8 fingered monkey, motorcycle in the back seat and Samantha Stevens' gender assignment

 

I was in someone's living room, sitting on the couch. David Chanh came out of the bedroom holding a monkey, which appeared to be the age and temperament of a four year old human, only more well behaved. David made it a point to show everyone that the monkey was special because it had eight fingers on each hand, which collapsed, one over the other, like a folding fan, giving them the appearance of normal fingers when not in use.

It was the sweetest little thing. He greeted me with a hug and kept wanting to give me kisses with his funny little chimpanzee lips.  I talked to him a little bit, but he wasn't a talking monkey, so it wasn't really much of a conversation. Still, very cute, even with the extra digits.

Next, I was out on a main highway on a motorcycle. I'd run out of gas and had been pushing it for a while. Out of the blue, a guy driving a black Plymouth Challenger, similar to the one in Phantasm, showed up and offered to give me a lift.

I struggled to put the motorcycle in the back seat, but I managed to get it in there, somehow. Quite the feat, really, for a two-door and a full-sized road bike. The guy was perfectly fine with this arrangement. Actually, he acted as if it were my car, and he and a buddy just left me there with it.

After this, I was on a pier, about to do some fishing. I'd seen a lot of people who were catching fish when I was out driving my car and motorcycle around. They'd been catching them everywhere, on the street corners, just walking; fish were that abundant.

On the pier, I saw Bob Hansell. He was fishing, of course, as it seemed to be the thing to do. I was getting set to cast out but leaned too far over the railing and was in danger of falling off the pier.

"Can you pull me back?" I asked Bob matter of factly, not betraying my sheer terror. 

He pulled on my jacket, and I regained my balance, keeping my composure the whole time. I kept thinking, "Man, Bob Hansell just saved my life!" He didn't seem to think it was a big deal, so I didn't mention it.

Later, in Bob's station wagon, we were headed out somewhere on the freeway. I think the motorcycle and the monkey were in the back. It was crowded, and I didn't have a proper seat. Bob kept putting on the brakes, sending me and the monkey flying, which I found rather annoying.

There weren't many proper segues in this dream, so next I was in a walk-in freezer type storage area of a restaurant. I was trying to engage a waitress in a conversation about a factoid that I'd heard. It was not going well, as I kept putting my foot in my mouth.

"Did you know that Samantha Stevens was a tranny?" I asked her.

"Samantha Stevens was not properly gender assigned at birth," she corrected me. 

I could tell I'd stepped on some sensitive toes, and I couldn't seem to extricate myself from the hole I was digging myself into. Apparently, words like "tranny" were just not uttered in polite company, because she left, and I had to try to explain myself to the next person that walked in to the storage area. 

"And I know her name is something else, too. Samantha Stevens was just her TV character's name on Bewitched," I offered feebly. I was thinking of Elizabeth Montgomery, but the words just never made it out of my mouth.

---

I'd fallen asleep to an Alan Watts lecture, and the theme of enlightenment and cosmic oneness kept popping up in the dialogue of my dream characters. I can't think of any specific lines they quoted, but at one point I asked the guy with the Plymouth, "It sounds as if you listen to a lot of Alan Watts, am I right?"

I never got a direct answer, but I've experienced this phenomenon enough to not be surprised. I used to purposefully put on audio tapes to try to manipulate dream scenarios, with varying degrees of success. 

Sleep hypnosis, as a whole, though, never seemed to be an effective therapy for me, as the subconscious suggestions never really took root in my everyday awareness.