Xanga Post 20: Part II - Can You Tell?

12.28.2005 __wednesday____

In last night's dream, I kept switching from St. Clement's to Prendie. I was in my Prendie uniform, and I was in high school. But I was in St. Clement's schoolyard. I was leaving school and walked around the building and ended up on a corner of Prendie. And I had a bike with me, and I knew it was a Bonner bike, but it was black. So I parked it by a tree and went around to the side entrance of Prendie that everyone goes through in the morning.. And I was looking for Kara, but there were so many people there. And there was a boy who goes to Bonner, who always steals Kara's hat. And I thought I saw him, but when he turned around, it was just another stranger. So I went back and ended up again in St. Clement's schoolyard. And people were supposed to be here, but it was completely empty except for some teachers who were playing with students, an old man on the "8th grade steps", and a truck in the middle of the schoolyard, with another man behind the wheel. I sat on the steps and stared at the gates, until everything got quiet. And then I heard singing (I could almost remember the tune when I woke up, but I forgot it). A girl in a Prendie uniform (not the ones we wear) came next to me and sat down, and I asked her if she heard it. So she said yes and sang it. And she told me it was coming from Narnia. Haha.
Then I got up from the steps and was in front of Prendie's auditorium again. I walked home, but then hours later I remembered I left my bike by the tree. So I got my shoes on, but I couldn't tie my shoelaces. It was already getting dark outside, and I didn't want to go get it, but I had to. As I walked out of the door, I heard Evie say, "I wonder how long it's going to take her to get her bike back."

Nearing the end of my summer vacation this year, I decided to go driving around my neighborhood with my little sister after picking her up from a party. It was dusk when we got to my old house and talked with old friends, people I haven't seen in over 5 years. It was high time we caught up with each other in person rather than on Facebook.

After that, we drove to our grade school and walked around the parking lot. We tried to go inside the now-Baptist church, but couldn't get in.

I looked around me and saw the school yard where we used to play.

I went to that school for 9 years....
It's no surprise that I can subconsciously recreate every little detail in my dreams, down to the sunken feeling of steps where they were worn from so much use.
Standing in the parking lot that night, I felt the same way I feel in my grade-school-setting dreams: vulnerable, nostalgic, familiar yet foreign.... It was a bit surreal to be standing there.
Actually, the whole experience of setting foot on such places was refreshing and almost too much for me. Whenever I go around my old neighborhood, I pretty much just drive around to enjoy seeing things I grew up with. I never got out of the car to walk around since I left; that was the first time since 2004.

But anyway. About this dream.

In December of 2005, I was a Sophomore. Just from reading this Xanga post, I can tell that I was still going through a transition from one place to another. It was as if I was trying to decide which one I belonged to then. In the end, I seem to have felt resigned.

"I go to Prendie now...."

At the same time, I think I came to a subtle realization that I can belong to both.
And now at college, I can add yet another school to the list.

I read somewhere, before, that if you dream of the school you attended as a child, it means that some problem from your past is overshadowing the present.
Maybe if you had bad experiences at school and associate one with the other, sure.
But what if you loved your school as I did?
Or what if your grade school closed and you graduated as the last class with the heavy reminder that you can never go back, even to visit? That could be the whole reason I've never stopped dreaming of roaming the halls. I can't go back in real life, so I'll just live in my memories and build new ones.

I do miss it. The real thing.

Xanga Post 20: Part I - Familiar Creation

12.28.2005 __wednesday____

I had a freaky dream about a Halloween parade, a few nights ago. I must've told everyone about it, but here it is again. I was thinking the day before, that there's a Christmas parade, and a Thanksgiving parade, but there's nothing for Halloween - but that's probably a good thing. So I fell asleep and had a dream about a bunch of kids who were dressed like zombies and ghosts - and they weren't just like trick-or-treat costumes, they were really good costumes.. they looked real, and the kids played their parts well, so they scared me. And instead of a parade, they went from house to house like they were carolling, except they were whispering rhymes about death or something. And I watched from my bedroom window and saw a little girl demon look up at me and smile. (I always dream about little kids smiling like devils - I think I make that up in my head) So I backed away from the window, but she moved back, too, so that she could still see me. Then they got on a train and moved on to the next destination. I got on the next train, although I didn't want to. And I ended up going in a tunnel that I always pass through in dreams when I travel. And then there was the same highway, with the bridge going in a spiral up and up. But I was still in a train.

