Dream within a dream - the movie "Pal" or "Pals"
The dream within the dream came first followed by a top level dream that supposedly revealed answers to long-outstanding questions.
The dream was comprised of a movie. A muppet movie. It took place in a mansion and certainly fit into my series of dreams exploring cast and mysterious architectural spaces.
We (the usual gang of muppets and I) we wandering through the dark mansion with flashlights and old box cameras looking for something. Occasionally our path would lead us back around to somewhere we had already been, including trough opposite ends of a long hallway. Another room in this hall way was much brighter and not at all old and dusty like the rest of the house. Inside there was a man working.
We had seen him before, brief glimpses of him. We were somewhat startled to actually find him because we did not know who he was or if he was dangerous. It turns out he was a scientist, and that room was full of bubbling fish tanks and computers. He was carrying on some work he had done for the deceased owner of the mansion. He was kind of the wise, old man of the story, although he didn't really give us any advice and he stayed in that room once we had found him. He could have been played by John Cleese in a lab coat (after all, it is a muppet movie).
In another scene in another room (a small bedroom) there were some muppet FBI agents manning a bunch of telephones, waiting for information and orders to move in on the bad guys. It seemed like every time they picked up a phone all they got was the punch-line to a joke someone in the room was telling. The FBI agents were source of comedy relief, if you need that in a muppet movie.
There were some more scenes of us looking around. After that the dream inside the dream flashed to a scene towards the end of the movie. I was alone in a small basement room pushing in small bricks on the wall that did various things. I was trying to find the "right brick" that would do exactly what I wanted and lead us to whatever our goal was. I had to be an additional goal to defeating the bad guys because there was a small window in the room where I could see my companions and the FBI agents running around outside to distract the bad guys (who were outside chasing them) while I did whatever I had to do. But I never found out what that was because I woke into the top level dream.
In this dream, I was watching the end of the movie. I was riveted because I knew I had seen it before as a small child and dreamt about it many times. I had always wondered if it were real and now there it was on TV. I was disappointed that I had only caught a little piece of it. I quickly realized I could use the channel guide to find the name of the movie. Pals! This frequent object of mysterious dreams was called Pals. I must admit the title made no sense in the context of the plot, but it was a muppet movie so I guess the title could have fit in some way.
Immediately I went online to read everything I could about the movie and to order a copy. As it turned out, the basic plot was pretty simple. A guy with a big mansion dies and some bad people (perhaps his daughter with a blue muppet henchman) try to scare away all other heirs or claims on the estate (or perhaps to the scientific research going on), and of course the muppets and I set out to foil their efforts. That is the basic plot. I also read that Jim Henson made the movie as a message about humans destroying their environment, which is something I totally did not get from the parts I experienced.
I stopped short of reading the entire plot line online because I didn't want to ruin it for myself before I had a chance to sit and watch the movie all the way through. Of course, that is when I actually woke up and realized the whole thing was a dream.
The dream was comprised of a movie. A muppet movie. It took place in a mansion and certainly fit into my series of dreams exploring cast and mysterious architectural spaces.
We (the usual gang of muppets and I) we wandering through the dark mansion with flashlights and old box cameras looking for something. Occasionally our path would lead us back around to somewhere we had already been, including trough opposite ends of a long hallway. Another room in this hall way was much brighter and not at all old and dusty like the rest of the house. Inside there was a man working.
We had seen him before, brief glimpses of him. We were somewhat startled to actually find him because we did not know who he was or if he was dangerous. It turns out he was a scientist, and that room was full of bubbling fish tanks and computers. He was carrying on some work he had done for the deceased owner of the mansion. He was kind of the wise, old man of the story, although he didn't really give us any advice and he stayed in that room once we had found him. He could have been played by John Cleese in a lab coat (after all, it is a muppet movie).
In another scene in another room (a small bedroom) there were some muppet FBI agents manning a bunch of telephones, waiting for information and orders to move in on the bad guys. It seemed like every time they picked up a phone all they got was the punch-line to a joke someone in the room was telling. The FBI agents were source of comedy relief, if you need that in a muppet movie.
There were some more scenes of us looking around. After that the dream inside the dream flashed to a scene towards the end of the movie. I was alone in a small basement room pushing in small bricks on the wall that did various things. I was trying to find the "right brick" that would do exactly what I wanted and lead us to whatever our goal was. I had to be an additional goal to defeating the bad guys because there was a small window in the room where I could see my companions and the FBI agents running around outside to distract the bad guys (who were outside chasing them) while I did whatever I had to do. But I never found out what that was because I woke into the top level dream.
In this dream, I was watching the end of the movie. I was riveted because I knew I had seen it before as a small child and dreamt about it many times. I had always wondered if it were real and now there it was on TV. I was disappointed that I had only caught a little piece of it. I quickly realized I could use the channel guide to find the name of the movie. Pals! This frequent object of mysterious dreams was called Pals. I must admit the title made no sense in the context of the plot, but it was a muppet movie so I guess the title could have fit in some way.
Immediately I went online to read everything I could about the movie and to order a copy. As it turned out, the basic plot was pretty simple. A guy with a big mansion dies and some bad people (perhaps his daughter with a blue muppet henchman) try to scare away all other heirs or claims on the estate (or perhaps to the scientific research going on), and of course the muppets and I set out to foil their efforts. That is the basic plot. I also read that Jim Henson made the movie as a message about humans destroying their environment, which is something I totally did not get from the parts I experienced.
I stopped short of reading the entire plot line online because I didn't want to ruin it for myself before I had a chance to sit and watch the movie all the way through. Of course, that is when I actually woke up and realized the whole thing was a dream.
Labels: dreams
posted by scott at 9:43 AM
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