What Tony is dreaming

Once, when I was in psychotherapy—why couldn't they come up with a name that didn't have "psycho" in it!—I dreamed that I was on my therapist's couch telling her about a dream I had and I suddenly had the realization that this was a dream and that I should tell it to my therapist. And then I woke up. Later that day I explained the whole matryoshka doll conundrum to my therapist.

I had a dream something like that last night. Over the past couple of years I have again become curious about the confluence of reality and dream, something I had grown out of as a teenager. (When I worked in fast food I swept the floor a lot. At night I would awake to find I had been dreaming about sweeping the floor, and I was annoyed that the only part of my life that could be exciting—my imagination—was as dull as my real life.)

A magnificent long-form improv evolves before you with all the wreckless logic of a dream, although I don't know why I am irresistibly attracted to long-form improv. It is painful to not go to Harold Night at the UCB Theatre, and yet I have not been since December 26th—the day after Christmas, and it was an excellent excellent show.

Last night I dreamed M— woke me up this morning. I was horrified when I saw my alarm clock: I needed to be at work in 20 minutes! M— was apologetic and said she had turned my alarm off.

"You're going to get me fired," I said laughing.

"I called your boss," M— said. "I want an explanation."

I gave M— a tour of my house. It was the house I shared in a poor neighborhood in Long Beach, Calif., down by the edge of the Los Angels River. I had five roommates and someone was always coming and going at all hours of the night; so, that fact that M— had come in and shut off my alarm did not strike me as strange.

I showed her the many-windowed little atrium over our front door—the six of us lived on the top floor of a two-story house. I told M— that my girlfriend and I lived in the atrium for a month, but the sunlight pouring through the windows was annoying in the morning.

That is factually untrue: I did not have a girlfriend and I never spent a night in that room. It did have a lot of windows and sun, and it was slightly larger than the bed that was in it. The atrium looked out on the park, where gang members hung out drinking and shouting and shooting off fireworks—and guns for all I know. If I was still going to therapy, Dr. E— would ask what I made of telling M— something that was totally untrue, and in a context of statements that are true.

I actually lived in a dinky room that hung over the side door of the house, a converted laundry room, slightly larger than my mattress, with a lot of windows. When I say "converted" I only mean that it didn't have a washing machine in it. I did have a very large sink—and I also had a small cupboard.

"I was supposed to hand in a book on Friday," I tell M—. "I've got to get to work and finish it off today." (This is absolutely true and, in fact, I got to work early today.)

"What is it about you and improv?" M— said.

"I'm not a performer," I say. "I've taken a few classes and I've seen a lot of shows."

"And yet your boss knows nothing about this," says M—. (I should add that M— is a real person and is very likable. When I woke up for real this morning I wanted to tell her all about this—it seemed so real! But unless she had the identical dream it would be impossible to explain why I thought I had to tell her my dream in which she asked me to explain myself re improv. If I was still in therapy, Dr. E— would ask me to explain this very thing, which would take many sessions at a cost of hundreds of dollars, enough money to take improv classes at the UCB all year, the very thing that I am try to explain. Also, I don't know M— all that well.)

"Listen," I told M—. "First of all, let's take it as a given that improv is important. You get it; so, let's skip that part of the explanation."

"O.K."

"Do you remember the last time I saw you?" I said.

"Yes. Of course."

I had two dreams about M— last night. Here I was referring to the earlier dream, in which we rode together on the train back to New York from Princeton, where I had seen an outdoor improv festival that she performed in. The train was a combined D, E, and F New York City Subway train, and once we sat down I spent most of the trip editing a book manuscript in my lap. (Facts: I haven't been to Princeton for years, I doubt that they have an improv festival, and certainly not on the football fields during winter, and, as a matter of reality, New York City Subway trains do not get combined to go farther distances and to places they don't normally go. My therapist would ask: Why Princeton?) O.K., back to the dream.

"Do you remember that manuscript I was editing on the way back to New York?" I said.

"Yes."

"That's the book that was due of Friday.”

"That was a month ago," M— said.

"The manuscript had a lot of problems."

It is here that I launch into a long explanation of the significance of improv in my life.

"Follow the fear"—Del Close said that. It's painted in white on the back wall of The Pit theatre. This is my second worst thing—I have not learned this lesson. My worst thing is my voice—I need to see a vocal coach; I need to get my deviated septum fixed. In the dream I go into vast detail that is too personal for this blog. M— interrupts . . .

"Wait a minute. Mostly I'm hearing I, I, I in all this," says M—.

"It's not so much about improv," I tell her. "That's why Freud was so interested in dreams. It's really about the dreamer."

M— doesn't look like she's buying that. So, I tell her plain as day: "I'm trying to transform myself for being uncomfortable with everything in my life at all times to being the ill-at-ease misfit I was meant to be."

By the way, I am performing at The Pit next Saturday (1/27) at 6:30 p.m.; $8. I'm in Kevin Allison's Level 3 sketch class and we're performing our work. It's a scripted show, however; so, it won't have the waking dream quality of long-form improv.