SoTD: Calexico “Para”

Today’s song has an odd, dreamlike quality to it. It fades in and out in intensity like a lot of my dreams. I hadn’t seen the video before, but it also feels kind of dreamlike with random clips of childhood interspersed with non-sequitur exterior shots. Dreams have been on my mind a lot lately because as a result of not smoking any reefer, I have started dreaming again while I sleep. I have a complex relationship with dreams. I used to have utterly terrifying recurring nightmares as a child. I had some dreams within dreams that left me disoriented and not really sure when I was finally awake. As an adult, I still have nightmares involving horrific car or plane crashes or ones featuring me being chased by men with guns. I’ve heard some people say you can’t die in dreams, but I know that to be false. I have died in a great many of my dreams and then found myself floating above my corpse and watching the aftermath of my passing. There hasn’t been anything quite so horrifying or morbid lately, but I do seem to have a recurring theme of being marooned in some bleak North Korea-like dystopia with no way to get home. I haven’t quite figured out what that is about. I don’t know whether it’s worth trying to interpret dreams or if they really are just random rehashes of our daily lives and emotional load. As long as I’m not in another one with a crashing plane or car falling off of a bridge, I won’t complain about their return.