoomed back to the barstool with my almost empty pint still on the bar. Edie wine case head woman was still staring at me through a haze of cigarette smoke.

Edie: “Well, what’s your excuse? When are you going to get with it?”

Me: “Give me a second. I have to go to the loo. I’ll be right back.”

Edie: “Alright. Don’t get lost.”

I hopped off the barstool and ambled past tables filled with patrons with all manner of things growing out of their heads. Then I pushed open the ancient wooden door to the men’s room. And I never went back.

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Thanks for reading. Enjoy more posts about wine and other musings on my blog at timgaiser.com.

Learn about my books, Message in the Bottle: A Guide to Tasting Wine and Strong Water: Tales of a Master Sommelier’s Life in Food, Wine, and Restaurants.