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.

Xanga Post 2: Dance to the Sky

I don't have flying dreams very often. Most of the time, my dreams are at least a bit more realistic than that.
When I wrote this, I remembered the whole dream. I still do. When I flew, it was the type of dream flying where I had to run. Except it wasn't exactly like that.

1.15.2005 __saturday____
The other night, I dreamt that I was in a beach house, a huge one with three floors, a wrap-around porch, and windows everywhere. The stairs outside led to the second floor instead of the first. The house was elevated on stilts, so the stairway was long and steep. When it reached the ground, the stairs kept going until the steps were the ground.
It was a beach house, but it wasnt't located at a beach. In fact, it was in a field. A field of browning grass that reached up to my shoulders. There was a grove of pine trees next to the house, and they were small enough to be Christmas trees. They might have been intended to be Christmas trees, because they were lined up perfectly.
I was on the porch, looking down at the trees. I walked around to the stairs and began to run. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, and when I reached a landing at the middle of the staircase, I jumped.
I flew in the air and fell into the sky, the ground still far below. Then I fell down headfirst as if I was going to crash, but I positioned myself in a way so that I could land on my hands and feet, much like a frog or cat. I leaped up once I landed, and I flew again. I landed again, but on one hand this time. I kept going, on the ground, in the sky, diving again and again. It was as though I was performing some kind of flowing dance, twirling in the air, with hand motions that came naturally.
And then I tripped on myself in the air, and I let myself fall to the earth. I rolled myself into a ball and willingly let gravity take me, tumbling down the earth-steps and into the grass. When I finally stopped moving, I picked myself up and looked up into the clouds in the sky. They were where they should be, but they looked so far away. So out of reach.
I felt a need to reach them, a desperate feeling to be up there with them. So I climbed the stairs again and started over, knowing it was a futile attempt.

It was a poetic dream. I flew for as long as I could trust myself to dance in the air. And every time I fell, I was nimble and graceful enough to try again without stopping.
Every time, I felt like I could get closer than my previous try.

I don't think I described the house well enough. But I was flipping through a book I have at home a few days ago, and I came across a beach house that reminded me of the one I dreamt about. I don't have it with me at the moment, and I can't remember what it was called, so I can't look it up without doing unnecessary, extensive research. So check back here over the next day or two; I'll upload a picture of it later.

Xanga Post 1: The Trigger

I finally started going through my Xanga. I don't write in it anymore, but I still like to re-read things every now and then. At one point, I deleted my account out of anger, but then I realized that was a big mistake. I thought it was lost forever, all 3-4 years that I'd written down (even though it was full of so many pointless entries).

I was able to contact someone who works for Xanga and asked them if they could restore my online journal -- which they did. They can only do it once, so I won't try to delete it again.

So here is the first dream that I typed out, a few months after I started using the site.

1.5.2005 __saturday____
Did you ever get that feeling when you do something like smell a certain spray or perfume, or you see something in the light of a sunset… like nostalgia..? Well, that happened to me a few days ago, when I smelled something sweet in the breeze (when it was still warm outside), and I had a flashback. It’s like it’s not my memory, but someone else’s, because I don’t remember it happening. What I saw in my mind was this:

I was in a building that had walls and pillars of white marble, and the ceiling was domed. A boy around my age was standing next to me, aaand – that’s all I remember….

I wish I could just pull out pictures from my mind.

I was 14 when I wrote that, so please excuse my poor sentence structure or writing techniques. I promise, you'll see that I get better over time (or so I hope I have).

I know that what I wrote about was a dream I had when I was younger, but I couldn't remember all of it. Up until now, I can't recall the entire dream -- but I know, now, that some of these memories of dreams are triggered by things I perceive with my other senses. Which is interesting, don't you think? That anyone should be able to recall a dream based on something they smell?

That just means I can experience dreams other than by seeing, hearing, or feeling. For some reason, I find that fascinating. I think of taste and smell as unimportant or even absent in a dream, and if ever I notice that I have the ability to taste or smell anything, it comes across as out of place. Or real. It really stands out to me.

