5:45am

While everyone else is still awake, I'll write this.

It must have been three weeks ago by now, but it's been in my mind ever since: one of the most convincing, odd, false awakenings I've ever experienced.

My alarm is set for 5:45am. I woke up (or "woke up" -- I'm still not sure) around 5:30, checked the time, sighed at how I wouldn't be able to get more sleep, and closed my eyes again.

Then my alarm went off. It seemed to be too soon, but I thought, Whatever. I guess I dozed off.

So I turned it off. Lay in bed for a while.

Just before I picked myself up, I felt a presence beside me. And then behind me. But because I was lying on my stomach and my face was in my pillow, I couldn't see anything.

No, I wasn't paralyzed. At least, I don't think I was at first.

What was so strange about this one was that I just..... didn't care to move. I felt very relaxed even though I knew that I wasn't alone in the room. I didn't care that my blankets began to feel heavier, as if they'd been soaked in water. There was a weight all around me, but I told myself, It's okay. This is normal.

Another distant voice in my head urgently whispered to me to head for the door. Here's how you do it: don't look up. But don't look directly at the floor, either. Please don't. Please, please don't. Roll out of bed and go straight for the doorknob. Please. Do it. NOW.

I didn't do it.

That voice came and went, but the tone of urgency got confused, and suddenly a hissed --It's okay. This is normal. made me stay perfectly still as I began to slide along my bed.

And very calmly, Go straight for the doorknob.... just faded away. I could feel my head touching the edge of my bookcase at the head of my mattress before I began to slowly float in the opposite direction. 

This happened a few times. I counted four.

But four was enough, apparently, because I picked myself up after a while, thought nothing of it, and headed straight for the bathroom.

Now, I wear makeup and don't always wash it off before going to bed, so that by the time I get up in the morning, my eyeshadow is kind of messed up. When I went into the bathroom this time, I looked at myself in the mirror without my glasses and thought, Ugh, my eyes look so dark. I need to take this off....

I leaned in close to get a better look. Again, it didn't really occur to me that I should be afraid of seeing myself with different eyes. It just looked like me. Not a menacing face. Just... me. With sunken, scratchy eyes.

So I looked down at the faucet and thought about turning on the water to rinse off my makeup. No, that's cold water....

When I looked back up at myself, my face about an inch away from this girl, I saw that she'd been watching me that whole time. Do your job and move with me, reflection.

No. 

And then every single excited expression clicked on. I couldn't tell if she was angry or not. Every muscle in her face was strained. Her eyes were fierce, eyebrows furrowed and arched at the same time. Nostrils flared, and she opened her mouth wide enough that I thought her lips were going to split.

And then she made a sound.

A whisper.

It was so quiet, but it deafened me. It sounded like screams...if they were pixels that created a whisper as an image. It also sounded like it was... backwards. A sharp intake of breath. A million voices in one.

And then it was gone. Done. And I was back in bed. I opened my eyes one minute before my 5:45am alarm sounded. It never happened. But it did.

Two things happened, actually.

1. I watched my reflection go crazy, and I finally reacted and became terrified, covering my ears and shutting my eyes to undo it.

2. My reflection didn't do anything. I just stared at myself with sunken eyes and slowly realized that I wasn't awake.

They both happened at the same time. There is no way for me to illustrate this for you. But this is what it's not like:

It's not like seeing one scene with one eye and the other scene with the other.

It's not like seeing one scene play out completely and then rewinding to see the "alternative."

It's not like overlaying one image with another to create some sort of collage.

There was another mirror dream...

But I'll have to share that one later. I need to sleep so that I can wake up at 5:45am and take a shower when everyone else is still asleep.

True or False Nostalgia

I never write about what happens in my head when I'm trying to fall asleep.
Well, lots of stuff happen.

And I never really write when I'm suffering from a small bout of insomnia.
But that's because, even though my mind is at its most poetic, my diction and eloquence suffer. It just took me a good minute to think of the word "insomnia."


So here goes, at my worst in writing:

I'm the only one awake in the house right now. I know I'll be scared when I turn off the lights and go up to my room, because truthfully, my room kind of scares me. And I never really know why; if it's because there's something to be wary of, or if it's just what happens when you have an imagination like mine.
Right now, though, I feel fine. I'm comfortable.

Actually, it's the right temperature at the moment. Not too hot, not too humid. Just the right amount of breeze reaching me, even if it is just from a fan and not the wind coming in.
There's something about this night that has me trying to remember something.

Part of me wants to say it was a night at the beach. But when has that happened? Not often enough. And it was colder; I needed a sweater.
Maybe I was in a car on my way somewhere, with the windows down.
Or on my way home with my family after a long day at Dorney Park...?

