Depeche Mode – "Everything Counts" (1983)

The turning point 
Of a career

A career of
Being insincere

I really hate it when a novelist inserts a description of a dream one of his or her characters had in a novel.  The dream is always opaque, which annoys me – it’s frustrating when you’re not sure what the point of the dream is.

So why is this 2 or 3 lines about a dream I had this morning?  My blog, my rules – how many times do I have to say it?  

Alan Siegel, Ph. D., the author of the book Dream Wisdom: Uncovering Life’s Answers in Your Dreams, believes that there are 20 universal dream themes.  

According to Siegel, one of those universal themes is “failing or forgetting to study for an exam in high school or college, or forgetting your lines for a presentation, speech or play.”  

I have a lot of dreams that fall into that category, including the one I had this morning.

In that dream, I was supposed to deliver a sermon at my church.  (Why a layperson like me would be giving the sermon at my church is beyond me.  Why a layperson whose church attendance is just a tad irregular would be chosen to give a sermon is further beyond me.)  After the service started, I realized that I had failed to bring a printed copy of the sermon with me to church.

There was no time to go back home.  But I was pretty sure I had e-mailed a copy of the sermon to myself.  So all I had to do was use my Blackberry to retrieve that e-mail, open the attachment containing the sermon, and then read it.  (It would be somewhat inconvenient to have to read the sermon from my Blackberry’s little screen, but beggars can’t be choosers.)

There was only one problem: I couldn’t find my Blackberry.  I hurriedly searched throughout the church (which looked nothing like my church – the beautiful and historic St. John’s/Lafayette Square in Washington, DC — or like any other church I’ve ever seen).  I found several smartphones that had been left on tables or desks in the church, but none of them was mine.

Just in the nick of time, I found my Blackberry.  But before I could pull up the copy of the sermon I had e-mailed to myself, I dropped the phone, which broke apart into about a dozen components.

My Blackberry Classic

Of course, I had no clue how to reassemble my Blackberry.  I fumbled around with the parts, occasionally figuring out how a couple of the parts fit together – but I was a long way from putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

It was at this point that Cameron Diaz showed up.  What Cameron Diaz was doing in my dream, I’ll never understand.  (The same goes for the elephant I shot in my pajamas.)

You see, I’m not a particular fan of Cameron Diaz.  I don’t have anything against her, but I can’t remember the last time I saw one of her movies.  I also can’t remember the last time she made a movie worth seeing.

Actually, Bad Teacher was pretty good:

Cameron Diaz in "Bad Teacher"

If Claire Danes had popped up in my dream, it would have made sense.  (Or Katie Aselton . . .)  But the presence of Cameron Diaz was a real head-scratcher.

Suddenly, I realized that Depeche Mode’s “Everything Counts” was playing over the church’s public-address system.  My new gal pal asked me how old the song was, and I vividly remember telling her that I thought it was released in 1990.  

Claire Danes in "Homeland"

“Everything Counts” was originally released in 1983, but it was re-released in 1989 – so I deserve partial credit, don’t you think?

I woke up at this point, leaving three big questions unanswered:

1.  If the dream had continued, would I have been able to reassemble my Blackberry and retrieve my sermon?  (Probably not.)

2.  If not, would I have been able to improvise and come up with a passable off-the-cuff sermon?  (Highly unlikely.)

3.  Most importantly, would Cameron Diaz and I have done the mystery dance?  (I’m not optimistic.)

As soon as I woke up, I rushed downstairs to my trusty computer and immediately wrote myself an e-mail with all the details of the dream that I could remember.  

I wasn’t sure what the title of the song in the dream was at first.  But the line “It’s a competitive world” was going through my head, and when I did a Google search for that lyric, I quickly ascertained that it  was “Everything Counts.”   

Here’s “Everything Counts,” which has terrific lyrics:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: