Xanga Post 8: The Waterfall Dreams

This one really needs no introduction save for the statement that this entry that you are reading is the one that explains why I've taken to writing down my dreams as often as I can.

6.13.2005 __monday_____
So here's my post about my dream for today.
For the past several years, I've had dreams by a wide river. The sky was always the same - a few cumulus clouds here and there, forming a thin blanket, but the sun's rays have always shone through, and the rest of the sky was a light blue.

There were three places I would've been at - I was either at a cement platform (actually two - one on each side of a waterfall), or on the right bank of the river (view from the waterfall) behind a small marble railing (much like the railing around the altar at St. Clement's, but older and dirtier) - in those dreams, I always climbed over the railing and into the infested waters that came up to my waist, making a boy stay on the other side, even though he wanted to go in my place and protect me from what I was going in to face.
Another place I would've been was on the left bank of the river - there were ruins of a castle, but barely anything was left besides a few pillars and a bowl carved out of a windowpane (a bowl that looked like it could be picked up). There were also winding stairs that went around the window, but when I went around it, I never saw the other side of the window - it turned into another pillar.

Anyway..
I more recently had these dreams - but I noticed that I could see myself standing at the other two places from wherever I was. And I saw myself doing whatever it was that I would be doing in any other of those dreams (climbing over the railing, running around the window/pillar, disappearing on one side and reappearing on the other, looking perplexed, looking down the waterfall and standing on the edge of the platform). There were more clouds.

In yet another dream, the sky was much darker. I was in the middle of the huge river, the water now above my head. The only way I kept myself up was by treading water. Parasites and worms would swim towards me and try to eat me alive. And they would get under my skin and surround me, but I was never pulled under. Instead, the boy came in the water and pulled me out, onto the side with the ruins. He brought me to the bowl, where there were two worms, and I had to eat them, but a certain way (both at the same time) - then the parasites left me..

O-kayy.. That was just about my past dreams. Because they're connected with this one.

I was in the river again.
But.
I was smiling, there were no clouds, the sky was as clear and as blue as ever. I could see the places I would be standing, but I didn't look over for long to find myself. Instead of treading water, I was floating worrilessly, and there were no worms of any kind - in fact, the water was crystal-clear. And I would be swimming with other people, other friends (including this boy, who held me up and threw me back down, beginning a game of tag), and we had such a great time.
I heard little kids splashing around, and I got sprayed with water.

I know my description of the setting wasn't that great, but I hope you understood some of it.
If only I could illustrate them well enough. Maybe one day.

This boy is the same boy that I named "Alex." For a long while, I thought that he was a real person that I was supposed to meet, but now that sounds ridiculous. I knew it was a strange thing to hope for, and a waste of time and energy in practical terms. I then moved on to thinking that he was my guardian angel, since he always protected me or stood by my side.
And then I guess I got too busy with schoolwork and other things that I stopped seeing him every night. It became less and less frequent, until I stopped seeing him and started forgetting what he looked like (it's difficult to remember what imaginary people look like, especially when it always seems like you're seeing them for the first time even though you know you've seen them a million times before).
And then he showed up again more recently. Every few or several months' worth of dreams, I catch him standing in the background, a safe distance away from me but ready to come running. As if I'm a child who insists upon doing things on my own, without the help of others.

I am making other connections....
He could be the person I want. He is just the product of an earlier imagination that has lasted through the years, like a reliable old technology that never becomes obsolete. Like a pencil.
He takes the form of whatever I make him out to be, without ever changing. He is a very generic-looking person, from what I can remember. Golden-brown hair, tall, pretty eyes, white shirt, jeans, an attractive smile, fair-skinned. Of course. He's one of those people you can't describe further than that. But he is different. And he is quiet. But he is serious. I've never seen him smile other than to show kindness.

These dreams aren't the first ones in which I've seen him. In fact, I dreamt of him for the first time in something more like.... 6th grade, 3 or 4 years earlier. He just didn't become a regular, familiar character until later. But I know he was the same one because when I came across him for the very first time in 6th grade, he was doing what he does best: saving my ass and telling me to hide while he fixes everything.
But that dream is for another post.

The waterfall, the ledges, the ruins and railing... the river itself, and even the vegetation -- I've analyzed it all, again and again. They each always seem to have their own meanings that I can relate to, in a general sense.
They're like timeless architecture transformed into a dream -- imagine going backwards in the process of designing something. Dreams are all ideas. This series of dreams in particular are like drafts and newer models, fixed editions and final renditions. There is an order in which they are played out, working towards a goal.
It's timeless, to me, because I could take any of these Waterfall Dreams and, after studying it for a while, see that I can relate specific time frames or situations to my general interpretations (sounds like a phony newspaper horoscope).
But these dreams almost come across as happening in some kind of chronological order. So I think of the final dream as what I'm working towards. I want that final dream.

