The other night, I dreamt that I had lockjaw after opening my mouth too wide; haven't had that dream in a while. I dreamt that I forced my jaw shut, rather than trying to fix it. I cracked my jaw and it hurt like hell until I woke up.
Last night I dreamt something else entirely. This morning, I opened my eyes as if I just blinked. And blinked. And blinked. And ---
Climbing -- I thought.
Walked through a house.... met someone along the way... something about disappointment. And having to choose.. And..climbing.. climbing what? Climbing onto a huge platform high off the ground. . ... Climbing. That was my key word. When I dream, most of the time I am lucid enough by the end to give myself at least one hint. The best way for me to recall.
....Damn it, I was dreaming for hours and it felt like days. Why couldn't I remember anything specific?
I am slowly losing the ability to remember them fully.
It sucks.
It is infuriating.
It makes me hate my schedule. If only I could hold on to those scenes, I wouldn't mind as much having to wake up at 6am every weekday.
Instead, I wake up feeling lost, unfinished, turned around, misplaced. That part is normal. But then I can usually lay in bed for a long while and focus on the dream (it's like watching a movie for the first time and forming memories and associations from it - forcefully placing myself in the situation....which is strange, because it's all up there in my head to begin with).
Now that I have to get up at a certain time, I pull myself up and out of bed and leave any remnant of a dream on my pillow. It just disintegrates as the day drags on and is usually gone by the time I come back.
So now I'm taking a shower, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, putting on makeup, and driving to work feeling lost, unfinished, turned around, misplaced. And I spend most of my day sitting at a desk, trying to retrace my steps.
It's hard to do that when you can't remember the last step.
That's what the key word is for. The last step.
And then the one before that, and the one before that, and so on.
I begin dream recall before I wake up, if I can tell what's going on. I will continue doing whatever I'm doing, so I'm passive lucid dreaming. But I will be totally aware of my dream memories and start memorizing it backwards. Sounds complicated, but it's not too difficult; it'd be like typing away at emails at work while thinking about some delicious lunch you just had because you can still remember the taste so well. Or playing that memory game, Simon.
Key word: _____ (something like "climbing")
What led to that key word: another key word (something like "choosing")
And what led to that key word: another key word (something like "meeting")
etc.
-- and I do this really quickly in whatever dream I'm in so that I can go as far back to the beginning as possible before I wake up so that when I do wake up,
I can do it again. And that reassures me that I was dreaming.
But because of my getting up so immediately so early, I feel like I am in the wrong state of mind all the time. I feel like I'm half there, I'm just so aware of the fact that I can't remember.
Perhaps I should just let it go and remind myself that "it's just a dream; it's not real life." But if I'm not busy or distracted by something entertaining or important, I am incomplete.
By the way, yes this is directly related to how I can lucid dream. Not as often anymore, but it still helps immensely: retracing my steps.
Because I constantly ask myself throughout the day how I got to where I am and what I'm doing, I am continuously aware of myself and my surroundings. I can tell you I am laying in this stupid bed right now and that I was downstairs before I came up to the bedroom. I can tell you that I had dinner with my family around 9 o'clock after I moved a heavy-ass table into my new apartment with my fiance. I can describe how cold it felt outside at night and the difference it makes to have a little bit of sunlight in the late afternoon. I spent most of today wrapping presents and entertaining myself with little notes to be found. I didn't have to go to the post office like I begrudgingly planned.
I had an omelette for breakfast.
And before that, I got dressed and brushed my teeth and got ready to go to the post office for, hopefully, no more than five minutes, even though I didn't want to go at all.
And not long before that, I woke up in bed.
And a few blinks of an eye before that, I was climbing....
And before that, I--
-- what was I doing, again?
No comments:
Post a Comment