Actually, I had a dream this morning that ended with me feeling itchy. Mosquito bites riddled my face and hands as I crawled my way through and around bushes in an open conservatory. I scratched at one, and then two of them as I listened to a man who urged me to leave.

I blinked (which I hate to do in dreams, because most of the time it just means I was thinking that my eyes were dry. That makes me conscious about my state, and then I too quickly realize I'm dreaming.) -- and I woke up in bed still scratching at my hands and face.

I still felt itchy when I woke up scratching, but I stopped, and the sensation faded. When I scratched my skin again, it was gone. I even looked for a sign of a small bug bite, but there was nothing.

I think that's one of the few times I've held on to something in a dream that wasn't a sentence or a song; it wasn't someone's face I remembered, or even a scent. That feeling lingered longer than anything else when I woke up. After it subsided, I had to really exercise my brain to remember why I was scratching myself in the first place, until the memory of the dream finally came back to me.

So what would happen if I woke up in the middle of eating cake in a dream, or catching the scent of honeysuckle flowers?

Would I wake up sensing those things, too?

Illuminated Stairs

Today, I woke up just in time to get ready for work and run out the door. When I got back after my 4-hour shift, I went back to bed. I slept for 8 hours last night, so I'm not sure why I was still so tired... but I fell asleep, and I woke up 2 hours later feeling enlightened and curious.

I thought to myself, "I wonder if it's possible...."

I dreamt that I was going around a mall with Matt. It was a new kind of mall, with a few corridors radiating from a central space. Everything was asymmetrical.

He kept playing tricks on me that made me feel stupid, so this isn't the nicest dream of Matthew. But that doesn't matter with this dream. It has nothing to do with Matt. Or zombies. Or scary creatures that tell me when I'm going to die.

For once, this dream reminds me why I started this blog in the first place. It's about the architecture.

Matt told me he had a surprise for me, and that I had to go upstairs. I ran down a wide hallway with marble floors and dark walls. At the end was a staircase that I could barely make out. That was because it was made of glass.

A light in the ceiling far above illuminated the space, reflecting off of the different surfaces at varying levels. It created an effect something like this:

But it was smoother and much more fluid because of how the stairs were made.

Not only were the stairs made of glass, but the sides were, as well. It's hard to explain...

(I sketched it out a little bit, but it's kind of tricky to draw solid spiral staircases made of glass. I'll try to sketch it again and tone it so that you can understand how the light really played a part in the dynamics of the space. But I have to finish up with school first....)

The stairs were attached to the walls (and there were 3 walls around it, since it was at the end of the hall) by thick glass. The staircase itself wasn't made of glass panels as you would expect. So if you're thinking of this

or this

then that's not quite it. :)

There are no glass spiral staircases made of a continuous -- or "continuous" piece (I know it's impossible to make an entire staircase of one piece of glass, but you could always assemble it in pieces). None that have been made yet that I know of, anyway. But this staircase was one piece, about 4-6 inches thick.

Even the handrails were made of glass. But instead of it being just a thin handrail, it extended to the walls and created a continuous plane that frames the staircase all the way up. Both the staircase and the handrail plane were very thick and heavy, made of one piece.

It was all one piece, but there was steel reinforcing.

If you embed steel in molten glass and let it cool, would it crack the glass or something?

Is there any reason it can't be done?

Because it looked pretty cool in my dream.

If you're curious as to how the rest of my dream played out, here's how it went.

Matt playfully pushed me when I was running up the steps. But I slowed down to admire the staircase when he did it, and I fell over while he ran ahead of me. So I got pissed and didn't want to walk with him anymore. xD

His surprise for me?

At the top of the mall was an atrium (each of the corridors had double heights so that the roofs of the stores became pathways that were sheltered by one roof made of glass and steel -- I really have to sketch this out, it was awesome).

There was an event that day, where butterflies were released somewhere above. Matt made me rush upstairs so that I could see it. We made it just in time to see a horde of butterflies escape from cages and fly off into open space.

Don't ask me how maintenance would get them all back. I wondered the same thing, after staring in amazement for a few minutes.

There were going to be a lot of dead butterflies in a few hours/days.