Xanga Post 5: Sleep Cycle of Change

When you think about how much we can remember, and when you think of the countless fine-tuned emotions we have, and all the different things with which we associate them..... it's pretty amazing, what the average person is capable of retaining and connecting.

I associate the smell of summer heat with the taste of the water in the little pool that we had in my old backyard that I would run to, and how I didn't like to step on the grass when my feet were still wet.

I associate oak trees with pollen, and I associate pollen with allergies that made me nervous, and how I sometimes wouldn't be able to open my eyes that well when I was little.

I associate a certain polka-dotted blanket with the overwhelming happiness that I get when a baby laughs and wants to play hide and seek with me.

And I associate the concept of change over time with this dream, which has stuck with me for the past 5 years and made me wonder what I look like to friends new and old, and if this girl is the same as that girl in the past.

3.28.2005 __monday____
I had such a sad dream last night.
It's pretty long and there's a whole lot of detail that I have to include if I tell the whole thing.. Which you probably aren't interested in, anyway.
So the summary is that I saw everyone from my past who was ever in my class in S.C.I.S. from kindergarten to 8th grade. I saw the people who were always in my class. I saw people who were in my class for a few years or one year. I even saw a girl who was in my class for only a month. I saw them all gathered in one place. They were all changed, all different from the ones that I knew. I was the only one who didn't change.
In the end, I walked away from them and decided I had to move on and change myself.

There is an entry in my written journal that describes everything. Some of these people, I've noticed, somewhat resemble the people I saw in my dream. Others are way off. And yet others....I haven't seen.

I had no image of myself. Maybe that's why I always expect to see someone different in the mirror. I'm waiting for change. I'm expecting it. I'm calculating it.
But have I actually changed, or am I fundamentally the same girl that I think I was back then?
(I say "girl," but I'm hardly that anymore.)

I thought about typing it up in here, but I don't know if I want to. At least, not just yet. When I get around to typing up my written entries, maybe I'll have changed my mind by then.
As I said a little over 5 years ago, it's really long, and I feel like it would only mean something to me.

Sometimes I'm convinced that I think more deeply and seriously when I'm asleep. Even if the dreams themselves seem nonsensical at first, there is always at least a hint of an idea that I see. Like jumbled up words that make you think you know what it is that's supposed to be communicated.

It's just that in some sleep cycles, those hints are more developed and worked out than others.