Thinking Out of the Control Room

I've been dreaming about trains--catching trains, missing trains, train tickets. Just part of the new life of Stamford every day. 

When I first became an AD, I dreamed in "control room speak"--two-shots and singles and matching for the edit. Counting down and picking up. When I had a conversation with someone, I thought about how the person or I might be "doing business" or "crossing past" while we spoke. After a few years of ADing, the intensity of seeing life this way lessened, but I still think about shooting a "tight insert" of an important object, and when I recently had surgery, my first thought when I woke from the anesthesia was that what I was seeing in the recovery room would never match what I saw in the operating room--it would never edit together.
 
I imagine that many people who spend years learning and practicing their job or craft have a hard time letting it go, either in their lives or in their sleep. Perhaps it is a sign that the job is somehow meaningful, and perhaps it is the brain's way to help us understand it better.
 
I have hope that the dreams about missing trains will go away soon--that's just a growing pain of a new situation. But thinking in AD speak--that's an entirely different story. So don't be surprised if, when I'm talking to to you, I'm seeing you in close-up when you are saying something important, and looking at your hands when they are nervously fiddling with some object, and expecting you to cross past me when you want to avoid something. It's just part of my thinking out of the control room. And it's all part of telling a good story.