I have another secret to confess, I absolutely love dreams. No, I don’t mean aspirational statements such as I will one day be the CEO of this company dreams, but I’m talking about literal synaptic firings of the brain during sleep cycles. Dreams are a ruthlessly honest portrayal of how your brain sees the world, your relationships, and most importantly, yourself. No matter how much we may lie to other people, there is no running from your brain when you are alone and defenseless for eight hours.
For most of my life, I’ve had really vivid dreams, both positive and negative. I’m not afraid to talk about dreams that I’ve had with others either, it’s honestly kind of fun seeing how others (close friends, family, acquaintances, etc.) interpret the dreams sequences I’ve shared. For seven years, I would have one dream per month in which I would fight the Michelin Man (yes, this guy) for extended lengths of time. These dream sequences were similar in the level of violence and in the typical settings that Peter Griffin would fight the Giant Chicken in the 2000’s era of Family Guy. I was confused as to why these dreams kept occurring until it dawned on me in hindsight; these dreams were my rite of passage.
I had my first Michelin Man dream when I was a cheery-though-slightly-delusional sixteen-year-old. The dream took place on an arterial road in the city next door to my hometown late at night. The road, and the sketchy neighborhood it cut through were both quiet. Suddenly, the Michelin Man walks up to me and curtly demands my wallet. I refuse and try to walk past him, at which point he gets abruptly violent. The rest of the dream involved the tire mascot beating me savagely. While I was a 6-foot-tall and 230-pound offensive lineman, I was no match for the Michelin Man. He seemingly stood 7 feet tall with monstrous strength; he tossed me around like a rag doll. His punches landed with thunderous force, and he angrily slammed me into the pavement. In hindsight I realized that he stopped caring about my wallet and was simply hellbent on snapping my spine like a No.2 pencil. After he was done toying with me. he threw my mangled and defenseless body into the middle of the street; I heard a truck coming in the distance. He walked towards me as I laid motionless with a virulent look in his eye, clearly intent on finishing the job. Suddenly, the truck runs over the Michelin Man. The dream ends with younger me proclaiming that at least he didn’t take my wallet, however hollow of a victory that was.
The next vivid Michelin Man dream occurred a month later. This time I was visiting an old friend in my hometown. I was playing basketball by his garage when the Michelin Man intruded onto the property. With no warning, he went straight for the offensive, seemingly picking up where he left off from the previous month. Once again, I tried the best I could to fend him off, though his strength and tenacity were overwhelming. He would pick me up and then slam me into my friend’s driveway hard enough to crack the pavement. Unlike the previous dream, I attempted a counter-attack; I had tried to kick his knees in as I hoped that it would work, though it had no effect. Once again, I laid motionless, unable to move due to my severe injuries as my poofy assailant stood over me, ready to deliver the finishing blow. Suddenly, his head exploded with a large BANG, with pieces of his brain (colored white instead of pink, for some odd reason) splattered all over the pavement. His chest had a similar reaction moments later before the mascot fell lifelessly to the ground. With the little strength I had left, I managed to roll over to see a relative of mine reloading a double-barreled shotgun, chuckling as he did so.
The next dream occurred on a sunny afternoon at my old high school. As a member of the track team, we would sometimes play sting before practice using a wayward tennis ball and a large brick wall near the equipment garage. In the dream, the Michelin Man appeared, bypassing all of my teammates (they were smart enough to scatter) and instantly went on the offensive, once again trying to kill me. He would grab me by the back of the head (I had a long-hair phase as a teenager), and he would ram my face into the brick wall, then drag me across said wall. However, this dream was different from the first two, I retreated into the equipment garage. I frantically searched for anything I could use as a weapon. I found an old pipe and came out swinging. I landed several clean shots with the pipe as I swung with all of the considerable force my offensive lineman legs could produce. Sadly, my offense still wasn’t enough to deter the Michelin Man; in fact, he seemed to be angrier than ever now. He grabbed the pipe out of my hands using his inhuman grip strength and then proceeded to beat me with my own weapon. With each swing that connected I felt another bone break. As I laid motionless after the assault, he threw me into the boiler room, through the brick wall and piping, determined to take my life. He entered the small boiler room as steam was filling the atmosphere of the cramped enclosure. A small electric spark on the floor caused an abrupt explosion that sent the bulk of it’s force upwards. Once again, I survived when my helpless self shouldn’t have, only because someone or something saved me.
In my later high school years and my early college days, the dreams continued in a similar fashion. The setting would always change, though the end result was consistent. These dreams would happen once per month every month like clockwork. The dream would always end with the Michelin Man standing over me, ready to end my life and then someone or something would save me at the last possible second. In a way, these early dream sequences showed that I hadn’t yet transitioned into adulthood; I was reactive rather than proactive, I wasn’t self-sufficient or self-reliant, nor did I suffer the ultimate consequence for my poor decision-making, and the dreams reflected that. In real-life, I would avoid images of the Michelin Man, lest I risk triggering another Michelin Man dream.
However, as time passed (thus making my dreams 3D) the tone of the dreams fundamentally shifted. The Michelin Man would still appear once per month, and he was still ready to murder me. The difference in later dreams being that I was far more ready for the encounter. One dream I had when I was roughly 21 years old involved a relative and myself visiting a maze in a cornfield. We navigated our way through the maze and successfully found the finish line. The finish line led into a paved parking lot, with a chain sit-down restaurant. We approached the doors of the restaurant when all of a sudden I could feel the tremors of massive footsteps approaching. Although I never saw the Michelin Man in the dream, I knew it was him. My blood pressure rose and my stomach tightened as I could just sense it was him, and he was nearby. I stated in the dream that He is here. My relative met me with a puzzled look, to which I repeated myself forcefully: HE is HERE! I chose to play offense as I paced towards the cornfield where I intuitively knew he was hiding in.