The Waterfall Dreams are obviously symbolic; you could go in any direction and take it from there.

I thought about telling you about how I would interpret everything, whether or not it's obvious to you what all the elements mean. But this entry is pretty lengthy, and I'm not sure how likely it is for people to read this if it's too long.

Despite all these paragraphs, I feel like I've written an oddly insufficient amount; that things are only starting to make sense.
Should I dedicate another entry to further explain why I'm doing what I'm doing?

Xanga Post 7: A Different Way to See

I should've put this with my previous post, but here it is anyway:

6.7.2005 __tuesday____
I had another dream about my reflection, but this time my mouth was bleeding. I don't even know where it was bleeding from, but it was bleeding.

Tell me what it means, Charlene. :p

Charlene went to school with me for one year in high school, but we learned so much about each other, and I realized that she understands so much -- about everything (including me). We still talk, but not often. I miss her.
It's possible that she's reading this right now (hi, Charlene!!!), but it's also possible she's not, and she won't see it for a while. In any case, I hope she's doing well.

I remember I would share my dreams with her and she would tell me what she thought it meant -- or vice versa. Sometimes it was serious, sometimes it was funny. Sometimes it was a combination of the two, and it kept me on my toes and reminded me not to think that every dream necessarily means anything.

It's nice to have someone to talk to about my dreams, so that I can see how they would interpret them/me. And it's exciting for me to hear about other people's dreams in return, so that I can get a different, more intimate impression of them.

As for how I would interpret this one, I would say it's about violence.
Violence doesn't have to be physical. It can be verbal.
What a literal yet figurative dream that was, however short it seemed. It was literally a reflection of myself; my person and my being, together yet separate. That dream reflection of myself was truer than my real-life reflection. Even though she didn't resemble me without error, the girl was who I am, complete with the mouth bleeding violence that goes unnoticed during the day.

Xanga Post 6: The Thin Line

Shiel, are you reading?
Is anyone reading? lol

Well, based on the visitor counter I have on the bottom of my right-hand-side menu, I had 65 visitors stop by when I last updated, 5 of whom were apparently new. The previous record was something like 41/5. That's great news to me, I hope it keeps going up... :)

Anyway, I was asking if anyone is reading because I think you/Shiel would enjoy this post. "Enjoy."

6.3.2005 __friday____
I had a dream (feel like singing "Chemo Limo") that I was looking at my reflection. I was in my old house. While I was looking at my reflection, I noticed my reflection's eyes were closed. And I was pale. So I opened my own eyes wider to make sure they were actually open. And my reflection's eyes opened slowly.. slowly. And then they opened wider. And wider. And then when she couldn't open them any wider, she started stretching her mouth.. And smiling, a huge smile. She looked like me, but.. she didn't. And she kept smiling, and then I saw her laughing, but I couldn't hear it in my dream. But I knew what it sounded like. My reflection looked demonic.
Then I woke up into another dream. I was in the same place, looking at the same reflection, still laughing at me. But then I ran away and yelled to mom that "I had a dream that my reflection wasn't my own."
Soon after, I woke up. It was 3 am and still dark. I curled up and started praying for protection until I fell asleep. But I had the dream again.

So what does it mean? I have my own idea - but what's your interpretation? ...


The other night I kept falling asleep, but every time I started falling asleep my body would go numb. And I would stop breathing, and I couldn't move. Not unless I forced myself to and tried with all my strength that I had. I didn't want to fall asleep to that feeling. It scared me.

Yeah, I wrote (and still write) in journals and blogs as if someone's actually going to answer me.
Hmm, that last part sounds like I was still new to getting sleep paralysis. That could've been the first time I got it. I wasn't stressed, I couldn't have been in Freshman year of high school. But it was the end of the school year, so I may have not been getting as much sleep as I was used to, from studying for exams.

I remember, not too long ago, my sisters and I were talking about things we do when we look at ourselves in the mirror, and one of them was trying to open your eyes as wide as you can, very slowly.
It's really freaky. Try it, you'll feel like your reflection's another person after a while.

I forgot about this dream until I dug it up a few weeks ago to work on this archiving project.
It's interesting for me to read now, because it still applies to me in more than one way.

