Eleanor and "Wake Up Time"

Dreams have both been helpful and problematic for me over the past few years.  A couple years ago, I had a short one that went something like this:

A man dressed in a very nice, formal black tailcoat/ tuxedo was playing a grand piano on something like a stage in an auditorium.  He appeared to be putting on a concert.  I was looking at him from the what would have been the audiences' perspective, but was not aware if anyone was also sitting with me or not.  My attention was focused on the piano player.

The music was very good.  He stopped suddenly, as if now aware that he had company.  He turned while still sitting on the piano bench to look out in the direction from which I was viewing him, and said in a deep, formal voice, "Hello, everyone.  My name is Eleanor".  Upon hearing him say this, I immediately woke up.

I have a tendency to assume 'meaning' in many things, whether there might be any there or not, and this dream was not the first or last time that I felt there was some meaning in the experience.

It struck me as strange that a man was introducing himself with the name of 'Eleanor' since it is a feminine name.  The name was spoken, however, and not spelled, so I explored the possibility that the name was perhaps not actually "Eleanor" as spelled like that, but something else.

What I ended up arriving at was that the name the man spoke must have been this:

El-Anor.

An Elvish name that would be broken down as follows:

El = "star"

Anor= "sun"

So, roughly I came to the conclusion of "Sun star".  

'El' in Hebrew also means "God" so I also thought the name could be something like "Sun god" if I took perhaps too much liberty in mixing up language.  I ultimately left it as potentially meaning either of those, or perhaps both in some kind of double meaning or interpretation.

By the time I had the dream, I had been thinking enough on stones that once I discovered that the name was "El-Anor" I, rightly or wrongly, fairly quickly started down a narrative of the man introducing himself actually representing a stone, with the music he was playing being the story or power that the stone would bring.  The stone itself in this case would be named the sun-star.  However, I also left it open to interpretation that the man could have actually represented a being or person, with either, or both, of the potential names being applicable.  And finally, I also left it open that the man and his piano could have represented both of these possibilities - an actual man and a stone.

Who knows, and I haven't really gone past that in my thinking relative to that dream.  There are quite a few loose ends in my mind that need tying, and I have become more comfortable with and much better at letting many of them sit for awhile.

I am writing about it now, however, because an interesting thing happened two nights ago as my son and I were on a very late night flight.  Unable to sleep and seeing nothing that really looked good to watch, I landed on a documentary about Tom Petty and the making of his album "Wildflowers".  Like many people, I am aware of several Petty songs.  I had never heard of the last song on the album, however, which is titled "Wake Up Time".

It is the artwork of the song that the showed in the documentary that really caught my attention, initially.  I am pasting it in below:

The artwork is actually what brought back the dream to me (which I hadn’t really thought in for some time) as when I saw the piano with a sun shining from it, I instantly thought of the man playing his piano and calling himself "El-Anor".  I don't even know if this is the official artwork of the song or where it comes from.  It was shown on the documentary fairly prominently and a google search later brought it right up, but I don't know the history behind it.

Fairly random and interesting to me, though I am not sure exactly why.

It is a beautiful and simple song as I listened to it, and I am glad I finally had the chance to hear it.  The lyrics I am sure were very personal to Tom as songwriter, and my guess is they have resonated with many listeners since, and I would now include myself with them.