this will be just like all the other times.

Originally to be posted 7/30/2011

Another zombie apocalypse dream; how many have I had?

This one was different, however (that's what I always tell myself) -- this time, it was what happened before the end that inspired my dream.

I was back in DC, getting used to the way things are. I stood in the middle of a Metro train, gripping onto a pole and struggling to hold a conversation with my friend and roommate, Claire. It was bright and sunny outside, hinting at a late summer or early autumn afternoon, but the atmosphere seemed dead and silent. We were just rounding a corner when the train began to slow and jolted to a stop.

Nobody minded it. This happens sometimes, such as when trains of opposing traffic have to share the tracks....

Claire stopped mid-sentence to pull out her phone and read a text. As she did, the train began to move again. The lights flickered a bit.

She put her phone back in her purse and I asked, "What is it?"

After thinking carefully of how to phrase it, she replied, "They just took another one off of the train."

There was some sickness going around, some kind of fever or flu. And all the hype of its contagious nature went along with it. So, naturally, I tried to act like this kind of stuff happens all the time. It was just like the H1N1 virus going around. Everyone got it. I did. But we all got better eventually, and so this would be just like it.

But people were vomiting on trains and their skin seemed to melt off in the streets as they tiredly rubbed at irritations. And we all felt paranoid of breathing in dead skin cells or being too close to a sneeze in the more congested areas of the city.
Although there were still droves of tourists going around downtown, there were significantly less of them.
And you could feel the tension everywhere.

There was one more taken off the train. And now the train stalled. Everyone in that singular car, somewhere on the Metro, swore to themselves that they could feel themselves contracting the illness.

Someone gagged in the car in which I stood.
Another woman looked at me with bloodshot eyes.

A couple of dream-days later, I felt like I was on fire. I didn't want to be near anyone, but I didn't want to tell them, either...that while I looked fine on the outside, I could feel myself burning up on the inside with a strange fever; that the symptoms began before you could even show it; that half the "healthy" people they interacted with were probably not that healthy; and that they would feel it in a few hours.

two accounts of sleep paralysis

Originally to be posted 7/9/2011

1. Wednesday morning.

I couldn't fall asleep until after 6, and I had a doctor's appointment at 9, so I only slept for about 2 hours. When I arrived back home, I fell asleep on the couch after a while of Internet surfing. And I stayed there, unmoving, for about 4 hours.

I'm not sure how long this played out, but I semi-woke up in the middle of my nap and realized my body was tingling. My legs were hanging off of the couch as if I was half-sitting, and my back felt very uncomfortable, like I was bent the wrong way. I closed my eyes again even though they were barely open. When I squinted again, I saw Anjel walking around me to pick up her guitar and leave again.

When I actually woke up, I'd never moved from my spot, and the guitar was still there. I don't think Anjel was home. My back felt fine, but I distinctly remembered the feeling I had before, as if it was real.

2. Last night.

I heard a secret. I don't remember what it was, anymore, but I was in that almost-dead state when I heard a full-on conversation in my head. It wasn't me making it up (but of course it was) -- it just flowed, and I could tell there was some other part of me that was merely eavesdropping.

Can you imagine that, trying to figure out what you're simultaneously making up?

There were two people in the conversation, a man and... maybe another man, or a woman. I can't remember.

The first line of the conversation was the secret itself. Something I wasn't supposed to hear. The second speaker noticed I was there and said, "Don't talk about it."

1: What, you mean the _____ --

2: I said, Shh. She's listening. H.

1: B.

They went on to say a series of words and letters I didn't know or wasn't sure of.

after it's over.

Originally to be posted on 4/3/2011

A few nights ago I dreamt of "after the end of the world" -- after it froze over, that is.

The sky was perpetually dark. The only thing that still looked beautiful to us were the stars above. There was nothing warm left in the world except for that light. Somewhere, the moon was in the sky, illuminating the snow around me.

I was in a camp with a small group of other people, maybe about 20 or so. We were all spread out in little clusters, families huddled together in their tents. I didn't understand why we were all spread out, we should've been closer.

Some of them tried to build igloos but they didn't understand how to do it properly, so I decided to try to teach them myself.

Sometimes

I lose track of time when I doze off on the couch.
And the noises in my head aren't necessarily loud. They're just many.
They drown out sounds like the AC window unit.

Just imagine me reading this aloud to you. A normal, conversational level of sound.
Now multiply that by 30..... 30 people in a living room.

Those are so many voices.

Into a Memory

I'm finished school. For now, anyway.
Grad school will happen in a year or so, but until then... well. We'll see. :)

With all this spare time I have now (it's actually not that much, but I'm no more busier than I was before), I've been having such long dreams again. They never really went anywhere, because I'd been dreaming more frequently nearer to the end of the school year....but I missed them. I'm not sure if you know what I mean.
I think I just missed the feelings that come with dreams so strongly, sometimes.

