Xanga Post 11: Sensible Nonsense

7.23.2005 __saturday____

Just had lunch a while ago, and I asked, "Did you ever hear anything when you were half asleep and think it was real?" And I was going to explain why I asked that, but I couldn't remember everything. And then we started talking about other things.

Oh, now I remember what happened last night! I was trying to fall asleep but I couldn't, so I listened to music on my CD player (didn't really help, since it was loud -_-). I was about to fall asleep, but I was only half asleep. I heard - or imagined, I guess - a conversation going on, between a man and someone else. I don't remember who else it was. But then I heard someone shout/yell, and then I opened my eyes and took off my headphones, but everyone in the house was asleep by then (that is, except for myself - and Evie, who was upstairs in her room scrapbooking until after sunrise.. lol). So I decided that it was my imagination, since I didn't hear anything after I sat up.
Then later on that night, I faced the ceiling and put the pillow over my eyes, almost falling asleep again. Then I saw inside my mind, all these doors floating in a blackness, and among those doors I came across one that didn't have a door, but had a doorway. Inside I could see something, like stairs, but they led forward instead of up or down, and a tall, thin cyprus tree. But I couldn't see beyond that because there was a mist creeping out. Then the doors slowly shifted - or I shifted - and I was led away from it; I couldn't go back because I began concentrating on going back. When I tried too hard, all I could see were the lids of my eyes.




And my dream?
Well, I don't know how one led to the other, but everything seemed to connect in my dream. We were in a mall, and two little kids ran by Evie when she was going to catch up to me from a store - one was a girl, and one was a boy, each running in opposited directions. Then Evie started talking about "children these days" and how things would be different "if" XD
And then she stopped - I thought she was thinking of what to say next to complete her sentence, but then she pulled out a square picture frame that held a snapshot of Scout from "To Kill a Mockingbird". And then we were at a house, our house, and on the wall were more picture frames. But in places were painted outlines of more frames that weren't there yet. And she placed it in one that fit.
Then we were going to Church at St. Clement, and The Beatles came out of a car o_O... And we started talking to them.. I opened the door for them.
Ringo: *sing-song* Romney!
Me: You're welcome.
Ringo: Ooo...kay..
(I think it confused him in my dream because "You're welcome" is something said in real life that makes sense at this time, and this dream made no sense)
Then we came to another door leading directly inside the church. I opened it again.
Ringo: *sing-song* You're welcome!
Me: ... Romney ...?
(And this seemed to make more sense to him.)
Ringo: Georgie!!

And that's all I remember from that point on, except for the part when I sat down in a pew by myself and beside me were the two little children again.




wth this means nothing to me

It was around this time that I started thinking about some signs of sleep paralysis. I didn't know what it was, but I knew enough about these tendencies that there ought to be a name for it.

What I imagined hearing was something with the tone of the beginning of an argument. It started out as a regular conversation, but then the voices slowly started getting higher and louder. They were interrupted by a third voice that seemed to yell at them, maybe to stop. That's when I sat up in bed, tore off my headphones, and stared into the darkness.

Sometimes, these days, I lie still when these things happen, keep myself awake enough to let it continue, and listen to what happens....
It usually repeats itself, in loops of seconds or minutes.
I hear, "Whyyy....." in my own voice, but raspy.
I hear someone call my name in a deeper whisper.
I hear resounding phrases of music.
Earlier tonight (much earlier...), when I was washing dishes with music on, I clearly heard a man's voice in the dining room behind me say loudly, "Hey! Steph!" It was a voice I hadn't recognized, so I dropped the sponge I was holding, snapped my head up, and waited. But nothing came. It's sad that I still have to turn around to make sure nobody's there. I must look like a deer in the headlights: so obvious.

