Roz Chast is my favorite cartoonist in The New Yorker. I also enjoy Roz Chast’s books. I loved Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant (you can read my review here) which deals with Chast’s aging parents in both a funny and poignant way.
I Must Be Dreaming, Chast’s new book, is pure silliness. Chast’s dreams feature Ted Less-So and a romantic interlude with Danny Devito. (see below). Chast makes browsing her dreams easier by grouping them by themes in her chapters.
Do you remember your dreams? Do you have reoccurring dreams? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION — 1
I Must Be Dreaming — 13
Recurring Dreams — 15
Lucid Dreams — 18
Celebrity Dreams — 22
Cartoon-Idea Dreams — 37
Nightmares — 45
Body Horror — 51
Food Dreams — 59
Everyday Dreams — 67
Dream fragments, or Ones That Got Away — 91
A Note about The Dreams — 95
A Brief Tour through Dream-Theory Land — 97
Recommended Reading — 118
Never have dreamt of DeVito. My most recurring dream was as a very young child, around 4-5yo, with Kong reaching in through a window to try to grab me…I eventually learned to realize in my dream it was a dream, and that probably helped make me a horror fiction and drama buff for life, so far (having seen KING KONG repeatedly in the mid-late ’60s due to PD prints circulating on tv)..
The only recurrent dreams I recall since were driven by Tylenol 3, after minor surgery…which led me to suspect I shared my father’s sensitivity to opiates, and Not in a good way, if even that drug could knock me into a mild (and unpleasant) loop.
Roz Chast is quite good.
Todd, Roz Chast always makes me laugh…and think! My dreams usually involve College situations: can’t find my classroom, late for class, forgot to teach a class, etc.
I too loved CAN’T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT, and I think Chast is a great cartoonist, but I’m not sure an entire volume inspired by anyone’s dreams is really my cuppa. I have lots of recurring themes in my dreams: one of which is that I have never, in over 50 years of driving, ever been able to drive successfully in a dream. Go figure. I also dream a lot about living in very large, elaborate houses that have lots of rooms and staircases—something I’ve never experienced in life, I assure you.
Deb, Roz Chast’s dreams are weird and funny. I rarely have driving dreams but when I do I’m usually lost.
My dreams always take place on a vacation in a house that I am unfamiliar with. They are rarely pleasant but often mundane.
Patti, my dreams are mundane, too. I’m usually lost or confused.
I loved that Chast book too. For some inexplicable reason, my library only bought the ebook copy of the new one, and I found it impossible to read.
Recurring dreams? Pardon me if this is too gross, but I used to have dreams where I had to go to the bathroom. I’d be in a place where there were a lot of available toilets, but they were all in use and I would have to wander around looking for a free one. Sometimes it was a multiplex movie. Eventually, I did get to go, and I probably always woke up, having to go. Since prostate surgery I haven’t had this dream once.
My favorite recurring dream was, we’d be on a book hunting trip to England and I’d discover a new (to me) secondhand bookshop. There would be a big bookcase (much like the ones we have in the den, and they would be PACKED with old British paperbacks, old Penguins (ca. WWII) and other paperbacks of that era, many of them titles I didn’t know. They were all a pound or less, and I’d be pulling handfuls off the shelves and piling them up to buy. Sometimes there were old hardbacks as well. There were plenty of other people in the store, but none were competing with me for the old stuff. This dream always made me incredibly happy,
I used to have a lot of transportation dreams – mostly the subway, but sometimes a bus or railroad train. I’d go into a common subway stop in New York – say 14th Street or 42nd Street. But it wouldn’t be one of the real stops on the real train line. It would be a “different” line on a different part of 14th Street. I’d look at the map on the train and all the stops would be different too, though there would be a stop near where I was going, so that was OK. The weirdest one was the elevator dream. I’d get on an elevator and it would go up and up and up, like 100 floors. When it got to the top it would suddenly go sideways on a track like a train and we’d be on a huge overpass high above the streets.
Deb’s house dream reminds me of another recurring dream. As those who have been here know, our apartment house is actually three buildings, connected in the basement, where you can walk through from one to another. In the dream, I’m in the basement but everything is different – different elevators, different sections etc. When I get upstairs, the floor is laid out differently too, with different corridors and a lot more apartments than there actually are. I go into our apartment (also in a different place) and the way out is different too.
Finally, for the moment, there are convention dreams. We’ll be at a Bouchercon and I meet up with Bill Crider or other friends. Panels, room parties, etc.
Jeff, I used to have a lot of dreams about food. But once I was put on weekly Trulicity injections, those dreams faded away. And, I lost 20 pounds! That’s not a dream!
I’ve had a subscription to the daily New Yorker humor site for many years now:
https://link.newyorker.com/view/5bea14bb3f92a404696e1c24jwk4j.l0t2/a7b592b8
I really enjoy their stuff and also their weekly competition though most of their articles ( including today’s by Roz Chast) are behind a paywall – so not for me …
Wolf, Roz Chast’s books are worth checking out.
I have always found other people’s dreams very interesting. Because we all seem to share a dream landscape of sorts. Wishes fulfilled at a bookshop perhaps or thwarted by wandering down deserted streets. The new Nicolas Cage movie sounds interesting. He shows up in everyone’s dreams.
Patti, Bill Crider was a huge fan of Nicolas Cage! However, I’ve never dreamed about him.
“Not yet!” followed by Cage’s barking laugh.