You Shoulda Seen What Walt Showed Me!

Last night I had an amazing dream. The kind that sticks with you long after you've awoken and begun your day. It keeps replaying in your mind and distracts you from everything else. And this particular one seemed like a dream some of you reading would really appreciate.

I had a dream that I was at a theme park. I was aware that it was Walt Disney World although no part of it looked like the WDW we know and love. In fact it more closely resembled a carnival midway. My little boy was with me. For a moment, I realized I'd been distracted and when I turned around he wasn't there. Any parents out there can imagine, even in a dream the state the panic and dread that immediately overtakes you when you think even for a second your child is missing.

Thankfully I ran towards a building and someone or something told me my boy was inside. And he was. He was waiting, seated in a strange ride vehicle. It looked similar, although older, to the flying carpets in Adventureland. But this was a classic indoor dark ride, and the vehicles were attached to an overhead track system very similar to Peter Pan.

The ride began to slowly lurch forward, squeeking and groaning with age and I realized that ours was the only vehicle on the track.  Besides my son and I, there was someone else on board. I looked over and realized with more than a little shock that it was Uncle Walt himself. He looked just as he does in the last pictures we see of him before he passed. But there he was, as alive as ever in flesh and blood, wearing a grey suit and black tie. And he had that unmistakable grin, like it's Christmas Morning and opening day at Disneyland all at once.

I didn't say a word. I couldn't speak. Soon we were flying squeakily (is that a word) over day-glow painted sets. Walt explained this was a ride that was never built in the parks. It was a concept he was playing with for a dark ride based on the Arabian Nights. At one point we were flying over a middle eastern cityscape that Walt called Agrabah and he he even made the comment "I dreamed this up long before we ever made a movie about Aladdin and his flying carpet."  His voice was unmistakable, burned into my sub-conscious from old clips, films, etc.

He said it with a knowing chuckle as if he was fully aware that he wasn't actually around when Aladdin was made. The way he spoke to me, with glistening eyes, made me think he knew he wasn't supposed to be able to talk to me any more than I was to see him.
He sounded like a grandfather bragging on the achievements of his grandchildren. As if he was saying, look what my team has done since I left. He put his arm around my boy who sat between us at the front of our "carpet" and showed him some of the other sets and Audio-Animatronic figures below. I just watched, dumbfounded.

It was one of those moments where there is some voice in the back of your subconscious saying "this isn't really happening. You know that!" And yet it was so completely real. And so incredibly wonderful.

I vividly remember the arm of his suit. And then how for a while I could only stare at the front of the vehicle. It was obvious this thing had actually been built in the 50's. It was old, and in some state of disrepair, hence the squeaking. Whatever Imagineer (probably Bob Gurr right?) had designed it had hand painted it with multiple colors and designs to resemble an actual handwoven Persian carpet.

And then, as with most really great dreams, I just woke up. Inexplicably, my eyes opened, and the dream was gone. Walt was gone, again. I was back in Illinois, in the winter, in my bed. But I couldn't stop seeing Walt's face, as real as the person sitting a few feet away from me now. I could see his slicked back grey hair. The wrinkles around his eyes. His mustache.

I've never put too much stock into dream interpretation. And I've also heard that the people we see in our dreams usually don't represent the people they look like, but someone else. Whatever that means. I also know the father of modern psychology did enough opium to kill a horse (thank you Robin Williams.) So who knows. Was this just a reflection from my subconscious?
For what it's worth I hadn't been looking at, reading, listening to, or even thinking about anything Disney related last night. A rarity, I admit. Didn't even think about my book last night, except in a more general sense of how if ever I'll get it published. Nothing to do with the content.

So where did this dream come from? I know the logical answer is nowhere. My brain. There's no deeper meaning. Walt didn't visit me in my dreams last night. Obviously.

Or . . . maybe . . .

After all, to be so attached to all this "Disney stuff" is to believe in something deeper. Something beyond logic. Something magic.

If nothing else, it certainly ranks up there in my top ten dreams. Actually, I'd say it is right up there at # 1!

The last thing I can tell you is, after I woke up the following lyrics have been playing through my head all day.

"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone. I cannot put my finger on it now. The child has grown. The dream is gone."

And this all comes at a time when I've been feeling a little frustrated about my creative career path and perusing dreams, etc. Is it all coincidence or simply my own over-active imagination? I know many people who would say yes.

But thank God I'm not many people. Thank God neither was Walt.