The cyprus tree, and the horizontal steps.
The steps would best be described as nothing more than triangles to climb over, like an obstacle course. But in the dream, it wasn't that at all. They still worked as steps.
The cyprus tree hiding behind a curtain of fog is the beginning of another dream I had either before or after this half-dream. I think it was after this. It took place in a topiary garden/maze -- undoubtedly representing some problem I had to work out. And what was I trying to get to, in the dream? I don't know, I never finished it. Maybe that's why I've been waiting years to have that dream come to me again.

The rest of my entry isn't that important to me. But for the sake of archiving consistently, all right.

I don't know what to say about the scene with Evie talking about children, but it's interesting that she's now working on becoming a teacher for children.
Perhaps I just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird; that's my best guess.
And finally, the Beatles and Romney.
I still have no idea what that was about. But that name came up before I'd heard anything about Mitt Romney. Even then, why should his name show up in my dream? Get out.

All in all, my current response to this particular dream night is

still

wth this means nothing to me

To be nicer about it, and to give an explanation I'm sure a lot of people can relate to,
not all dreams mean anything. You can try to pull them apart and read into them in more depth, but I think that's just trying too hard. Most of the time, you're probably going to end up with something like, "I have a problem."
Well, yeah. You just dreamed about nonsense. I'd say you're pretty crazy.

Just kidding. I shouldn't be one to talk about that.

But most, if not all the time, dreams contain things that we've experienced during the daytime. It may not be that obvious when the dream is ongoing, but when you think about it later, it's crystal clear. Even if it's not very evident, it's there: things seen, heard, felt throughout the day. Things you want to ignore that cross your mind before you can stop and bury them again.

Dreams are so personal and intimate. If you had the most ridiculous dream but woke up with a bittersweet feeling, nobody else would quite understand when you try to explain it (and they may even laugh, as I'm sure you might have if you've read any of my other entries and wondered why I'm so serious about them). That emotion is attached to you and the dream; it probably is also attached to a memory or a thought, which is what makes it so personal. Trace that emotion back to its starting point, and you could actually find an underlying meaning in the nonsense you've dreamt up.
You've already done this. That bittersweet feeling I mentioned -- you know what it means when you first wake up. But then it escapes you. So either hold on to it, or try to hold on to the emotion and trace it back.
Have you ever stopped think about how vulnerable you are when you sleep, both physically and mentally?

Vulnerable to everyone, including yourself.

Xanga Post 10: Denying

Okay. Well, first of all, I apologize for the neglect of this blog in the past month... It started out as a lack of inspiration and, unless I'm writing for a grade, I really don't see much motivation in doing something as analytical and detailed as going over my past thought processes and personality.

Then I was actually busy with things around the house, and then Independence Day weekend came around, and then ---- - - - -- I got lazy.

But after seeing Inception once, I wanted to write again. After seeing Inception for the second time today, I decided I had to get this thing moving along. I mean, come on. Lucid dreaming, architecture, people formed by your subconscious, absolutely no limitations as to what can happen and what our minds can create.... Take what you've seen in that movie, and think about how much more we can dream of that can't even be recreated by computers and special effects. Colors we don't have names for, time fragments overlapping yet making perfect sense.

Too many times, I've started something and haven't followed through with original plans. Projects, papers, stories that stop after 2 chapters (the farthest I've ever gotten in a fictional story is 15 chapters.....it's lost somewhere in a floppy disk). The only things that I know I've completed time and time again are my treasured journals. And while there are things that I will never share with everyone on the Internet so obviously, I will share myself in a different way, even if still as completely.

One day, I will tell you more about the Waterfall. For now, let's continue, shall we?

7.15.2005 __friday____

My dream was very... It.. It told so much about myself. I don't know myself because I want so much to be someone else. The only reason I can think of that I don't know myself is that I refuse to believe it. But I know..

In my dream last night... This boy - after not seeing him for a long time, I met him again (you can decide if this sentence has to do with my real life or my dream - or both). And I thought it would be fine. I thought I'd be okay with it, that I got over it, but I don't know if I did. Maybe that's one of the things I refuse to listen to when my inner light says something.

Anyway.