There was one dream in particular, a couple of weeks ago, in which I found myself in my old house. It was as if it was present day - I was back from school for the weekend, so I didn't bring any clothes with me. I would just use whatever clothes I left at home.

I went up to my bedroom and opened the closet. There were all my clothes from when I was younger.
Younger...like 11 or 12 years old. A shirt I'd never thought about since it was either given to cousins or donated to some charity hung on a plastic hanger. I touched it, and it still felt as smooth as the last time I wore it. It was one of my favorite shirts; I liked the way it made my arms look. I'd forgotten about that.
There was a faint scent of moth balls coming from somewhere on the shelf above, now closer to my head than when I was child. A Halloween costume of a magician's assistant was in the same place I always kept it. I forgot about it at one point, growing up. But by the time I remembered it again, I was too big for it. I never wore that costume. Yet there it was in the back.
Even my old shoes.
Waiting for me.

Now that I think about it, I again can't remember what some of those clothes looked like. But when I opened that closet and saw all of that, there was no inkling of a doubt that I was looking at my old wardrobe. I became so aware of myself that I knew I was dreaming.
And so I explored that memory. It's as if I was sucked into a picture. Where would the boundary end? How far could I go into the closet before everything got blurry?
Sure enough, the closer I moved to my sister's side of the closet, the less often I found items that meant something to me. I could feel myself falling back into the dream as a passive dreamer. But if I stayed in my area, I could change that closet as much as I wanted to and I felt no weight of the dream. Nothing was in danger of being completely changed when I moved things around. Every item of mine was so thoroughly defined in color, texture, fabric, wear and tear...simply from memory. In fact, the longer I stayed there and moved my clothes around, the more surely I felt the carpet beneath my feet and smelled food cooking downstairs and even felt the warmth of the window sunlight falling on my leg.
I felt like I was in my house.
And I felt so out of place...like I was invading someone else's mind. Breathing someone else's air.
In dreams, as I'm sure many of you have experienced, words might not actually be spoken or thought. Language doesn't work the same when you don't have to physically speak to communicate.
So I didn't actually think any of this word-for-word. But I suppose it went through my mind in a blink of an eye somewhat like this:
This isn't me. This is who I was. I don't know if I've changed or by how much, but I would rather not find out so bluntly from my own younger self. Please don't walk into the room. If I'm different, let it come as news from someone else who's also grown up and changed. Not you. Not me. 
Luckily, I woke up in bed right as I felt her presence growing stronger in the hall, accidentally summoned by my own thoughts. Scared awake.

One of my good friends from when I was that age (and who did grow up and change, as we all do) gave me a present the other day: a book about the psychology involved in architecture.

So attentive are our eyes and our brains that the tiniest detail can unleash memories. The swollen-bellied 'B' or open-jawed 'G' of an Art Deco font is enough to inspire reveries of short-haired women with melon hats and posters advertising holidays in Palm Beach and Le Touquet.
Just as childhood can be released from the odour of a washing powder or cup of tea, an entire culture can spring from the angles of a few lines  

- Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness 

 (yes, it is the book from "500 Days of Summer" if you've seen it) 

I'm not sure if I like dreaming of memories. Even still-frames like how that dream felt. That makes me feel even more trapped, because there's really nowhere to go.

And I know there's nothing to be afraid of in being told that I've changed. Of course I've changed; I like to tell myself they're for the better. I guess I just don't want to meet my younger self and find out that I'm a disappointing adult. If I forgot that I remembered those clothes and shoes, imagine what I could remember of my own self that I'd forgotten. Where did I think I would be in 10 years, and have I reached it? We like to think of the past as if it was awesome -- and it was. But then there are things that happened. We didn't just play around as kids until the sun set, scuffing our knees and yelling. We observed things. We learned. And we thought - a lot. We had our own opinions of things, whether or not we shared them with others.
If I spoke with her and she seemed to have a mind of her own (a thorough definition such as my shirts), she could speak for herself without a problem. I could move her around and she wouldn't change her mind. I could ask her questions and she would answer. But I didn't know what she would say. I might get stumped. Then what?
The memory of a person, even if it's subdued, makes that person......real, in a dream. And possibly unpredictable. That's what I realized as I went through my memory closet.

That's what terrified me.

On Van Eeden, LaBerge, and Hobson

Currently, I am writing a paper for my psychology class. What else shall I talk about other than architecture in dreams?

