Dream Tonight
I don’t have the strength to dream tonight
I don’t have the courage to tell you why
But I’d still like to sleep tonight
And it’d be real nice for my mind to be free
Close my eyes
There’s a present waiting for me
They dance, enclose and swirl around
Glares no child should know
Beaten for beauty and robbed for royalty
They were only helping you know
Be one of us now
Cuz I know what’s in a dream
I remember who is waiting for me
Predictions of my future
And pictures from my past
So I don’t have the strength to dream tonight
I don’t have the courage to tell you why
But I’d still like to sleep tonight
And it’d be real nice for my mind to be free
Jesus boy where are you?
Playgrounds drift away
Good riddance to an enemy
Infectious laugh enthrall
Hide it I won’t revisit
Black screen arrive
Cuz I know what’s in a dream
I remember who is waiting for me
The destruction of my future
And the demons from my past
So I don’t have the strength to dream tonight
I don’t have the courage to tell you why
But I’d still like to sleep tonight
And it’d be real nice for my mind to be free
Influence #1
As a child, I was plagued with nightmares. I know that is quite unoriginal, but I think mine were different. They were very dark. And they were freakily real.
You know those movies where the main character “wakes up” but is still in the dream- yeah that was the idea. My nightmares didn’t take place in a far off land; they were IN my room.
I can still vividly remember a dream when I was between four and five years old. The devil ripped off the roof of my house and was in a tornado that threatened to… well, I guess I’m not sure what the point was and now that I’m writing it down it sounds pretty hokey, but I was 4 years old, alright!
When I was 6 I stupidly requested a bunk bed, in which I desired to sleep on top. This meant at least 20 never-ending seconds would transpire between turning off the light and safety under the covers. The ladder would often create the perfect opportunity for big foot, witches, and… I don’t know… the hunter from Bambi to take me down while I was unprepared for a fight. Once under NFL covers, some giant would have the nerve to overtake my pulse and turn my heartbeat into ever-increasing footsteps.
All of this can easily be seen as an imagination that was far too self-assured, but my first… ok, 18 years… of sleeping alone in a room were highly traumatic.
One memory haunts me still. I had “waken up” to run to my parents room, when they appeared in my room. The catch was, they had been turned to stone. To add insult to stonery, they began to hover ominously about the room. Again, it sounds pretty lame now, but for a 7 year old it was pretty intense.
Influence #2
An x-girlfriend of mine used to also have lifelike nightmares. Although mine were derived from an out-of-work imagination, hers were an extension of her childhood. For her, reminders of reality were plenty frightening.
Influence #3
Another x-girlfriend of mine claimed that she never dreamed. This concept led me to wonder, what might a mind fear remembering at night?
The Fusing
These concepts thrown together created the vibe of “Dream Tonight.” I wanted to put together images that ultimately led to my ultimate fear: a life that ends in destruction. It made me think of so many people that must KNOW their future is cloaked in demise. A person such as this quite possibly wants simply to free their mind of the truth that continues to haunt them.