In the dream, we were just hanging out. I don't remember where we were, but I think we were at my old house. And something happened. So I became upset. And I didn't want everyone else to know, so I went up to what was my room. I didn't expect him to follow me, but he did. And I shut the door, and turned around to see his concerned and inquisitive face watch me, and I knew he wanted to know what was the matter...

I really had no real reason to be this angry. I had no reason to lock myself in my room and sulk. But I told him my secrets about myself and opened up to him like I've never done before, whether in life or dreams. And he hugged me, but at the same time he was still sitting on the edge of the bed next to me, staring at the floor. Then he helped me pull myself together.

Then time went by and the dream skipped the rest to go right to the next important part. (But in my head, I knew what happened in the time skipped - after much talking and sharing secrets with each other, we felt like we didn't even need to talk, and just sat there in silence - but not an awkward silence.) We were still in my room, but he was asleep and curled up on my bed. I was sitting on the farther end of the bed, left with my own thoughts. Had I been alone, I would've been talking out loud.. But since he was there (even though he was asleep), I didn't say anything. Even in my dream, I was thinking about how I don't know myself, and how even I didn't expect to tell him that much. Then I stopped thinking altogether and waited. I don't know what I was waiting for.

Then someone was able to open my locked door.. And made me wake him up. He looked like he was never asleep, because he woke up easily and wasn't groggy. He looked at me and gave me another hug, but again, at the same time, he stood up and led the way out of the room. Then we went downstairs. I noticed by the time the dream was fading out that he had his arm around my shoulders to comfort me and let me know he was there for me. I was thinking that he wasn't really doing that, just like he might not have been hugging me. But he was.





But he wasn't.





And then the dream ended.


-----------------
Does anyone else seem like English, in dreams, just doesn't work? Do you have a different language? Because.. I do.. am I just weird? There are feelings and explanations that can't be translated into English, and that's why my dreams to me make so much sense, but I can't decipher it in the language that all of you would understand. And that's why I always wish I could capture them straight from my "imagination" and literally show you my mind..

Oh, I know there's my whole life that's contained in that one dream, and I can put to words only so much. And even if I tried for a day, I couldn't explain it all to you. You know, I'm a lot more than you think I am. I know because I have many different faces. And I only show less than half of them. The others are in my words. And blank stares. If you've been able to pick them out, thank you.

Later on in my entry, I mentioned that the boy in my dream was not Alex. But when I think about it, I vividly remember sitting beside a boy who looked and acted like him. He wore a white T-shirt, blue jeans, had dirty blonde hair, and deep eyes. He would be the one to silently remind me of reason and keep me calm. If I try to recall other dream characters, familiar and unfamiliar alike, I can't quite pick another one out who was as reasonable, sane, or reassuring as him. Like I mentioned before (or perhaps I haven't yet, here): he was my protector. He'd keep me from dying, from being caught, from being seen. Who knows what I was running from?

I do.

(or i think i do)

Matt is very much like him when he needs to be...

I also do remember dreaming of my old house. No longer am I unsure of what the setting was in this dream from 5 years ago. It's as if it's a memory from last year. I was in the living room of my house, with the furniture set up as it was a couple of years before we moved out. There was a house party going on, with aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins everywhere. And the boy.

There was music playing, people were laughing, and the smell of food was in the air. It was mid-afternoon when I remembered something from my past (even in the dream, I thought of things that actually happened), and my disposition turned sour. It was dangerous, I thought, to remain in the company of all those happy people, so for their sake and, I guess, for my own, I went upstairs to the bedroom I shared with my sisters and walked across the floor.
After I turned around and saw Alex standing by the dresser like a curious, sympathetic cat, I let him come inside and locked the door. I wasn't quite sure if that was the right thing to do or not, but it was the safest thing for me to do.

The rest of the dream is accurate.
Again, it's easy yet difficult to explain the issue of overlapping instances of time. Easy, because obviously I could find the words to describe it as best I could: it happened, but it didn't.
Difficult, because..... well, can you imagine it without exerting a lot of effort? It happened. But it didn't. He hugged me. But he didn't. I'm not being figurative at all. He literally (well, "dream-literally") hugged me, and yet he was 5 feet away from me, sitting on the carpet.

