She's afraid of the light in the dark

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I had a sort of hypnagogic dream or fantasy in which I heard Johnny Cash doing a dramatic recitation of the Sheb Wooley novelty song "The Purple People Eater." Halfway through the second verse, though, it changed to a different song:

Well he came down to earth and he hid in a tree

I said, Mr. Purple People Eater, don't eat me

He called my name, and my heart stood still

When he said, John, go do my will!

With that line, the voice changed to Marilyn Manson's, and the song was now "God's Gonna Cut You Down." I'm not sure how much of the song he sang, but I know it included these lines:

As sure as God made black and white

What's done in the dark will be brought to the light

What's done in the dark will be brought to the light

That last line was repeated -- or, rather, sounded as if it was echoing -- several times as I entered the fully sleeping state.

This was a conflation of two different things I had heard in the past. In January 2024 I watched the Jordan Peele film NOPE, which includes a dramatic recitation of part of "The Purple People Eater" in a gravelly voice somewhat suggestive of Cash's.

Searching my blog to find out when I had watched that movie, I found that I had actually posted about that very scene, in "I wouldn't eat you 'cause you're too tough." That post's title is a line from the original version of the song -- what the People Eater says in response to the request not to be eaten. In last night's version, it instead says, "John, go do my will!"

Back in February of 2020, I discovered and posted about Marilyn Manson's version of "God's Gonna Cut You Down." The post, "Go tell that long-tongued liar," included both the Manson and Cash versions, as well as one by Elvis Presley. Sometime later, I found a version that was a mashup of the Man in Black and the Man in Black Lipstick. Just as in last night's fantasy, it begins in Cash's voice and switches to Manson's with the line "When he said, John, go do my will!"

The combination in the fantasy was a strange one, seeming to put the Purple People Eater in the role of God himself. I think it ties in with "June, July, 19th, 21st," though. (Note: NOPE was released on July 22, one day after one of those dates, which also happens to be Bill Wright's birthday.) In that dream, I ran a long distance down a straight path in the desert and then walked down a corridor, but I knew that in the end I would have to face Rosie, a giant dog who I was afraid would eat me. Dog as a cipher for God is obvious, almost a cliche. (See "God and dog at the Panama canal.") In my published post, I described Rosie as a "spotted mastiff," but my own notes were more specific about the nature of the spots: "tri-color merle." Merle dogs are usually classified as "red merle" if they have brown spots and "blue merle" if they have black spots. Rosie had both, making her conceptually "purple."

You can run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Run on for a long time

Sooner or later, God'll cut you down

Sooner or later, God'll cut you down

In the dream, I ran on for a long time, on a perfectly straight path in the desert. After waking, I connected this with Isaiah's line "make straight in the desert a highway for our God" (Isa. 40:3) -- which could just as easily be a highway leading to God as a highway for God to use. I have made Bob Dylan's line "The highway is for gamblers" a sort of personal motto, so this is another link to the Cash/Manson song:

Tell the rambler, the gambler, the backbiter

Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down

Does all this imply that God's gonna cut me down? Well, it is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good. Perfect love casteth out all fear. There are hints of another interpretation, though. In last night's fantasy, the People Eater unexpectedly sends the person on a mission instead of eating him. Bill has also suggested that the warning about Rosie may have been misinterpreted:

It does make you wonder though, if Rosie is as bad as the warning seemed to indicate. You could interpret the remark that a black, brown, or white person wouldn't be that color anymore after Rosie was done with them as their mortal bodies and the associated various skin color as not being relevant anymore, as in via resurrection or restoration to new bodies.

Anyway, after that pre-sleep fantasy, I don't remember much of last night's dreams proper. Just as I was waking up, though, I heard a woman's voice sing a single line:

She's afraid of the light in the dark

I recognized this as coming from the Tori Amos song "Spark," which I hadn't listened to in a very long time. I only knew the first few lines:

She's addicted to nicotine patches

She's addicted to nicotine patches

She's afraid of a light in the dark

This past winter, I experimented with wearing nicotine patches while sleeping in order to induce vivid dreams. In one of these, described in "Nicotime, Mars, and the Secret Dojo," "I ran for hours and hours, never stopping or slowing or hesitating. . . . I ran along a desert road under a bright tan sky." This is clearly similar to the Rosie dream, so that's what may have put a song about nicotine patches in my head.

Making a mental note to look up "Spark" later, I checked my blog comments and found this one from Bill:

Just thinking more on Iris' issue with your sofas in the fifth floor classroom.

The fact that you actually have a sofa in that fifth floor room, even if it is your chapel and not a classroom, seems like it could be relevant. As does the fact that that sofa is where you conduct your experiments.

One possibility is that her meaning was actually expressing concern with the experiments you were conducting conducting on the sofa. She referenced the sofas specifically, but it was what was being done on it that she didn't like or was making the students uncomfortable.

This might make sense given her suggestion on what to do with the sofa. Your current experiment relies on you lying down on the couch with the card under the pillow. If you were to rotate the sofa 90 degrees so the the back was on the ground and legs in the air, it would be impossible to lie on the sofa with the card under the pillow (let alone use the sofa really at all, experiment or not). Thus, you wouldn't be able to carry out the experiment, at least in the same way you had been doing it.

Even if that is a reasonable interpretation - not sure it is - it does leave the question open as to whether you should listen to Iris or not on the matter.

I was already operating under the assumption that "Iris" in my dream -- who takes her name from the deceptive goddess who leads the too-trusting Turnus to his doom in the Aeneid -- was not too be trusted, so I immediately connected this comment of Bill's with "She's afraid of the light in the dark." Iris doesn't like me to experiment with extrasensory perception because she's afraid I might shine a light on things that she would prefer to remain in the dark. Well, tough beans, Iris. One way or another, "What's done in the dark will be brought to the light."

Later, when I got around to looking up "Spark," what got my attention was not so much the lyrics as this little sidebar on the search page:

"Purple People"! What are the odds?