“Daniel Anthony, what the fuck are you doing?”-was the question I was met with
“HE is HERE and I need to head him off!” I answered before I barked “Stay inside the building and don’t come out until I come back” as I sprinted full speed towards the cornfield. The dream ends, this time with me ready to confront the problem head on.
This dream served as a pivot point in this recurring series; no longer was I a passive victim of the Michelin Man. Instead, I was an active participant in these encounters. This reflected the change that I had undertaken in real-life. I leveled up my thought process and transformed my body into a juggernaut. I also became a much more cynical yet ruthlessly calculating asshole who was better equipped to handle life’s challenges. While I was always goal-oriented, I had become laser-focused on my objectives, nearly to a fault and to the exclusion of basically anything else. No longer was I the naive teenager, I had become a confident though hard-hearted young adult. Eventually in real-life, I checked out a library book on the topic of lucid dreaming after I had learned about the term in a psychology class in college. I wanted to be rid of the Michelin Man bad enough to try the advice.
Early on, results were mixed. I had a 50-50 chance of being able to identify that I was in a dream early on. Upon recognition, I was able to control the sequence of what happened to a certain extent, though I couldn’t completely control the dream. These early successes had spurned me to continue the practice of checking if I was in a dream or not. For example, I would look at a clock to see the time, then look away for five seconds before reading the clock again. If the clock had a radically different time on the second reading, then it was a surefire sign that I was dreaming. Time flies, but not that fast!
A late-stage Michelin Man dream took place in my hometown, in the hallways of my former elementary school to be exact. I was at my favorite pizza shop in my hometown which was walking distance from the school. It was late at night and I drove past the school when I noticed vans backed up towards the building., the school was being burgled. I realized that I needed to step in and do something. I entered the lobby and saw a gaggle of criminals. Rather than wait, I went on the offensive. I clearly had watched too many Jason Statham movies (just kidding, there’s no such thing as too many Jason Statham movies) as my attempt to foil the burglary proved to be an eerily similar action scene. After the scum-of-the-earth had been foiled in their attempted looting, I looked down the hallway and saw him. The tire mascot was stretching his legs; the future inmates were my warm-up, and the Michelin Man was the real workout. Riding the testosterone high of dispatching the previous douchebags, I began taunting the Michelin Man, asking if he wanted a piece of me. Before he had the chance to answer, I sprinted towards him, ready to attack. The dream ends.
This dream was another major milestone, though I didn’t realize it at the time. The tables had officially turned in our relationship; he started off being the predator and now he was my prey. I had shared these dreams with several close friends and family members over the years, though the most profound insight came from an old family friend that I had reconnected with when I was 21. Upon telling him about the dream from the previous paragraph, he gave me his interpretation; you’re ready. At first, I didn’t believe him, though in hindsight he was absolutely right; the Michelin Man was no longer something to be afraid of. I was ready to rid myself of this nuisance.
Over the following two years, the dreams still happened once a month without fail. Instead of being beaten to within an inch of my life in the dreams, I would fight the Michelin Man to a draw. The dreams became progressively more one-sided, as I started inflicting far more damage to the Michelin Man than he did to me, some dreams ended with him trying to flee from me, and I pursued him with the intent to finish the job. Sadly, I wasn’t able to catch the Albino Majin Buu before I woke up.
My final Michelin Man dream occurred on the night of Thanksgiving Eve 2014; I was 23 years old. The dream started with me strolling the aisles of a department store, albeit one that was rundown from the inside. The store looked disorganized and had fallen into a state of disrepair as the store was eerily empty. I took a look at the price tag of an object on the shelf, and the store’s brand was printed across the top. The branding in question was from a department store chain that went bankrupt in the 90’s (much to the dismay of my mother at the time). That was my trigger, this isn’t real life. Upon realizing that I was in a dream, I summoned the Michelin Man into the halls of the department store. We proceeded to fight, though I took him to the ground. I pinned his back to the floor and placed both of my hands on his throat. With all of the grip strength that my forearms could muster, I began to strangle the life out of the Michelin Man. He gasped, flailed and kicked, desperately trying to break free from my grip, however I was hellbent on not letting go. I could feel the throbbing in my hands as his pulse and breathing became more erratic; it’s as if I could feel the life literally leave his body during my iron-clad grip. His escape attempts became less frequent and less forceful before he went limp for the final time. For the final time I stood up, realizing both what I had just done to the tire mascot and the crushing pain in my chest (it turns out choking the life out of a monster significantly larger than you takes a lot of effort). The dream ended shortly thereafter.
I woke up, feeling the chest pain and shortness of breath from my dream. Truthfully, I have never been happier to feel such symptoms. These symptoms came with the feeling of utter satisfaction, deep down I knew that the days of the Michelin Man were behind me. I haven’t dreamt of him since; good fucking riddance. Looking back, I woke up from that night a fundamentally different man than I was when I went to bed the previous night. Murdering the Michelin Man had served as a final test of sorts; my rite of passage was complete.
Essentially, the Michelin Man had served as a representation of obstacles in life; 16-year-old me was objectively unready to face them yet gradually I became more competent. Since then, I have finished a STEM degree, left a shitty job with my sanity, career and reputation intact, wrote and published a book, wrote yet another book and started ruthlessly crossing off items from my list of life goals. There isn’t a single goddamn thing that can stand between me and what I want to accomplish now, and the corpse of the Michelin Man serves as proof of that statement.
Let nothing, not even Albino Majin Buu, stand in your way…
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