One more thing I've noticed this time around.
Thinking about my subconscious, isn't it a bit strange that I wanted to hide something from people who weren't real? People I created in my mind? I was hiding from myself.
I used a similar vocabulary in the first paragraph of that original entry, but I don't think I understood it the same way. I just saw myself as wanting to hide things from people in real life.

Now I see myself as having attempted to hide things from none other than my self.

Denying who I was. Possibly, who I am.

When I began typing tonight, I didn't know I'd end up writing these things.
This dream blog is getting dangerous.

Xanga Post 9: The Nature of Religion and the Religion of Nature

I'm sorry for the lack of posts. It seems that once I get started on updating regularly, something comes up that keeps me busy, or tired, or uninspired. All three of those have happened over the last few days. Just so you know, when I say I'm going to update in a day or two, I really mean that I intend to update in a day or two, as do all people when they say things like that. But in my case, I seem to jinx myself every time. Maybe I should just stop.

I said I was going to continue analyzing the waterfall dreams. I WILL.

..... tomorrow. Because I need a book (a dream dictionary and encyclopedia) to help me argue my points. This book is in another room where there are sleeping people. :/

So I'll come back to that, once again.

Continuing on.....

7.14.2005 __thursday____
When on the highway, I look at the trees that have been cut off from each other by roads, and see the walls that were built around them. But the walls and roads seem like they won't last long at all. Vines and branches of trees are growing over and around.
I feel like climbing over the wall to the other side, under a canopy of trees. But maybe farther down would be more roads, more civilization. Or a cliff....leading to a river below. And keeping an eye out for that one river, I end up thinking that it's on the other side of these man-made walls that line the highways that we take. It could be right there, and I don't know it.
And all the trees seem so animated and alive, somehow. I almost expect them to move without the wind helping. In my head I've come up with my own explanation that these were once mythical beings, like wood nymphs, that have permanently turned to trees while they were dancing, when they saw humans were cutting and building and tearing. Might sound dumb to you, but it makes more sense to me when I don't say it out loud for everyone to hear. It makes sense when it's not written down. Which I have done, so now I'm thinking twice about it.
I don't really know if what I wrote so far has meant anything at all.



For some reason, I fell asleep last night and woke up this morning with this on my mind: What's a Satan worshiper's heaven and hell? If he worships Satan, does heaven even matter to him anymore? But if he's to be punished, what would be his hell? Would it be all the things he hates, combined in one? Because it's not always a place. But what if everything he hates is heaven? Would he be placed in a fake heaven? But...if he was to be punished, would Satan be proud of him? So.. would he automatically go to hell?




don't worry, it's not like i worship satan

I don't.
So I thought about this again, and the answer is obvious to me now: his heaven is his hell, and his hell is his heaven. They are one and the same -- because how can he deserve a "hell," since that would mean he is answering to God instead of to Satan? That's like saying, "Oh no, I did a good deed today...." My point being that it's easier to sin than to do good, most of the time.
Then again, what is sinning to them, and what is good?
So Satan's followers must believe that there's a heaven, since we Catholics/Christians believe that there is a hell. It's just a matter of which "side" you're on, I guess.

All right, that's enough discussion of that. I don't know much about it, and I don't feel like researching on it. It was merely something to think about that always ends with me greatly appreciating my religion, as I like to do.

I did a lot of imagining when I was younger, sitting in the back of the van and staring out the window. I pretended that rolling hills were the backs of hibernating dinosaurs and if you dug into them with backhoes and such, they were killed. I also listened to the different sound that the car would make when the wheels go over concrete sections; it sounded like a shrieking dragon in the distance.
So when I had these waterfall dreams, I always tried to look for it. When driving on the highway, I would look at the tops of trees as if I could recognize them in a split second. I never did, but I always told myself to look for them. Sometimes, I was so sure I saw something I knew that I wished we would pull over on the shoulder so that I could climb over the wall and see for myself. I would go to sleep reminding myself to pay attention to the foliage above my head if I happened to dream of standing on the ledge by the waterfall, but I could never remember.
And one day, I stopped actively searching. If I do it now, it's more of an afterthought.