I don't know about any of you, but I, for one, hate being the last person to go to sleep. I also hate using the bathroom at night if I'm the only one up (partially the reason I don't want to be the last one walking around the house at night). Obviously, I still go in the bathroom ---

but I almost never look in the mirror. I look down when I'm washing my hands, and I get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Although I keep the lights on, I avoid looking at my reflection in part because I'm afraid of the dark.

haha, that's funny that I should be writing this now, because
1. I am the only one awake in my house right now, and I'm the only one on the top floor.
2. I'm sitting on my bed in the dark; the only light is that coming from my laptop screen.

I'm not afraid right now, because my mind's not wandering as much. I'm focused. But when I don't have something to do and I can't sleep, then I get freaked out. My imagination's all kinds of screwed up, as I'm sure you noticed from some of the "nightmares" I've talked about before.

Looking in a mirror at night reminds me of Bloody Mary -- have any of you actually tried it? Because I have! I remember doing that one night with a couple of my sisters in my old house when I was like 7 (it was probably something like midnight); we had a candle or a nightlight in the bathroom and turned off the lights, closed the door fully, and stared into the mirror saying that phrase a few times. I wanted to run away, but I was curious (and I didn't want anyone to call me out on being scared).

No, nothing happened, but I probably had a nightmare about seeing the illuminated topography of our faces and flecks of white light in our pupils. I'd never considered it being a traumatizing memory of mine, but now that I think about it... evidently, it was, to a degree. But I've always been easy to scare (that having been said, please don't test me. I abhor pranks meant to scare the living daylights out of people, especially when they're played on me).

So there's that.
And then there are other things I think of possibly seeing in mirrors at night -- something behind me, something above me, something beside me, it goes on and on. But one of the things I really fear seeing is what I saw in my dream. I don't remember anymore if I dreamt this because of what I'm afraid of seeing, or if it's the other way around. Maybe I'm afraid of this because I saw it once already at night, in the dark, in my head.

I'm convinced my imagination has no limits when it comes to treacherous images. I don't even know what to expect, so I'm always surprised when I come up with something that seems credible or at least worthy of being a legend or fairytale.
Whether or not any of these are already stories in another town or another culture, I'm sometimes bothered that they're in my head at all, and I begin to wonder what I look like on the inside.

Full of organs and blood, I know.

But really -- when I'm tired and stressed, my imagination knows no limits (architecture is the worst choice for me, and architecture is the best choice for me).
First, it's usually auditory: I will hear people talking/screaming, or I'll catch a phrase of music I don't recognize, or I'll hear what I think is a really low-flying airplane coming towards my house.
Sometimes, I guess my delirium reaches a point where I don't just hear things; my brain tells me that I'm seeing things. Usually out of my peripheral vision, shapes take form: the silhouette of a man leaning against the door, as if guarding me from exiting through the only way out; a huge spider or something with long limbs climbs the ceiling; one time, I thought I saw the shadow of something crouching in the middle of the floor of my room (yes, in the dark). Whatever it is that I make up, I feel like I'm being watched in a bad way.
Inbetween the two kind of hallucinations (don't worry, anything that happens that's past the auditory hallucinations is pretty rare. I don't get dangerous), I very, very rarely get another sensation.
How to describe it....?

You understand how bats see the world, correct? Or how blind people who have sensitive ears and can get around by listening...?

I was about to take a nap one day when I heard a clicking noise, like it was coming from some animal (not sure what). But before I thought to look around for it, I got this feeling like I was going to be attacked by it, and I made out where it was, based on where the sound was coming from, and what all other noises (like traffic outside or music in another room) were bouncing off of. There was a ceiling corner behind me that I turned to face. There was nothing there, but I stared in amazement at the empty spot because I was sure I heard a noise come from there, and the other sounds continued to reach my ears as if the waves were bouncing off of some mass, like a huge, furry spider about to eat me.
I didn't take a nap.
But I was freaked out, because it happened in summer, in my house, when I'd gotten enough sleep the night before and I wasn't stressed about schoolwork. I wasn't even on the verge of falling asleep when it happened; I was still mentally awake (or so I thought I was). It was like my mind was inbetween the auditory and the visual hallucination and I caught it.

Geez, I am getting so sidetracked here. What was I talking about?

Right. My imagination knows no boundaries.
I can use it to play tricks on other people, but I can also unknowingly play tricks on myself. That's why I don't do scary movies, or do things like look in mirrors at night or look outside windows or sleep without a blanket covering me. I sound like a baby when I say things like that, but then I'll also say things like this:

I'm trying to run away from the coming night when I'll look in the mirror alone and see not my reflection, but my imagination. Seeing it in a dream would be no different than seeing it when I'm awake, if I'm physically drained enough.

I don't need your pranks. I prank myself.