Great Moment in iPod Shuffle (of a sort).

Because I’ve finished listening to Disgrace but haven’t transferred my next audiobook (A Wild Sheep Chase) onto my iPod yet, I was listening to my iPod on shuffle this morning as I walked to work. After some forgettable Audioslave song (only on my iPod because of Chris Cornell brand loyalty) and the Doobie Brothers’ 'Long Train Runnin' (who snuck that on there?), The Sneaker Pimps' '6 Underground' came on and I thought, "Hang on, this song was in my dream last night."

I'm not suggesting my dream foretold my iPod would shuffle to this song. I'm noting this here because I had never really noticed that my dreams contained real music soundtracks. Perhaps every dream I have is backed by music, but because I don't hear the particular song shortly after waking, there's no way I could be conscious of this?

Hearing '6 Underground' also helped remind me of what was going on in this particular dream. I think I must have been nearly awake, because it was quite logical. Marisa was pregnant, and about to go into labour, and we realised we had not discussed baby names. I say this dream was logical because the names I put forward were ones I have considered in waking hours (Chobe D'licious, Caleb...). To which Marisa said, "What if it's a girl?" Both in my dream and in real life I have never thought of what I would name a daughter.

[I should just say that no one is pregnant here. And in my defence (though no defence is needed): I reckon I think about baby names more than your average red-blooded male in a pregnancy free relationship because I have to come up with so many names for characters.]

If I was only half asleep, this might explain how a real song could play in the background— especially because I listen to music while writing everyday, especially in the last four hours before hitting the hay. Maybe my default ambient noise is now popular music?

But the question still remains: Why the Sneaker Pimps? Thanks to iTunes I can pin-point the last time I heard this song on its entirety, which was over a year ago. The possibility exists that song was used in a TV program I saw (it was originally used in film The Saint), probably a CSI-type program based on the lyrics...

BUT I don't watch those shows.

All I watched last night was The Masters (golf). Did they use '6 Underground' on their coverage? Unlikely. Which suggests I didn't hear this song recently, so it must have had some significance in the dream…

I'm not going to go any further into this (I know how tiresome dream description and analysis can be), but I just thought I'd note this down in case someone else has had a similar experience.