As for the "mythical beings, like wood nymphs"....man, that does sound dumb. But hear (read...?) me out.
Think of them as Pan's Labyrinth-type creatures, or those of Greek mythology, frozen like Dr. Who's weeping angels, with movements as slow as the Ents of Tolkien. Someone's always watching them, or around them, so they can't move. They only way they can move when we look at them is if the wind is passing through. And wild trees are different from those that we grow and plant, lined up as soldiers or guards ready to serve.

The image in my head of what nature looks like and how it really works eventually leads to the thought of the inevitability of ruins. It's going to happen.
Think about how much effort is put into the maintenance of local roads, highways, buildings, and landscapes. I love to see plants growing over the walls and rails of highways; sometimes, it's simply a wall of green. Seeing abandoned buildings overrun by overgrown grass and vines, or little trees growing in gutters of dilapidated structures is more intimidating. If plants can break rocks so delicately, they'll have no trouble in squeezing through crevices between bricks where old mortar crumbled away. Nature poses a constant battle against us and will one day claim the planet again. We'll be gone, and we'll be covered up and forgotten.

< / The Happening >

jk I watched like 3 minutes of that movie and then decided to watch the newest episode of Community instead.

Before I fall asleep...

I just wanted to let you know that I will write a real update soon, continuing my most recent post. I also have a hell of a lot more to write (I have something like 30 total dreams just from my one Xanga; don't even get me started on how many I wrote out in journals or typed up in my other Xanga). I'm afraid to do the math in my head according to my pace in writing recently, but let's just say that if I continue writing only a couple of updates a week, then this little project of mine is gonna take.... . . . .

... . . . . ..a long-ass time.

At least you, the reader, know that you'll have plenty to read for a good number of months/years. And yes, I have been dreaming new things since I started from the beginning of the archive. I've been jotting them down or typing them up, so they're being recorded. I just don't want to mess up the chronological order.

So keep checking back; if all goes well, there will be something new here in a day or two! And, as always, thanks for stopping by. :) I am excited to write all this knowing that I have some faithful readers -- you make it worthwhile.

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.

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.

Xanga Post 4: Running on Axons

When I go over entries that I've written before, and I mention dreams, they tend to be somewhat vivid. It's actually sort of a rare thing for me if I remember dreams with so much detail, as if it was real life. When I focus on recalling a dream in the morning, I try to concentrate on how/what I felt when I woke up, or what I remember seeing or hearing last. From then on, if I'm lucky and I remember my whole dream, that dream's trigger is the same trigger that helped me remember it in that first morning.

But the exceptionally detailed and vivid recollections of dreams are what drive me to write them down as soon as I wake up and remember the scenes in the right order that I dreamt them (it's funny that there's still a kind of order in how dreams are laid out -- there's still a sense of time, even though time doesn't matter when you live in your head).

There was no one thing that led me to remember this dream. In fact, there were several.

A brick wall. Two red fans. A man in a robe, with two black fans. A stage. More brick walls oriented to create a labyrinth. And a young man.

3.25.2005 __friday____
I found the place that I dreamt about two years ago. I wrote down the dream after I dreamt it, and I found out yesterday that it's actually the Northstar Bar, where the concert was! At least, I think it is. It's oddly very similar to it... o_O Freaked out, or kind of fascinated..? I don't know, myself. I've never even been there before yesterday. (I really felt like climbing the wall and seeing if I could get through that vent) Oh my gosh.. And I saw someone else that looked like a guy in the dream, and he went to the concert, too.. And now I'm never going to see him again.. Probably. Aah!