But no matter what I try to link this to, all I can envision is me sitting on a curb somewhere. A neighborhood like mine, but not mine. And I'm with someone. But I don't know who it is other than a guy.

So let's make up a story based on this false nostalgia.

I'm wearing shorts and a T-shirt, no sweater with me. The warmth rising from the street feels friendly (the only way I can think to describe it) as it reaches my legs every now and then when the breeze dies down. It's the end of summer, and I welcome it because it's been summer for what seemed like half the year.
He's sitting beside me, about a foot away.... a little less. And when he puts his hands beside him on the curb, he's about 3 inches away from my own hand. Too close or too far, I can't tell. So I sit up straight after a while of indulging myself in his nearness and begin fiddling with a mostly empty chocolate wrapper. But I look stupid, folding and unfolding it.
"You want the last piece?" I ask him.
Now it's empty.
He's talking to me about nothing. He called me at 2am and asked if I wanted to go for a walk; he couldn't sleep. So we wandered, not really paying attention to how many blocks we traveled. I think it's been about 10, since we're coming up to the edge of our neighborhood.
And while we wandered, we shared meaningless facts about each other. They don't mean anything, but now I know how much he does care about his family, I know why he likes to walk around when he can't sleep at night (restless leg syndrome, which in turn makes him nervous in his room), and I know that his favorite color is dark red; the same as mine. I know he likes to people-watch; I know where he sits on the bus every morning; I know that when he does sleep, he sometimes dreams of his mom, and when he wakes up he can't remember the details but he feels empty.
"It's late," I say after a while.
And he jokes that it was late when he called me up, all apologies. I just smile and shake my head a little; I really don't mind. It's fun to sneak out of the apartment, even if I do just live with my cat. I feel like I'm not supposed to be here; this is the empty movie set that I'm not supposed to have ever seen.
He gets up first, reaches down to help me to my feet, and we walk over to the fence. I run my fingers along one of the giant teacups, and he jumps over the arms of another carnival ride. Less than 5 hours ago, this place was packed with teenagers and young families. They're all asleep now.
"It's so quiet here," I begin to think aloud - just as he knocks over a bottle in the shadows. "Nevermind."
We scale the fence the same way we did when we climbed in. But it acts as a one-way filter: all that we talked about in the empty parking lot must remain there. It'll still be there when we come back another night...because we will, even though I know he'll tell me that he'll stop pestering me.
So I leave a part of myself there, too, whether or not I choose to (and I don't choose to). It gets caught on the fence, snagged off of me like a piece of clothing.
It can wait.
I'll be back.


So let's make up a dream based on this story based on a false nostalgia.

In Essence

I've fallen back into the habit of dozing off on the couch in the living room, taking naps late at night before even considering going up to my room. I would wake up after half an hour or so, stay up for a while, and then turn in for the night. And I didn't have any trouble with sleep at first. In fact, I started dreaming regularly again, which was great. But then (as these things tend to play out), it changed. Drastically (i.e., in one mentally exhausting night).

[side note]
My sisters and I are working on building up a shop. We're planning on selling our items at events and on Etsy. More news on that later, I guess. Since we decided to do this, we've been working in the evenings, nights, and weekends (or otherwise on our own time) to make things from stationery to jewelry to stuffed animals. This was one of those nights, although I don't think I was being very productive....

I had a long work day (after three or four other long work days), and just got a break. No crafting for me. Just TV and 3/4 of the couch.
And then even TV was too much for me to focus on. So I closed my eyes (mistake 1) with my arm draped over them, and rolled onto my back (mistake 2)...and my body froze like that (if you were beside me, you'd see how poorly I can snap my fingers, but let's pretend that was a satisfying sound).

1.
I could clearly hear my sisters talking, commenting on whatever show they were watching, or going over design details. So I tried as hard as I could to move my arms and sit up so that I could tell them about how hard I tried to move my arms and sit up.
No luck; this paralysis was strong (yes, you can measure the degree to which you feel trapped and helpless). It didn't help that I felt like I was sinking into the couch. It gave me the impression that I was about to suffocate, which somehow translated to I am suffocating.... So I started trying to gasp for air.
Apparently, Shiel could hear my breathing was a little off (and that I was twitching a little bit), so she asked me if I was awake.
No answer.
Then she wondered if I was experiencing sleep paralysis.
It'd be great if I could answer that, but I can't, I thought.
She decided to leave me alone, and everything got quiet again...which kind of made me more nervous. It was late, and I don't like being the last one to go upstairs at night.
Eventually, I managed to wrench myself out of paralysis (without punching the air or screaming, like I desperately needed to do) and relate the experience to my sisters.