I think this dream shows how much I scare myself. Halloween is fun and all, but I'll stay away from scary movies and "haunted house" tours most of the time. I don't want any more ideas in my head.

When I'm in a car or on a train in a dream, I always end up going through a tunnel at some point. Actually, just a week ago, my dream began when I emerged from a tunnel through a mountain, and ahead of me were bridges, overpasses, highways crossing over each other, all sensibly structured -- or at least they appeared to be. Traffic was going every which way, and I was moving at almost 80 mph in a narrow, 3-lane highway. And then the car crash happened....

Familiarity is a common feeling I get when I'm asleep. It's even more prominent when I wake up.
"I know this smile," or "I know this place."
In retrospect, that's probably what led me to believe that all my dreams are a story unfolding throughout my life. The basic idea of themes weaving in and out of separate night images stirs my imagination and makes me want to learn more. It's strange to think about, because these themes are only coming and going because of my curiosity. I am writing my own dreams without really meaning to or wanting to. I just want to be an observer, although I can't help but create what I observe.
That's really where the feeling of knowing comes from.
"I know this place" -- but only because I just made it up.
"I know what's going to happen" -- but that's really just my mind barely catching up with the creative process.

When I saw Inception for the first time, I was surprised at how spot-on Christopher Nolan was in integrating all these details of dreams: the interweaving themes and sentences, the concept of no architectural boundaries or rules, the complexities of lucidity and structure....

I'm getting closer and closer to grabbing the tail of my subconscious creativity. Maybe I was always like that, and I just misunderstood it.

I told you before, I used to think The River was a real place.
I also wrote in a previous post that things are only as real as you make them out to be. It just so happened that my senses were so much sharper in those dreams than they usually are in real life.

Xanga Post 19: Listlessness

12.4.2005 __sunday____
In my dream a few days ago, I was walking somewhere, barefoot. And when I looked at the soles of my feet, I saw small worms that were going into my skin, like parasites. These are the same kind of worms that are in the river in my other dream.

Do you ever wake up feeling like you've missed something? Missed something, or forgotten about it?
It's like a backwards deja vu....

All too often, I wake up feeling like I left some part of myself behind. Sometimes, I go through an entire day (or week) feeling listless. Today was one of those days; I've been zoning out a lot.

More about this particular dream, though:
It felt so gross when I dreamt it. I remember seeing my skin being stretched, or folding around the edges where the worms were biting into me. I felt like everywhere I walked, I left a mark of myself being consumed by these parasites.

My brain likes to take metaphors, sayings, or analogies and manifest them into "physical" things.

Xanga Post 18: Analysis, Take One

11.14.2005 __monday____

i dreamt that mom and i were walking along a street during a windy (but warm) day. the sky was gray - it looked like a storm was approaching. we held a conversation, something about picking up anjel.. and then mom left me to go inside a building surrounded by tall, trimmed bushes. i walked around the block and moved out of the way as a police car and ambulance drove on the sidewalk to avoid the traffic. when i turned around, i saw mom walking anjel out of the building, so i ran up to hug her. and then i noticed a small girl was running around, but she said nothing to us. instead, she ran inside another building nearby.. that's when i noticed that the roofs of all the buildings around us were missing. and the sky was gray not only because of rain clouds, but more because of the smoke. a helicopter flew close to the ground - and then a man poked his head out of the side and yelled, "There's one down there!" they landed somewhere behind the buildings and bushes and got the small girl. and then another part of my dream started - i was at a shore with my mom and anjel. but this time, matt hales from aqualung was there, too (whaaat... lol i think i fell asleep listening to aqualung that night). the sky was still gray, and there was no tide or current in the water. i took a soap bar and saw that there was a black spider on it. it spoke to me, even though it was partially crushed, and said, "be careful. there's more around that you just don't see." so... i flicked it off the soap bar and began washing myself in the still water.

I don't remember this dream at all. Nothing about it rings a bell.
It's times like this when I love myself for writing them down in the first place, haha.

Okay. Well, first of all, buildings and landscape architecture -- there is a certain type of architecture I can imagine myself dreaming, because it's featured every now and then.
Topiary gardens and white buildings go hand in hand, for me. What does it mean?

I dunno, let's think something up and see if it makes sense.

