The Guilty Pleasure of Violence

I was relating a dream I had to one of my good friends. The dream included my taking a broken laptop and hitting someone with it hard enough to knock him down, make him bleed and render him unconscious.
Now, I have noticed a trend within myself to make very violent comments and express displeasure with people in terms of how many of their vertebrae I would like to crush. I tend to listen to violent music, finding myself in a calm, Zenlike state as Disturbed sings about "droppin' plates on yo' ass, bitch." I LOVE violent movies. The Pirate and I recently sat through our favorite double feature - Blade and Blade II - which not only contain cartoonish amounts of ultra-violence, but offer the welcome spectacle of Wesley Snipes with his shirt off.
But here's the rub. I would be horrified in the face of actual violence. I love movie violence, but anything real - the news, reports of killing, make me sick to my stomach and often render me depressed for days. I tried watching Amistad, but the depictions of the violence against the slaves was too much and I ended up shaky and weeping for the better part of a day because although it was a movie and those were actors, these things routinely happened.
My friend admitted the same disconnect, and it mystifies us both.