If you didn't already read about it, I had a strange dream last night involving Axl Rose, ER, and Dave Mustaine. I am not quite sure what it all meant. Can anybody make any sense of it?

Ha! Great dream, but I can't really say what it means. Thanks for sharing though--I was thoroughly entertained.

i wish i could, but i have no idea what that was all about. however, i love the image of Axl sitting across from Dave, singing to him. perhaps this is your attempt at bringing peace and understanding amongst these two rival metal icons.

yeah, that's such a perfect visual image it should be a velvet painting.

My own take on dream interpretation is two-fold: some elements are merely random synapses in your brain firing recent data in your head, ordered into narrative by your brain. In your dream, your fever and ER seem to fall into this category. Your subconscious, of course, remains worried about your daughter's fever. Like any parent, you would do anything to relieve her of her discomfort, even taking it on yourself, if you could. In your dream, you do have the fever.

Understanding the Axl Rose figure is a bit trickier. We should acknowledge that Axl was a huge figure in your formative adolescent years (word elsewhere on the Internet is that you actually sculpted a bust of him in Ms. Neff's ceramics class once). Additionally, you recently reviewed the performance of an aging Rose at the GnR concert in Columbus on the short-lived comeback tour. If anything, Axl physically has aged. This icon of your youth, possibly the very symbol of your youthful idealism, dreams, hopes and fears, is now an aging and increasingly pitiful man. You want to know why this had to happen (or you want to, at least subconsciously, mourn your lost youth). Your brain presents this desire in the form of a Q&A.

The trouble with this subconscious impulse is that while there is something you want to know, you are unable to articulate precisely the questions. Again, your brain translates this frustration into the format of the Q&A. You don't get to read the questions. Axl does.

And part of you is afraid it's all nonsense anyway (Axl rejecting a question and saying "Get Real.") This is a key part of the dream. It's as if your subconciously torn in two: "Axl," you want to say, "Axl, you were this huge influential figure of my youth, damn't, destined to be young and wild to be wreckage forever. Why did you age so poorly? Why do I now see you as such a fallible figure? Why, Axl? What happened to those dreams of mine anyway?"

Axl's response is quick and to the bone: Get real, man. Get real.

(Note, too the pull between the world of your youth (Axl as rock star) and the world of your adulthood (a house, family, a garage, etc. They say, too that when you dream about a house, you are dreaming about your body. In this case, two houses, Chez Rose: a youthful, slightly drug-addled body - I'm not touching that one with a 10-foot pole; and your friend's more conventional home with the crowded garage. And let's be frank, here. I've seen your actual garage and it is in fact fairly crowded).

The final imagery we must address is the Axl-Mustaine scene. I don't know much about the relationship between Axl and Mustaine, but other postings here have suggested they have been at odds with each other - and were in fact at odds with each other during your adolescence. This could be interpreted to mean that Mustaine may represent the parts of you that, even in your youth, were on a path that differed from Axl's. That is, though Axl was the influential figure in your youth, he did not influence you to the point where you dropped out of school studied music full time and pursued a path in music. Instead, you did some decidedly un-Axl things (represented by Mustaine) like go to college, get a degree in journalism and become a music critic extraordinaire. Perhaps this has always bothered you. Perhaps part of you always wanted to follow Axl's route. Perhaps you wanted to be of the music instead of about the music. And in the scene in which Axl serenades Mustaine, perhaps you are subconsciously making peace with the choices you made. It reads as a soothing, peacful moment between Axl and Mustaine, as if an offer of grace extended, forgiveness granted. As if, in singing to Mustaine, Axl is saying "It's OK, man, it's Ok. Some of us are here to make the art, and some of us are here to think and write about it."

I think, too, the movie theater setting is important as well. While I said earlier that a House tends to represent the self, I am wondering (and this is pure speculation) if the movie theater (a place of commerce, after all) could represent your career. The pull between the Axl path and the Mustaine path could have defined your career (the movie theater) and maybe, in "getting real" your are making peace between Axl and Mustaine, between the dreams of your adolesence and the life you suddenly find you have built for yourself.

Where do you go from there? We see you trying to reconcile this gap between your adolescent dreams and your current life in a Home setting. And this answer is far more clear: You do not long for the Rose home. In fact, you are suspicious of it all along. Instead, you return to a home that is described very much like your own home, and you have taken your child's fever upon yourself. Though slightly baffled, you have no need for a Q&A in this setting. You know where you want to be, and how to get there.

Your dream, therefore, is all about reconciliation and forgiveness of yourself. It is a good dream to have, a dream representing transition. The dream also very clearly betrays your man-crush on Noah Wylie. So come on, man, Get Real. Get real.