My friend gave me an awesome birthday present when I was in high school: a dream encyclopedia. While I prefer to analyze my own dreams without the use of a book, sometimes I like to look up key words to give me ideas of what things might (or might not) mean. This book, 20,000 Dreams, written by Mary Summer Rain (of course she put together a dream encyclopedia), is the best encyclopedia I've ever seen. It's broken up into 30 different categories, including Botanicals; Jobs & Professions; Buildings & Architecture; Popular Dream Characters..... and every category is broken up into sub-categories, like Herbs; Aviation; Windows; Egyptian Mythology.....It has SO many key words, from "aardvark" to "zymometer." .... Nikola Tesla is in here. Who does that?

Mary Summer Rain does, that's who.
You know who's not in this book? THOMAS EDISON.

.....Tesla is in the Popular Dream Characters section (is he that popular?), under the subcategory of Historical Personages & Characters.
Rain writes, "Tesla (Nikola) is a representation of a comprehension of a few elements comprising true reality" (pg. 366). Hmm. Not as straight-forward/typical as a lot of other characters or key words in general, but all right. Reading that description, I automatically think that this sort of thing would take place:

Me: Omg I'm dreaming? This isn't real! *lucid*
*Nikola Tesla walks by*
Me: Yusss....

Moving on...
She says that to dream of a topiary garden "warns against attempting to personally shape one's reality" (43). I assume that if I told her my dreams, Spring Downpour -- I mean, Summer Rain -- would tell me that I shouldn't lose sight of other possibilities in my life. Or something along those lines.

Maybe that's what it means.
Or maybe it means that I'm reading too much into my dreams and that if I keep this up, I will eventually lose myself and try to bring my dreams into reality. How's that for being deep?

That having been said, I'm going to go right ahead and keep reading into this particular dream........and the rest of the 3,000 I've ever written down....

*cough* Yes? What? ...what happened...?

The more general term, "garden," is described as constituting "spiritual blessings and talents. What condition was the dream garden in?" (43)
That's another thing I like about this book. Rain encourages the dreamer to think for herself. In the very beginning of the book, she explains to the reader how to best analyze dreams, enforcing what I've always thought to be true: you are your best bet at figuring out what your dream means, simply because it's personal. Analysis takes one.

What do the gardens look like in my dreams? Like they do in real life - not perfect when you look closely, but still beautiful. I do like to think that accurately describes my blessings and talents, but I'll leave that up to you to decide.

And the building...?
It's usually white. I think you can figure out what white represents.
In terms of style of architecture, it's closest to Art Deco, with some sort of Classical influence. Just think of something very geometric and simple overall, but with columns and other, smaller motifs that shape the building in a subtle manner.

"Art Deco symbolizes a nonconformist or nonconforming attitude, idea, or behavior" (308).
Honestly, I wouldn't go so far as to say I am a nonconformist in anything. I think I was just.......designing in my sleep.
Surprisingly, nothing about Roman/Greek/Classical architecture is to be found in here. But that kind of style is ancient, which might say something about me or what I think of myself. Then again, it is also common for anyone to think about that type of design when architecture comes up as a subject, so perhaps it has no meaning.

I was curious, so I did a bit of research on the author. I'm sure you want to know too, right? :p
Mary Summer Rain apparently wrote a bunch of books about what she learned from a blind Chippewa woman named No-Eyes..................of course her name is Summer Rain.
What happened was this:

Mary was trying to get her first book published, but kept failing. Her family was planning on moving, and they were trying to decide where to go. One night, she had a dream that she went to Colorado because she had "important work to do there." Oooh. So what happened? She and her family moved to Colorado.
What was that about not trying to shape one's reality?
Anyway. She allegedly went driving around when she was rejected once again for being published, parked in the middle of nowhere, and went wandering in the woods until she sat down on a comfy rock. And then she met No-Eyes.

x]

Well, despite all of that (all. of that), I still enjoy this encyclopedia.

I leave you with this reminder from her:
"Dreams are not random images; one can gain insights into the issues in one's life through dream symbols."