It didn't occur to me to research on my own, before this paper was assigned. Almost everything I've ever written about or thought of came from my own mind. I never know about Frederik van Eeden, who gave lucid dreaming its name, or Stephen LaBerge until a few weeks ago. So I really don't know much about what I've been exploring in myself for the past.... 10 years (I began in 2002).

However, even though I haven't read up on all these philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and studies beforehand, I've come to the same conclusions myself on many topics. So I suppose I should say I know what I'm talking about, based on personal experience and observations, not from textbooks.

Something I've been struggling with is finding texts about architecture, specifically, in dreams. But I came across this chapter on the cognitive unconscious, written by influential dream researcher Allan Hobson, which explains well the influence of the waking world (read: built world) on the dream world:

Are the brain's perceptual structures unconscious? Certainly. How else could I see, with surrealistic clarity, my dream bird hat with no external stimulus? In waking consciousness, every perceptual encounter is a match between an internal structure and an external stimulus. Without visual experience, the blind do not see -- either in their dreams or when their sight is magically restored. In this view the brain is an image file, but remember, it is much more than that, because it can fabricate new images as well as call up old ones. My bird hat is a good example of this novel image-making capability. It is this creative aspect that is at the center of the recent debate between psychoanalysts and cognitivists regarding the nature of the unconscious mind.

As soon as a percept suggests a scene -- be it my internally generated bird hat in a dream or the aquamarine Mediterranean Sea shimmering now beyond my vine-covered balcony -- my cognitive unconscious seeks to situate the stimulus in a context. The time: What day is today? The place: Where am I? And the personnel: Who is with me? If I attend to any of a myriad details, the answer -- in waking -- is unequivocally clear, because the context is given by the world. This is Stromboli. The volcano smokes above me. The Miramar Hotel porch with its characteristic Aeolian architecture frames my view. The cast of characters, the blend of my first and second families, has a reassuring unity. My son Ian has brought me the Gazetta del Sud, July 23, with its lurid tales of Mafia mischief. The chambermaid strolls by, singing, "La prima amore no si scordo mai," and even though I am busily writing, I know her song means sthat one's first love is never forgotten.

Without this external structure -- and without full access to attention or recent memory -- my cognitive unconscious does the best it can in my wedding dream. It creates the context, George Vaillant's house and garden, with a nodding obeisance to certain rules: the house is old, stylish, rambling, and full of antiques. The garden is intricate, full of terraces, walls, perennials, fountains, and hidden places. So far so good. These are the formal features of the Vaillant manse in Dedham, Massachusetts, all right. But they are organized in a completely novel way. So novel, in fact, that when I awake, I will be puzzled, if not downright consternated, by their imperfect fit with reality.

The incongruence between the dream house and the real house is surprising because now, awake, I can visualize the actual house quite easily. I could even draw a floor plan and a map of the garden that I believe would be quite accurate. To account for such a glaring discrepancy, I need to consider factors other than the absence of waking context signals. My cognitive unconscious has clearly different operating properties in dreaming. It is not only inattentive to perceptual detail, but also inattentive to its inattentiveness! I have lost the ability to image accurately. And I have lost the ability to monitor my inaccuracy. What is missing? The superego? I doubt it. A brain chemical? I am sure of it.

But a fair exchange is no robbery, as the saying goes. My cognitive losses are compensated. For my loss of perceptual and orientational accuracy, I have gained autocreative freedom. I could never in waking create so convincing a false scenario as I effortlessly dream.

My confabulatory powers are enhanced. So are my artistic talents: I paint a more colorful picture of myself than any photograph could possibly record. In my dream, I am a Fellini character costumed in grotesque, comical garb. This is why the surrealists working with Andrew Breton were so interested in dreaming. And it is why even more traditional writers, like Robert Louis Stevenson, for example, so frequently turn to dreams when stuck for a plot solution. Stevenson said he could reliably consult with his dream brownies (or fairies) when he needed a fabulous fiction. His Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde transformation was born of one such dream dialogue.

Hobson, Allan J. (1999). Consciousness. New York, NY: Scientific American Library (48-50).

Writing a dream--

--is actually kind of complicated.

A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I made a video for a competition. Sadly, we didn't win anything, but we got a lot of recognition and compliments from everyone. And we had a blast filming. With that project over and done with, I decided I'm not ready to call it quits yet. I'm still in the short-film-making mood.

There's another film festival that I'm considering entering with my sisters, although if we miss the deadline (Monday), that's okay -- we're just doing this for fun.

This time, the focus of the movie is on dreams. Surprised? I hope not.

For many people, dreams don't have any structure to them at all; they're completely random in how they play out, how one thing ties in with another, and the dreamer's logic is all out of sync, too. That's all well and good, but when making a film about dreams, it would be kind of a waste to just film whatever,

put it together,

and call it a dream.

