does anyone else have dreams about superabundant record stores?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

with great albums that don't exist but yet you've somehow been looking for forever, and mint-condition scott walker vinyl for $5 and so on? usually the record stores in my dreams have really specific, memorable layouts, like weird amalgams of all the record stores i've ever been to (which is a lot, for better or for worse). so when i wake up i'm haunted by whether i was dreaming an imaginary record store or some store i'd visited in some small town umpteen years ago. i usually can't figure it out.

i haven't had one of these dreams for some time but they definitely qualify as a "genre." for me anyway.

what's weird is that i'm hardly a collector-nerd. well sort of. but mostly for 1930s country music reissues. and i haven't even bought one of those for a year or two.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 18 July 2005 06:13 (twenty years ago)

there's this one record store that used to be near berkeley college of music, not on but near newbury st in boston, that i must have been inside of no more than 5 times... and yet i've dreamt of it more than once.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Monday, 18 July 2005 06:14 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I have had these dreams. Usually I find the record in a gas station or 7-11 or something rather than a record store. I also have had similar dreams about comic books.
There's a book by the artist Jim Shaw called Dreams which is an illustrated dream diary. In one episode, he finds a Faust record he's never seen before.

― Mike Dixn (Mike Dixon), Monday, 18 July 2005 06:29 (twenty years ago)

I dreamt about a giant, weird collectibles store that I still think i've been to, that had this section near the back filled with monstrous amounts of wonderful vinyl. lots of blues and jazz.

― Gear! (Gear!), Monday, 18 July 2005 06:38 (twenty years ago)

I would have dreams about finding compilations or box sets, and when I woke up I would try to find them online. Eventually my head would clear and I'd realize the thing didn't exist. I wish I had written all those down as they would make a great list ...

If everyone could contribute a record-found-only-in-dreams to this thread we could have a Borgesian thing going here.

I do remember finding a children's book die-cut in the shape of Reagan's head, with those thick cardboard pages. Can't remember the content, though. Damn you, short-term memory!

― Brakhage (brakhage), Monday, 18 July 2005 12:01 (twenty years ago)

I continually have dreams about record stores; often revisiting the same stores over and over again. And the cat always wakes me right after I find that box of mint original pressings of Harvest and Vertigo LPs in the back of that tiny, dusty store in London.

― gne hpstr (Matching Mole), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)

If everyone could contribute a record-found-only-in-dreams

Dinosaur Jr. full-length by the five-piece J/Murph/Don Fleming/Donna Dresch/other-guy-from-BALL line-up from the original "Wagon" single.
Keith Richards album of solo-acoustic folk songs.

― Mike Dixn (Mike Dixon), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

Oh my god, I've had so many of these! I thought I was alone. Mine never involve recognizable albums or even recognizable artists. They always involve tons of records (always vinyl) that seem amazingly exotic and rare and I always amass a huge stack of them. I have some kind of weird anxiety tied up with it though so that these dreams always involve some element where the store is closing in five minutes and they're kicking me out, or I'm leaving town never to return and somebody is trying to get me to hurry up. And of course I only ever get to see a tiny fraction of the huge cache of records.

I have another variation on this dream which involves either a music gear store, or some kind of random antique or thrift shop which happens to be full of bizarre and arcane one of a kind synthesizers and effects pedals.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 18:32 (twenty years ago)

I have some kind of weird anxiety tied up with it though so that these dreams always involve some element where the store is closing in five minutes and they're kicking me out, or I'm leaving town never to return and somebody is trying to get me to hurry up.

yes! it's always just about closing time, and i always walk about having spent 100s of dollars.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 19:20 (twenty years ago)

During my high school years I repeatedly had dreams about going into arcane record stores, finding copies of early Misfits singles in the used bins that no one had noticed or priced correctly and then, with my nerd heart trembling, I would walk to the cash register and buy them- only to wake up emptyhanded. Sigh. . . .

― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 19:29 (twenty years ago)

I've had delusional moments dreaming of winning the lottery and opening up the coolest mega store ever (think Tower or Virgin but actually enjoyable won't you?).

― Brett Hickman (Bhickman), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)

i've definitely had some real-life record store hauls that approached dreamlike proportions. most of them in suburban boston.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

The first of two unrelated dreams in which there is a mysterious record store in my old high school:

I am with a few friends in the high school cafeteria, which has been converted into a record store by Japanese exchange students or something. They're only selling Japanese music. I'm excited to find something rare by the Boredoms, so I grab it. When I go to the checkout, I'm hoping the cashier will like my taste. She couldn't care less.

As we walk outside it is raining, and along with the rain, 2-dimensional white text is also falling from the sky. I can't read it. I'm getting soaked, so I borrow someone's umbrella. Suddenly, the wind picks up and I'm swept off into the air against my will. I accidentally drop my rare Boredoms vinyl from some 50 feet over the tennis courts, where it shatters.

― sleep (sleep), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 19:35 (twenty years ago)

I never even make it to the cash register in these dreams. I always wallow in the aisles looking at the covers for ages and then I wake up. The weird thing is I never go record shopping with people who make me feel pressured to hurry or anything like that so I don't know what causes that feeling. I guess it's just a general greedy hoarding instict and if I were younger I would be dreaming about my toys being taken away or something. These dreams are also strange because for me they are much more cover art and fetish object oriented than music oriented and I never get to hear any of the records.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 23:52 (twenty years ago)

I always have these dreams, finding the most-sought-after (usually completely imaginary) holy grails of sound on vinyl, often in a train of shops, only to have something go wrong before I manage to actually buy them. The best ones are when you actually hear some amazing new music that doesn't exist.

― Telegram Sam, Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:05 (twenty years ago)

not since i got laid

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:09 (twenty years ago)

Uh oh. That first person you laid is probably inhabiting your astral body right now and snatching all of those great finds that should be going to you! Think about it.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 00:28 (twenty years ago)

haha hstencil wins :(

― sleep (sleep), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 02:38 (twenty years ago)

OR DOES HE

― sleep (sleep), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 02:39 (twenty years ago)

hstencil i don't think having nutty dreams about record stores is any weirder than having nutty dreams about any other places you've visited often. i also have nutty dreams about coffee shops, classrooms, offices, and friends' apartments. with much more frequency than i dream about record stores.

i know you got a little joke in there but it's silly just the same.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 05:08 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.