happy twelve string dream log

Plenty of other things I could write about. Mom's almost-visit this evening. How furniture in the apartment is being arranged. My gradually shifting image of myself. Conversations at work.

Instead I will tell you about a dream I had about a bass guitar.
(And I wonder why nobody comments on this thing.)

Act one is completely gone.

Act two involved some squat, grey-faced, sharp-toothed dream people. They were little more than dark grey round heads on light grey bodies the shape of a thumbnail, but they didn't seem like the sort with whom one would want to associate. There were three of them. I know we conversed, but I don't know what we talked about or even what sort of an interaction it was. Maybe there wasn't even a conversation, just a slow measuring look. In a dream, that can count as an entire act.

Act three I was walking. Not precisely indoors or outdoors, I was simply next to a building. It came up on my right. The lighting was, as in a few recent dreams, just barely dim enough not to interfere with visibility. Same indoors and out. The building was dusty and disused; the windows showed little of the interior and the unpainted boards seemed weathered. I saw a sign on the door (the image a jumble of letters, I just got the meaning of the sign) indicating the place to be some kind of psychological therapy or rehab place, with an emphasis on feel-good smarmy group encouragement type stuff.

I passed through a lobby, only remarking the emptiness of the place, not any of its features. Again, a feeling that someone was supposed to be there or normally was there, but they were keeping out of my sight because I wasn't there for a reason that involved them. Then I quickly moved into the next room.

Either the light in this next room was dimmer still or the wood paneling of the walls was much darker. There was nothing in the room except a bass guitar on a stand, facing me. I walked up to it slowly, studying it. It seemed to be a decent instrument, not in as bad shape as the building around it. Instead of four strings, however, it had four sets of three strings each--red, yellow and blue. I looked at it dubiously and wondered how it would be possible to play the instrument, since three strings are much harder to press down with one finger than just one.

End of dream.


Now, last time I went out to visit our nice friend who told me about soundpost guy, she let me hold her twelve-string guitar. The twelve-string is a wonderful device invented by some smart person who realized that doubling each guitar string makes it much, much easier to play chords. When you want to press down a string with your finger, your finger naturally presses hardest into the space between the two strings. Because they are somewhat rigid, this merely presses them further down against the fretboard even as it presses them slightly apart.

The bass I saw in my dream was also a twelve-string, but in a different way. Four sets of three. Fans (?!) of my cosmology will recognize this instantly. Four elements (or modes of action), plus three forms (interactive qualities). Earth, Air, Fire and Water, each of which can be used in the mode of Sulfur, Mercury or Salt. The base (ha, pun, pfft), the foundation of the understanding of the universe I've hammered and strained out of the flaxy muck that is occult symbolisms.

So I go to disused part of my mind that is meant to be some comfort, but instead is nigh-abandoned and loitered about by unsavory characters. In a dimly lit back room all by itself I find a symbol of something I think is important to me, something I've worked very hard to make a useful method of determining and directing belief. And when I find the thing I essentially scratch my head and wonder how the hell it can be of any use.

I don't know whether this represents something good I need to pursue, or something non-good I need to back away from.

What ties it all together is a lyric from a Waterboys song I've had stuck in my head for the last few days. The song is called "Lucky Day Bad Advice." It is a collection of the bad advice people have given the songwriter over the years on how to "improve" his band by watering it down to fit their favorite fads. The lyric is:

You can't spend all your life
Sittin' on your cloud, playin' your twelve-string