Three decades ago, a show was on HBO called Dream On in which the protagonist, a book editor played by Brian Benben, often found himself in a conversation or circumstance which reminded him of a movie scene from his childhood. To demonstrate his mental recollection to the viewer, the show’s writers creatively interjected a short clip of actual movie footage (usually black and white) before flipping back to the character’s response in the scene. My mind has worked exactly this same way for most of my life, except my mental movie clips are usually in Technicolor.

A day rarely passes where I am not reminded of such a movie scene when somebody says something. Of course, as if some cruel joke being played on me by my subconscious (we’ll call him Murphy), this most often occurs when I am in a business meeting with coworkers and have to keep the thought/dream to myself as sharing it would not be well-received (first off, acknowledging daydreaming during seemingly productive work time is not exactly endearing to the employer…secondly, it also clues the coworker that I am not really paying much attention to him/her).

Even if I don’t say anything, I often laugh inwardly because most of the scenes I recall are from comedies. For example, the CEO presents grim news in a team meeting, “We lost more money this past quarter than ever before in company history and we are going to have to make some difficult decisions.” This doesn’t generally result in unbridled applause by the attendees, but rather sets a somber tone in the meeting. Naturally, like good little conformists, it is quite important to behave in a way that suggests everyone shares the concern (image is everything).

If I am in that room, however, and the boss proclaims that the company’s cash position is compromised, I might mentally flash to the scene in Jerry Maguire when sports star Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) gets agent Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) to yell, “Show me the money!” So while the rest of the room is frowning, shaking their heads or pretentiously staring at the carpet to depict great angst over the company’s misfortune, I am trying my best not to bust out laughing at the silent movie in my head (because image is everything).

If my boss is chewing my arse (as if this slang version is any better than the original word) about something, however, then perhaps a song, rather than a movie, enters my subconscious…such as “Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz (as in “I want to…”). Great song! I might have to download it once I am done writing (Kravitz demonstrated his artistic diversity by starring as Cinna in The Hunger Games).

I often think I have undiagnosed ADD due to my propensity to mentally wander, similar to the way the Israelites did for 40 years in the Egyptian desert (I have a hunch that I would enjoy eating manna…like crepes from heaven. In Talladega Nights, Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) asked Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) to proclaim his love for crepes as a symbol of truce for having mocked his French ancestry. Bobby declined and ended up with a broken arm). (I also depict my wandering mind with excessive use of parenthesis while writing).

It is ironic that I almost never remember my dreams when I sleep. Perhaps there is an inverse correlation between rarely dreaming at night and excessively dreaming while awake? Obviously, Freddy Krueger does not visit me much. That reminds me of another Robert Englund film…