Xanga Post 17: On Auditory Hallucinations

11.7.2005 __monday_____

i had that thing that i always get - when i'm falling asleep, i can hear voices. i'm going crazy! but really. i think i make up different voices in my head or something. but it's scary, because i don't even expect them to come to me, i just hear them and they surprise me. one time, i was falling asleep, and then i kept hearing a man's voice telling me to go downstairs to open the door. it told me to check that it was locked, because it thought the door was open. so i was kind of scared that it was unlocked. and i went downstairs to make sure it was locked. that was around 11 p.m. what is wrong with me??? last night i heard an old man's voice saying something about.. carrots? i think i fell asleep laughing. so. yeah. for future reference.. if anyone ever sleeps over and you hear me laughing, and you pretty much know i'm not asleep yet, i'm hearing things. it doesn't mean i can't hear anyone else, though. it's just that i know it's in my head.

I don't know when this started, but obviously I was less than 15 years old.
At first, it was freaky and I thought it was a ghost for a while. Then, I was kind of amused at myself (carrots?). By now, I'm used to it.

There are a number of things I hear at night that wake me up to certain degrees. Sometimes I can keep my eyes closed, stay still, and continue to listen (I tried to carry the conversation further, but then I was so conscious of the fact that it was in my head that I just actively made up the rest of it). There are louder voices that cause me to stare wide-eyed at the ceiling when they come to me suddenly. After a few seconds of lying rigid in my bed, I allow myself to relax and shift positions, hoping to shake myself out of that state.

And then there are the things I hear that make me sit up in bed, gasping for air. Screams, threats whispered in my ear, or some incoherent yelling. One night, I swear I heard someone ringing a bell at the foot of the stairs. More recently, I heard knocking on my door. Both times, I stat up in bed a little freaked out, pressing my fingers to my ears again and again. When the noise subsided and I gathered enough courage to open my door, I flew down the stairs and asked mom if she was the one doing it, or if anyone else was.
Of course no one did it, it was just in my head.

The ones that make me sit up in bed are the most convincing. Usually, I can tell that what I'm hearing isn't resounding in the room....but that's really my only way of discerning auditory hallucinations. Otherwise, I have to actually ask someone if they heard it, too (e.g., "Do you hear that music...?" "Yes, someone's playing it outside.").
And, yes, I do sometimes hear unfamiliar music in my head.

Last night as I was falling asleep, this man's voice gradually grew loud enough for me to hear clearly. It started out the way these voices normally begin: with my name.

Stephanie...?
It sounded like it came from a walkie-talkie next to my ear; I know I heard a young man's voice being somewhat muffled and distorted with cracks in the sound. I stayed still.
Stephanie......*crack*.........I can't [inaudible]..............
What....? I rolled onto my back and thought it was over because I moved, but then--
--4:55, look. Just listen. . ..........*crack*.................Can't tell, but Stephanie -- can you hear me?
I opened my eyes and lay silently. I didn't say anything, but breathed deeply and shook my head hard. It was time for me to go to sleep. Just ignore it.
LISTEN.

It was so loud, but so far away. Stop it! But again,
It's almost time. [inaudible] 4:55................ When you're in the field, then [inaudible] the house......and.........
I promptly sat up in bed and started fixing my blanket. Anything to hear real noises. But it went on for maybe 20 minutes, the young man repeating his message that I couldn't make out. He sounded frantic.
Stephanie...?

When I finally fell asleep, I woke up into a dream.
I was standing in the middle of a field.

But that's all I remember.

Things I hear at night are most distressing when they sound convincing, are persistent, and send me messages (like the other voice in 2005 that told me to check the door to make sure it's locked) ----

because I am afraid that I will always heed those messages and try to carry out the tasks for curiosity's sake....

Xanga Post 16: Part II - The Looks of Evil

I don't know who's actually reading what I post (other than the few who have told me), and I haven't been getting comments lately. So while I have visitors, perhaps it's "too long" and no one really wants to read it.

Because people prefer things like Tumblr....

I don't really know how to condense what I want to say, though.

I already did Part I, so I took out the first part of the original Xanga entry.

