Marissa Flaxbart: Fever Dreams of Showchoir and Russell Brand

For the past two days, I've been sick, in pain, and kind of crazy. Enter Tylenol PM. Sleeping isn't usually something I need help with, and neither is dreaming strange, vivid dreams, but last night I got some help with both.

I remember two main dreams: the first was about showchoir. This in itself is no shock, as I've been working hard at finishing a documentary about showchoir to begin submitting to film festivals starting later this month. Only in my dream, I was in the showchoir, and we were performing at a large outdoor arena, and after doing the first few songs, I lost couldn't remember what happened next. We did a lanky bouncing move for several seconds and then my memory of events was gone. Even in the dream, I kept asking people what had happened next in the show. Did we finish? Did it go okay? Did I pass out or something? I got mixed reviews from my peers, including some fans who had been in the audience wearing elaborate costumes that corresponded somehow to our show. Then someone brought me my video camera and told me that I'd left it lying in the grass, and some kid's dad had found it for me.

In my second dream, Russell Brand was a serial killer who trusted me with his secret, with an unspoken assumption that he'd kill me if I ever crossed him. He'd go up to people's houses, knock on their doors, and then he'd take them out. Once I ran up to warn some people he was coming by knocking first, but he caught me and was particularly brutal with those people. Then we walked back to the parking lot and he was ready to make his escape in two beautiful cars that were full of people who got out to congratulate Russell before he drove off. I was hoping to shake him so I could contact the police, and I tried to nonchalantly ask him if he was expecting me to go with him in one of the cars. He wanted to drop me off at a theater nearby his next performance spot (yes, he was doing comedy shows throughout this killing spree). When I got home after being dropped off, though, I somehow forgot to call the cops.

In the process of writing down these crazy dream memories, I've actually remembered several other dreams from last night, like the one where I was late getting to the choir loft at church and had to hide behind a pew so that I wouldn't get in the way of the long, slow procession. Or the one where I was at the home of some family I knew in the dream but not in real life. The house was so full of giant dogs that it was difficult to enter a room and keep the dogs from getting in too. Some old dude barged in and demanded that my friend connect his computer to the wifi network. There was a little girl who sat on my lap and told me she didn't like bunnies. But she liked dogs.

The worst part about recounting dream stories is that it's nearly impossible to set the scene properly, and no matter how well you do it, you'll always be telling a story about something that didn't happen.

Sorry.