Keeping Track of the Moorlock

Several years ago, in a dream, somebody told me a joke. It wasn't a great joke, but it was a good joke, and I hadn't heard it before, and when I woke up I remembered the joke and it was still funny enough to make me smirk.

Some time after, in a dream, a Ween song I like was playing over the speakers in some establishment or other. In the dream, in my head, I started to sing along. But I didn't know all the lyrics (I only knew the lyrics that I actually knew in non-dream life), so from time to time I would basically "hum along" in my head while Gene & Dean sang. They knew the lyrics fine.

A few days ago, in a dream, I met a friend that I hadn't seen since High School. I didn't recognize him at first, but he recognized me, and I scrutinized his face for clues while he talked about the good old days. Eventually he said something that enabled me to narrow down who he was, and then I recognized his face: Oh! it's Marc! A little less hair, a little more wrinkles, a little pudgier, but it's Marc sure enough.

WTF?

My governing hypothesis about dreams changes in its more detailed speculations from time-to-time, but what almost never changes is the hypothesis that dreams are generated inside my own head by assembling bits and pieces of what's already there.

How can a dream come up with a funny joke I've never heard before? know the lyrics to a song I don't know the lyrics to? present me with a face I cannot recognize and yet give that face words to speak that could only belong to the person that owns it?

It seems the mind is vaster, more creative, and more of a trickster than I give it credit for.