9.4.2005 __sunday____

last night's dream was different. i had two, actually. in the first one, all my 8th grade friends and classmates were there. we were having a party. a dance, a ball. we had to dress formally; the girls wore gowns and the guys wore suits - tuxedos, if they wanted. they were all waltzing and dancing (very well choreographed, might i add.. lol). i saw my friends with their boyfriends and girlfriends before they broke up, having a great time. i was on the side watching them, watching people arriving and meeting and greeting each other. i saw someone on my left looking my way, but i thought he was looking for someone past me. so i got up and started to leave - until he took my hand and turned me around to say hi. it was .... i didn't see him for so long. he was one of the few who chose to come in a tuxedo. he extended his hand for a handshake, but i hugged him instead. :) so he patted my head and hugged me back. lol
i told him to wait because i had to take care of something upstairs (the party was in what was my house in the dream. the room was wide and it was dark, so it reminded me of the castle in the previous dream), so i left him there. i had to fix things in my room, check my cell phone for messages from people trying to find their way to the party.. and i could hear his thoughts, "i want to dance with her." so i hurried to organize things. but when i went back downstairs, i couldn't find him anywhere. he left.
and then i saw my other friend, ..... he talked to me for a while, and i thought we were going to dance. but then someone else called me and i asked him to wait there for me. i was engaged in another conversation, and when i returned, he was dancing with someone.
when i was so sure i would be bored to death at this party, someone came up to me and sat down beside me. he started to talk to me and make me laugh, and then he asked me to dance with him. i said yes, but at the same time someone bumped into me and spilled her drink on a small part of my gown. so i looked at him and he said he'd wait for me while i went to clean it. it took such a long time to get it out, i was so sure he'd left to dance with someone else, but when i came back he was still standing in the same spot i'd left him.


but i don't know what he looked like. :-\ (you can start laughing now)


eh.. this entry's become longer than i expected. that second dream doesn't really matter, i guess. it's just all deja vu of another dream. and me feeling like i'm in trouble because i'm trapped in a prison cell with two other people and the doorknob has a keyhole (don't know why) and i have a key when i'm not supposed to and the guard knows i have it when he looks inside sees me try to put it in my pocket, so he smiles dangerously at me as if he'll kill me if i come out. it was scary because when i opened it for the first time, there was nobody there. but when i tried to close the door and was about to put the key into the keyhole, i couldn't get it in there. i wasn't quick enough! and then i heard footsteps coming my way so i jammed it in there but then the guard was starting to open the door and it was opening!! so i had to push it with my feet and lock it with my right hand... and then he knew i had his key.. so he'd be waiting out there.. another scary part was when we were all still inside the cell and we were watching the guard watching us. watching me.. as i tried to move slowly and slip the key inside my pocket.. but he saw what i was doing and he stared at me wide-eyed and smiled... *shudder* scary smile..

I remember thinking about that first dream a lot, after it happened....It amazes me how I can think about this one and still feel like I can relate to it. The face of the first boy is still fresh in my mind. I know him in real life....The second boy? I might know who it is, I don't remember now. But as always, "third time's a charm." If it was a movie, you'd be able to tell it was the right guy because he offered to wait before I even asked him to. And he didn't just say he'd wait; I remember hearing, "I'll wait for you." Those words registered as being meaningful and sincere. And in a movie, of course that would have a double meaning, haha.

It was one of those dreams that left me waking up thinking, "I don't want to be alone." Now that I'm older and I actually know what I want, it seems kind of silly that I was thinking about the right person for me....at the age of 15.

(One year later, I believe I found the guy without looking for him.)

And in the second dream--

You can always tell when I'm tired, because when I write, nothing makes sense. Everything is either a run-on sentence or a fragment, and then nothing makes sense.....as if dreams aren't already confusing as it is. This second dream is just.... . . . . ... . .. .. whaaaa....

I both love and hate having deja vu of dreams. Sometimes, I think they really happened. But it's great when I remember they're dreams -- I get all excited.

But it's so frustrating when it just slips my mind, because there's an 80% chance I won't get it back until something triggers the memory of it years later.

I wonder what it would be like to be in a real prison cell. Having no experience with that kind of situation, I wouldn't know anything about it. If I could make this dream (or any other dream) take place in real life, I wonder how accurately I would measure my imagination to be. Ceiling heights, lengths and widths of the room, thickness of the door.....all that.

I talked about that signature smile before.

The one that gives me goosebumps when I see it (and I've only ever seen it in dreams -- I feel like it's not possible to look that demonic in real life).

Really, it is a demonic smile. It's full of polished teeth concealing some dark abyss I'm not familiar with. Whenever I dream of someone smiling like that, I think, "That thing is not me."

It is me, it's just not what I think of myself.

Some people would say that if evil had a physical form, it would be a huge, black dog with rabies or something. Or maybe a black cat that hisses....or a snake....or whatever.

That smile is the manifestation of evil in my imagination. If evil had a face, it would smile correctly and contemptuously. It would be perfect to the point where the gesture looks alien to the rest of the person's face, as if it's some parasite clinging to the roof of your mouth.

