Selfies with the dead?

 

I can't imagine this doesn't qualify as a nightmare, but I wasn't exactly scared. Just creeped out and kind of disgusted with the whole affair. So, don't judge me, I didn't request this kind of programming.

I dreamed that myself and three other people were in a "situation." We were burning logs or pieces of old furniture, and things needed to be stacked and arranged so that they would burn evenly. I'm not even sure how it happened, but two of my friends, Denise Graubart and Jeanette Antoine (aka Dream Girl from previous dreams) had an accident and were pinned under some logs.

In this accident, Denise was alive and needing to be rescued. Jeanette was not; she was dead, crushed by the logs. Rescuing Denise required removing the logs in a delicate fashion that somehow involved decapitating Jeanette surgically. The third friend (still trying to remember who it was) did the deed. It went relatively smoothly, contrary to those videos where terrorists are struggling to hack away at bones and sinew. 

I remarked, "You must have gotten extremely lucky to have missed all the vertebrae."

There was this weird desire to take pictures of this horrific sight of our decapitated friend. I mean, you don't see stuff like this every day, or ever, why not capture this perfect moment? I knew that it would be in poor taste, so I kind of suppressed the thought. I covered her head and body, still somewhat together, with a towel.

As I was deciding how best to pick up the head and move it, so as to get on with the rescue, there was Denise taking selfies with her dead friend. 

"Selfies with the dead, Denise?" I asked her chidingly, a bit relieved, actually, that the subject had been broached. "That's ok, you were her best friend. She was very vain, I'm sure she wouldn't mind. You think it would be ok for me to take a few of just the head? I need to move it anyway."

I picked up the head carefully with one hand by the hair, with the towel still partly covering it. Her eyes were closed. I remarked how light it was, probably because the blood had drained out, I was thinking. 

I placed it in a nice spot, apart from the debris from the accident and was considering what kind of photos would best suit her in her current condition. I snapped a few shots, but I don't think I took the old "look at me with the decapitated head" selfie that I was kind of conflicted about taking.

We still needed to finish extricating Denise from the stacks of lumber and from Jeanette's headless  corpse, which was still pinning her down. I abandoned the photography and covered the head back up with the towel and got back to work. 

In all this, there was very little emotion for Jeanette's death. It was just an inconvenient situation that needed to be dealt with. The emotions I was struggling with were the feelings of inappropriateness I was having with my desire to photograph my dead friend's severed head. I really wanted to be tasteful about it, out of respect, you know.

That's about it. Decapitation dreams about tasteless photo ops with the deceased. Fuck me. Should I tell this to my shrink today?