I would like for there to be some structure to it.

It's the architect/engineer in me, I guess.

How else could you convey a sense of cohesion, otherwise?

My sister and I spent a couple of hours tonight mapping out the movie, from scenes to transitions. Transitions and details are of the utmost importance in this movie, I think. They serve as reminders, explanations, or enigmas. While the dream sequence in and of itself is nonsensical, it kind of does make sense as a whole -- but that's only possible with all of these transitions. Otherwise, not only would it be choppy and poorly-edited, but also completely random and hard to understand.

Me, I like organized chaos.

So while it's difficult to think on a more detailed level during the sketching phase, it's all necessary. If it doesn't make sense now, I think the finished product will clarify that for you.

In coming up with this movie, we essentially wrote out a dream from beginning to end, with all of the phenomena I've experienced. That means that I get to show you what I've been through! To a degree. I can only do so much to make the viewer feel involved.

I don't want to say too much without giving anything away, so for now...

just know that a short movie is in the works.

And you bet I'm gonna post it here when it's done.

Rewind, Again

I've given myself an assignment.

Over spring break, while I'm recovering from the stress of schoolwork... I'll delve into my memory for true architectural dreams. That's the point of this blog after all, isn't it?

Sketches. Diagrams. I'm excited to start.

I know that nothing I draw will ever come close to what I've seen in my imagination. The mind is a wondrous thing that I'll never understand. But I like to think that if I can figure out these floor plans, sections, and elevations, and begin to stitch these dream worlds together -- because I've seen borders of dreams intertwine with new and old ones -- I like to think that if I can do that... then that is the equivalent of me figuring myself out.

What scares me is what kind of conclusion I would come to. What if things DO make sense after I try to reconstruct them? It seems logical to me that they should be ridiculous.

They should be nonsensical. Why should I adhere to the laws of physics of this world when I dream? I don't need to.

So I think I want things to make sense.

But how true is that? If you could analyze yourself and come to a conclusion about what kind of a person you are -- that there was absolutely no doubt about it -- would you want to know?

Suppose you don't agree with what you discover, but you can't change.

These better not make sense at all.

Another concern of mine is that since I didn't draw these in detail right after dreaming them....how accurate will they be? To you, they're as accurate as anything else because they'd be the first time you see them. But for me, I.... I don't know if I could tell.

It's like "fixing" memories over the years.

But I knew this was going to happen. That's why I began writing them down so many years ago.

So, anyway.

One week! Then it begins.

Unsent

Drafts that I'd typed up in my phone upon remembering dreams....

From oldest to most recent:

• Got on a bus, missed something, went back, music in a sort of open mall. Think shopping village in Milan. Music by Hanson (not a real song). Almost got stuck on the bus. Man talks to me.
• Eagles atop tree. Rome group. Eric leaves. Steph pins up maps and they look like dancers. Sleep paralysis -- mom by the bed.
• Field trip, small class. Bright, crisp day, early spring. Old neighborhood, young people. Old, scary church closed. Surrounded by old, marble walls. Enter, find entrance -- church is now a home. Doorknob is a knocker. Inside, just as dirty, leaves everywhere, paint chipping, see someone, run out, landscape has changed but I figure it out, hop the wall, run through bushes, bleeding, grab friends and go.
• Complete AR Lab. Solid masses (stone) with dramatic inset windows. And vice versa (glass around stone cubes) -- interaction on all levels, even street. Gorgeous. Sketch it.
• At a party, random placement of chairs. Dark lighting, Telepopmusik, sipping beer. Steph sits down in a chair across from me. "I thought you went home for the weekend?" "I did, dumbass." Leans in closer, music stops. "I'm not really here." Don't know how to respond.
• Back at old house, looking for clothes in the closet. Haven't seen these in years, and nothing fits. Fix the bed. Fight with Matt. Lots of screaming, furious crying. But I can't get through to him.
• Riding bikes around near home, lift bike onto blue porch, trespass, tell Matt I do this all the time... he goes around to the front of the house, I continue to the back. Wait for him there. Wake up.

Tap Tap Tap

::edit, February 12, 2012, 00:06::

I began this entry with nothing in the body. Just the title.

I wish I remembered what the point of this was. It gives me shivers of a memory, but I can't pinpoint it...

It's like trying to trace back your train of thought.....but you don't even know where your starting point is, or how far back you're trying to remember....

Ever get that feeling?

Or, speaking of feelings,

have you ever tried to recall a memory or a conversation solely based on a feeling? because that feeling is really the only thing you can remember? It takes me days, sometimes....

Tap, tap, tapping on memories, trying to shake something loose.

nope. it's not coming to me.