CatP.A.C.K.

I hardly ever remember my dreams anymore. About ten years ago, I had a series of dreams that were so mind-numbingly dull (ie - a dream about drinking milk; a dream that factually taught me the proper way to make pancakes, etc.) that my brain simply made a decision -- if my dreams aren't worth remembering, I simply won't remember them. So, from then on, I'd remember perhaps a dream or two a year.

Last week, I had a very vivid dream, and it wasn't boring. I dreamt a TV episode. A pilot, in fact, to a TV show that doesn't exist. In its entirety.

Now, this wasn't a dream of me watching TV. And it wasn't a 'behind-the-scenes' making-of an episode. It was an episode itself, played (with no commercial interruption!), for sole purpose of entertaining my unconscious brain.

The show was starring me, my brother, my dad and ten talking cats. We were a crack squad of do-gooders who were all that stood between an evil zombie horde and total world domination. You read right (I assume) -- it's a show that pits the male members of my family and ten talking cats against zombies.

Since this was the 'pilot episode,' most of the time was spent establishing the situation and introducing the characters. My dad, brother and I were freedom fighters dedicated to fighting zombies, who, as far as I could tell, had already taken over much of the world. We were squirreled away in our base of operations (which happens to be my parent's house), and much of the episode was about stopping the zombies from getting inside. The zombies came up with many assorted (and somewhat complex) schemes to gain entrance to our base, but they all failed (probably because zombies are not known for their brilliant tactical minds . . .). They finally decided to send ten werewolves into my parent's garage to, I suppose, ambush us when we went out to do grocery shopping or something. But my dad and I (I have no idea where my brother went) somehow managed to turn the ten werewolves into ten talking cats (I think it involved scratching the werewolves on the chin . . .). The ten talking cats then decided to join our team in stopping the zombies.

Each cat had a different, one-dimensional personality and the dream took its time to introduce each one. There was the leader cat, the warrior cat, the prissy cat, the scaredy cat, the wise, old cat etc. When it came right down to it, though, they were just cats. Besides the fact that they talked and had 'personalities,' they had no special powers, and, I have no idea how, against zombies, they could possibly be of any help. Case in point, when my character had to later investigate the garage again. When I came back in to the house, I heard the cats hiding. When I announced that it was just me, they all jumped out of their hiding places -- the pockets of assorted coats, hung on a coat rack. They all had the same cowardly reaction, except for the scaredy cat, who made a point of biting my finger in fear when he jumped down.

Here's the best part -- in my dream, the show had a name. It was called 'CatP.A.C.K.' I know that the acronym stands for something, but I have no idea what it could possibly be (Protectors Against Cranium Konsumers? People and Cats Killing (zombies)? Profoundly Awful Crappy Kaka?). I think that maybe 'pack' was harkening back to the fact that they were once werewolves . . . I don't know. I also don't know if this was supposed to be an action show or a comedy . . . What I do know is that I woke up with this being my first conscious thought -- "What the hell was that?"

It's weird -- I'd think that the lesson to this dream is that I watch too much TV -- but I don't even own a TV anymore. So, maybe what this dream is telling me is that I need to watch more TV . . . Or, maybe, this was my brain telling me that I should actually make this show. Maybe I'll dream more fully written episodes of 'CatP.A.C.K.' and just make the series solely based on what I dream about. In any case, stay tuned . . .