Unconscious Fun

I just found out today about this kind of awesome record from 1964. It's a spoken-word recording of a guy talking in his sleep. It reminded me that my sister Dana — who shared a room with my other sister, Erika, when we were kids — used to force Erika to talk to her as she was drifting off to sleep, with sometimes weird and hilarious results. A normal conversation would suddenly veer into surreal or nonsensical territory, while Erika's tone always remained perfectly reasonable (if a little irritated at being kept partially awake).

You can hear one of the shorter tracks from this album here. Sort of sounds like a lost Captain Beefheart track.

And here's a description of the album's origin, taken from the blog where I downloaded it:

"Dion McGregor was a homeless gay bohemian from NY. He wanted to be a songwriter for Broadway musicals, and while waiting for his big break in show business, he couch-surfed with his friends, lovers, and acquaintances. One of his hosts was fascinated with Dion's habit of talking in his sleep and attempted to document it. This LP compiles several recordings of Dion McGregor narrating his dreams. This isn't just mumblemumble, though — these are clearly articulated stories with dialog and all. A few of them border on nightmares and often end with the speaker waking up with a muffled scream. You can hear New York street noises in the background, as he slept by an open window.

"This record came out in 1964, and was accompanied by a book of transcriptions with illustrations by Edward Gorey (who also did the cover art for the record). Two more recordings came out recently, containing the stories which were deemed inappropriate for publication in 1960s."