I've been sleeping like absolute shit for a couple of months now, with the exception being my time in Berlin. I guess my friends' crashpads set me more at ease than my own lovely, lovely apartment. Or perhaps it was just the fact that I was on vacation.
Last night, after being awake half of the evening, I finally dozed off for a few minutes of sleep. And I had a dream which featured (former Screaming Tree/Queens of the Stone) Mark Lanegan. I ran into Mark Lanegan with another friend at the airport where I was making a connecting flight to Los Angeles after my arrival from Berlin. He and my friend were arriving from Italy, and were on the same flight back. Go figure! My friend went to get us some drinks, after introducing Mark & I, and I tried to chat him up a little but he was very quiet. I got the feeling I scared him a little, which my friend confirmed later.
So, it was somewhat mysterious that he turned up in my dream.
It went something like this: I was at work, and trying to convince my boss that I just had to change my schedule around a bit to suit my vampire lifestyle. He wasn't having it, so I walked outside and Lanegan appeared, acting as if he were the wise man on the mountain, saying "If you truly had a calm mind and a calm spirit you wouldn't be so restless all night" or something like that. And I said to him, "Wow - I thought I totally freaked you out at the airport by yapping too much." And he closed his eyes and shook his head at me, because he realized what a poor misguided soul I was...
I emailed the details of this dream to the friend who introduced us, and he sent back this:
"If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what you do not bring
forth will destroy you."
- Gnostic Gospel of Thomas
The Gnostic Gospels, to the best of my understanding anyway, are
early Christian texts with a "divine" understanding (as opposed to
actual witness) of religious events. The Gnostic Gospel of
Thomas in particular claims knowledge of Jesus' secret teachings.
First of all, my pal sure does know his religion. Second of all, was
Mark Lanegan channelling Thomas to let me know that my stress
was fucking up my sleep? Strange coincidence, and itrequires a bit
more thinking from this lapsed Catholic.