It would almost pass as a genuinely pure smile if not for closer inspection, making it blend so easily with the rest of the world.

I guess I got that mentality from observing all the fake smiles that people put on, or seeing how people act nicely one moment, and then they go and contradict it.

We all have a little bit of evil in us.

What does it look like to you?

Xanga Post 16: Part I - Sensible Creation

I really hope you're not intimidated by the fact that this is considerably lengthy and only "Part I," because I promise you it is worth reading and considering. If it makes you feel better, the block quote is comprised of three dreams. You need only read the first one to understand the rest of this post. The following two dreams will be the subjects of Part II. So feel free to skip them for now. :)

There are certain aspects of dreams that seem repetitive and reminiscent, kind of like a song with a sample from another tune. If you've seen Inception (again with that movie... that brilliant movie), it's similar to....... "take a leap of faith."

This obnoxious gap of space is to keep you from reading spoilers in case you haven't seen it.

***spoiler alert***

For those of you who don't know, that phrase being said again and again by different characters (Saito and Mal) is one observation that could back up a theory that the entire movie was a dream.
However, I think there are far more outweighing details in the movie that tell us otherwise; that Cobb is not dreaming for the entirety of the movie, only some parts of it.

*** spoiler alert***

Well! Now that you didn't read that....
The brain recycles information and fits it in ideal spots, which explains why I dream of certain things again and again, be it a person, place, thing, sentence, etc. I think of it as an error message; something my brain has to process, leave for later, and come back to it to try again. Everything's a puzzle, when I sleep.

This particular Xanga update is a pretty good example of what I mean.

9.4.2005 __sunday____
the other night i had a dream i was a governess or something. i don't really remember who i was. but i was in an old house - it was dark and big, it might have even been a castle. i remember seeing a man walking quickly down the stairs that lined the walls. there were several landings and floors. so i chased after him. i knew him as the father of the children i was the governess of, and the master of the castle. as i glided down the staircase as swiftly as he, i had flashes of three women screaming after him. screaming, and then a raspy scream. at one point they were women: a housekeeper, a maid, and another servant. at another point i saw three skulls and the upper half of their skeletons. i looked up as i was running and i saw them at the top of the landing behind me, screaming after him. they called out his name, "WAAARRRRICK!!"
when i looked over at him and saw him making his way around the banister, he was moving as quickly as he could without running - which was still pretty quick for me.. then we were in the dark driveway. i was calling after him as he got in the driver's seat of his car. inside were his children - two girls and a boy, his son being the oldest. warrick didn't listen to me but closed the door and started the engine while the children were staring out at me. i don't remember anymore if they were panicked or they wanted to leave me, but they were watching me. and then i saw the littlest girl in the back looking out the window. i remember thinking that she looked like she'd given up.
and then the car started to fill up with water and sparks were flying everywhere. i ran up to the car and opened the doors. the water poured out and they fell out; i helped them up.

________________________

last night's dream was different. i had two, actually. in the first one, all my 8th grade friends and classmates were there. we were having a party. a dance, a ball. we had to dress formally; the girls wore gowns and the guys wore suits - tuxedos, if they wanted. they were all waltzing and dancing (very well choreographed, might i add.. lol). i saw my friends with their boyfriends and girlfriends before they broke up, having a great time. i was on the side watching them, watching people arriving and meeting and greeting each other. i saw someone on my left looking my way, but i thought he was looking for someone past me. so i got up and started to leave - until he took my hand and turned me around to say hi. it was .... i didn't see him for so long. he was one of the few who chose to come in a tuxedo. he extended his hand for a handshake, but i hugged him instead. :) so he patted my head and hugged me back. lol
i told him to wait because i had to take care of something upstairs (the party was in what was my house in the dream. the room was wide and it was dark, so it reminded me of the castle in the previous dream), so i left him there. i had to fix things in my room, check my cell phone for messages from people trying to find their way to the party.. and i could hear his thoughts, "i'm want to dance with her." so i hurried to organize things. but when i went back downstairs, i couldn't find him anywhere. he left.
and then i saw my other friend, ..... he talked to me for a while, and i thought we were going to dance. but then someone else called me and i asked him to wait there for me. i was engaged in another conversation, and when i returned, he was dancing with someone.
when i was so sure i would be bored to death at this party, someone came up to me and sat down beside me. he started to talk to me and make me laugh, and then he asked me to dance with him. i said yes, but at the same time someone bumped into me and spilled her drink on a small part of my gown. so i looked at him and he said he'd wait for me while i went to clean it. it took such a long time to get it out, i was so sure he'd left to dance with someone else, but when i came back he was still standing in the same spot i'd left him.


