I woke up this morning from an unsettling dream. I dreamt I was at some kind of family party (my brother was there, as was my late aunt — I was pleased to see her looking so well in my dream and glad that she was alive) with the usual kind of lowest-common-denominator mobile disco DJ playing records.
He put on “Rock the Casbah” by the Clash and I was suddenly seized by a wave of that nostalgia one experiences when a DJ puts on a record that means something to you when you are drunk. I remembered dancing to the song at a disco or party somewhere years before with a long-past ex-girlfriend (apologies to my wife, if she’s reading this) but couldn’t quite place the memory. The combination of the half-forgotten memory and the lost love (my lost youth was probably in there somewhere too) was unbearably poignant and I got up and started dancing — with my brother — throwing myself into it as a way of lessening, or perhaps embracing, the pain.
Upon awakening, I thought about the powerful and unsettling feeling of nostalgia which the Clash song had invoked in me and which was still keen. Then I thought, hang on, that song doesn’t actually have any strong associations for me (at least, none that I can remember while awake, and I don’t think I tend to forget which songs are emotionally connotated for me). Now, I’m used to my brain inventing events, songs and music, even pieces of literature which I’m dreaming. But to invest a song with memories and associations it doesn’t have for me in real life? What’s that about?