Of course, I can't honestly say that's what it was. But there's a 98% chance that.....my mind made it up, and the Northstar Bar seemed to be an uncanny resemblance at the time (but if I went there today, I'd probably still insist upon the two things being one and the same -- it's all just wishful thinking, with me).

In more detail (but still summarized)...
I had a dream that was like most of my dreams around this time -- it started with me climbing over my bedroom wall. I would fall asleep and "open my eyes" in my dream, still feeling like I was awake. I'd be facing up, staring straight ahead. But what I thought was the ceiling was quickly identified as the sky, when a boy's hand would reach over the wall and wait for me. I would climb up on my bed and hoist myself over the wall with his support, and we would climb into a vent and crawl into a dream.

In this particular one, we ended up finding our way to a dark room with walls of typical red bricks, old mortar chipping away. I went over to a far wall and noticed that there were footholds that I could use to climb up (there was a lot of climbing and exploring that occurred, back then).
Again, there was no ceiling -- just some artificial-looking sky that confused the brain until one saw a person standing on top of the wall.
When I got to the wall, I stood up and saw that there was more than what I could see from down below. The boy stayed on the floor, looking up at me nervously (I named him Alex in one dream, either before or after this one, because I'm almost sure that's what he told me his name was) -- I told him there were pathways. He knew what I was talking about, but he didn't budge.
I looked at a sudden wall behind me and saw that there were two red fans, whose radii were equal to at least 2/3 the length of my outstretched arm. I picked them up and understood them to be weapons. The edges of the cloth shone brilliantly in some light behind me. They were flexible blades that could slice so thinly that you couldn't find the line of its cut unless you studied it closely.

I looked up to see a slender, menacing man standing on the opposite end of the wall, wielding his own fans readily.

Now.
Think of what an axon looks like.
No, not the nerve fiber kind of axon, but the architectural kind: an axonometric projection.
Like this (the floor plan sucks, by the way....but this is apparently what Anne Frank's family apartment looked like....... ANYWAY)

Some of the walls continued above us, for another floor or two. Others stopped as they would in a regular axon. Now imagine balancing on .. hmm... 4-5 inch-thick brick walls while a 5'-9" man on the opposite side wants to fight you. With fan blades.

I don't remember how it ended now, but up until that point, everything was and still is crystal clear. I even remember the hand motions and the dexterity with which I moved, and which walls I stood upon -- we jumped around in our fight. Ran along walls. Sliced curtains with the fans. He cut my sleeve at one point, and so I cut his pant leg and saw a trickle of blood stain them a darker shade. That made him come after me furiously, but it slowed him down a little bit, since half of the fight was just running, jumping, and balancing.

It was a different kind of labyrinth study. Instead of wandering around between walls, I ran on top of the them.

Xanga Post 3: Time House

2.12.1005 __saturday____
I had a weird dream. I don't remember all of it, but it was bright, and it was like a movie - there was a family in a huge house that looked like it could be a private school or something. It was in the past, like in the 1700s-1800s. The walls were white, and the stairs were narrow, and on each landing there were two white doors. I was seeing through a man's eyes, and I didn't want to open the doors because I was afraid of what was on the other side - I thought the house was haunted and that the ghosts were trying to find me.. It was so weird!.. It was really long, too.

I think it turned into another dream later on. The man - I - was now in this time period, and he was trying to get back to his own century. It doesn't make sense now, but it made perfect sense in my dream. He was standing outside of the house because it was still standing in the present time, and he had a cell phone. He dialed a number and a woman picked up the phone, and he started talking about how he doesn't know how he got here but he has to come back - the woman was his sister or something, I think. (she wouldn't be able to answer the phone because he can't call people in the past - and phones didn't exist then, either.. so..my mind is weird.. lol) She didn't answer him, but she hung up, and I don't think he ever got back. haha

I don't know what any of that meant, haha. But it reminds me of The Lake House (which, in viewing, I did nothing but point out things that were wrong or impossible -- which was everything).

I, uh... really don't have that much to say about this dream. I wish I could remember more of it.