Last night I had a dream that I was doing a twenty minute set at the Comedy Connection in Portland. For some reason I failed to write a set list before I went on stage and I also forgot to wear a watch. The way that the club was set up in my dream was like a peep show. The stage was in a room, that had a large window that opened to the bar where the audience was sitting. Through the window I could see a VCR in the back of the bar that was blinking the time. It was blinking the time along with a bunch of other information, so it was only every 30 seconds or so that I could see what time it was. I was doing okay, but only because the audience was really on my side. Like sometimes they would say my jokes along with me, word for word. After I did a handful of jokes I realized that I couldn't think of any other jokes I had written. I was totally blocked. And I still had 10 minutes or so to go. An audience member shouted out a request. So I started on that joke, but I was speaking really slowly. I could only think of a few more jokes, one-liners basically, but was trying to make them spread out to the next ten minutes. Someone shouted "TALK FASTER!" That's all I remember of that dream.

I think it's funny that I'm having un-prepared for comedy dreams again. I haven't had them since I first started out. The night before a show I would have dreams in which I would be at the club and totally forget my set, or forget my jokes, or have really bad stage fright. Any number of things. I would get on stage and not be able to open my mouth.

Those dreams have since dissipated, leaving room for others. Dreams where my cat is able to talk, reporters are breaking into my house, or my body parts are falling off. More interesting dreams. The performance anxiety moved into my daily life. Keeping me in bed all day until the last possible moment before leaving for a comedy competition. But now I see it's back into my dreams. I think this might be better. Let my subconscious deal with it so that I can actually accomplish other things during the day. It doesn't matter if I'm stressed out about performing. I'm going to get up there anyway. It would be nice, though, if that anxiety would be so kind as to not need to take up the whole day.

But right now, I'm gonna start working on my set list for my 20 minutes in Portland tonight.