According to me, this is how it went:
1. closed my eyes and lay there for what felt like two minutes at most
3. sleep paralysis for what felt like an hour

And in real time, according to Shiel:
1. I fell asleep and stayed unmoving for a long while.
2. Sharp breathing and twitching happened maybe....five minutes before I woke up.

2.
After I told that to my sisters, I let myself fall asleep again. Stupid, I know. But I was just too tired to care. And I felt like I was long overdue for a sleep paralysis episode.
Of course it happened again.

3.
It actually happened a couple of times, but I didn't make such a big deal out of it. I just wanted to wake myself up enough so that I could open my eyes fully (one of the most uncomfortable aspects of s.p. is focusing so much energy on just opening your eyelids....which you later realize weren't even your real eyelids -- they were still only dream figments).

4.
After the third one, I told Shiel to try and wake me up if I manage to give a signal that I'm stuck -- something like before: irregular breathing would be pretty easy to relay. I figure it would be okay to try to shake/nudge me awake, since I'm already mentally aware and it's just my body that's switched to sleep mode. I just need a little push.
But I could feel that it wouldn't happen again.
Instead, this is what happened after I woke up:

Shiel and Evie: *talking about color coordination or something*
Me: .............. . .. ..hhh ....ha...hahaha... ha ha ha ha ha...
Evie: What? Why are you laughing, Steph? Did you just wake up?
Me: Yeah. I'm laughing because I had a really random dream.... You know how you can close your eyes sometimes and then there's just this image that you see? Like you don't even remember thinking it up, it just appears in your mind?
Shiel: Yeah...?
Me: Well, I had that. I had this picture in my mind of the jewelry on the counter in Express. And I didn't feel like I fell asleep. I was just thinking about this picture. The store was empty, like they already closed and I was the only one there. The lights were still on and everything. So I reached into the picture, forgetting it was just an image, and started trying on different bracelets. And every bracelet I wanted, I would.... toss it onto the floor. "I want that. Oh, I want that. And this." Just... throw them on the floor like it was normal. And ... I heard you, Shiel, asking me if I was asleep..! And I was standing in the store going, "No, I'm not asleep, I am clearly in Express right now, trying on jewelry. Duh." And THEN, this random dude showed up in the store, from my right. He was eating a burger and talking about how good it was. And I heard you, Evie, telling him about different varieties..? And that's when I realized I was hearing what you were actually saying, and that you obviously weren't talking about burgers...but paper.... so that's why I woke up laughing.
Shiel: You were asleep for like one minute..!

5.
Upon waking up again, I found Evie and Anjel standing by the window, listening to cats fighting outside.
Me: Is that what's going on?!?
Evie: Oh, hi..!
Me: Oh my god, that felt so real!
Evie: What?
Me: I had sleep paralysis again..!! And it felt so long, like all the others. I kept trying..... thought I got out of it--
Evie: When, really, you didn't?
Me: Yeah..! I thought I woke up. I was here on the couch, same position. You weren't standing there, you were sitting on the chair in the corner. Shiel wasn't in the kitchen washing dishes, she was still sitting beside me. Anjel was on the other couch. Mom came down with a caterpillar in her hand, saying she found it in the room. She put it on the floor by your feet and let it wriggle off under that radiator... The wall on that side of the room wasn't the same; instead, it was the wall between the dining room and the deck in the backyard. So we figured the caterpillar went under the door to get outside. And a couple of cats started fighting each other over it....

I think that is a perfect example of almost-simultaneously creating while perceiving.

So I went up to my actual bedroom not too long after that, thinking that the worst was over.
I guess the worst was over, but the most intense was yet to come.
That's right. It keeps going.

This post has gotten quite long, though, not to mention it's almost 2am and I've had a long day. Sounds like a repeat of all I just shared with you. I'm a smart one.

I dreamt of eagles in a gigantic tree.

Originally to be posted 3/12/2012

The entire spectacle was majestic: the birds were graceful and close together, going in all sorts of directions, and there were feathers everywhere... I could tell they were massive, at least twice my height. 

The tree itself was naked, clothed only by the birds flying around or perched on its branches. And its dark branches were old, but strong and full of character. Its roots were too large for the shallow body of water that pooled around it and extended for the rest of the scenery. I had no idea where I was because of the lack of context. .... Then the Rome group appeared, climbing the tree (which proved to be even larger than I'd thought, once I saw how they all looked like ants), sitting with the eagles, jumping from the highest points into the thin, perfect water without breaking a bone. 

And I wanted to join them. But I couldn't.

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).