but i don't know what he looked like. :-\ (you can start laughing now)


eh.. this entry's become longer than i expected. that second dream doesn't really matter, i guess. it's just all deja vu of another dream. and me feeling like i'm in trouble because i'm trapped in a prison cell with two other people and the doorknob has a keyhole (don't know why) and i have a key when i'm not supposed to and the guard knows i have it when he looks inside sees me try to put it in my pocket, so he smiles dangerously at me as if he'll kill me if i come out. it was scary because when i opened it for the first time, there was nobody there. but when i tried to close the door and was about to put the key into the keyhole, i couldn't get it in there. i wasn't quick enough! and then i heard footsteps coming my way so i jammed it in there but then the guard was starting to open the door and it was opening!! so i had to push it with my feet and lock it with my right hand... and then he knew i had his key.. so he'd be waiting out there.. another scary part was when we were all still inside the cell and we were watching the guard watching us. watching me.. as i tried to move slowly and slip the key inside my pocket.. but he saw what i was doing and he stared at me wide-eyed and smiled... *shudder* scary smile..

My mind has a thing for raspy voices and wide-eyed, toothy smiles. It's those things that are my own equivalent to "a leap of faith." I don't even notice that those elements appear again, as I'm dreaming it up. It seems to fit the context of the story pretty well. It's only from writing down all the details and reading over it again that I was able to pick that out.
Well, I suppose that I have to know somehow. There's that underlying feeling, very faint and almost nonexistent, but it's there: awareness.

I'm telling you, details are of the utmost importance. ;)

Let's talk architecture, shall we?

I swear, the place I dreamt of was complete with all details. Every brick, every railing, every motif in place. Every year of aging was evident in the worn grooves of the steps I walked on. The raspy screams of the women echoed appropriately, bouncing off of the correct surfaces accordingly and reaching my eardrums. The fading light outside shone through distant trees and ran across the open field to violently, silently meet Warrick and his children when they burst through the doors.

But we know none of it was real, correct?

Everything is as real as your mind makes it. You can still have your five senses. And those five senses do nothing if not aid us in how we perceive our world.
As far as I'm concerned, when I dream, nothing exists until I interact with it. There was no castle until I saw it. The steps I walked on didn't exist until my feet touched them on my way down. My brain almost-simultaneously created the walls around me and created the right echoes that those walls would allow. It's exactly as Cobb said in the movie: when we dream, our brain follows a cycle of creating and perceiving the creation in an almost seamless motion.

And lucidity is the key to get in between the two motions.

Now, since I wasn't lucid in these dreams, my brain subconsciously created something that I perceived as an old castle. What did it look like on the outside? I don't know. What did the kitchen look like? The bedrooms? I don't know. I didn't create all of it. I just came up with what I would interact with according to my senses. Like the set of a play, this castle of mine was created efficiently and... well, sensibly.

What's outside my bedroom right now, as I'm awake?
Well, I know it's the hallway, and that Evie's room is right across from me. I could draw you a picture of what's out there, down to what color the doorknobs are (they're golden). I've been there a countless number of times. It's stored in my memory, and I can't erase it.
But I'm not looking at it right now, and I can't hear anything that might tell me which walls are where or how high the ceiling is.

For all I care, nothing exists outside my bedroom right now...

Xanga Post 15: I Dream in Threes

So after a week or so of not being able to hold on to my dreams, I finally remembered some this morning! I know I've been dreaming every night for a while now, but I just can't seem to keep them from slipping away from me again. You're probably familiar with that feeling of knowing what you dreamt, but not being able to figure out what it was. It's like seeing someone in a movie and knowing you know their name, but you just can't pinpoint it ("MATT DAMON!")....and you're stuck on it for a week.
Yes. Utterly annoying.

Or, you know how someone's like, "Hey, want a piece of bacon?" (I know someone's more likely to offer a piece of gum before offering a piece of bacon, but let's use this example for now because it's so much more enticing.)
"Hellllls yeah, I'd love me some bacon!"
"Okay. Here, take it from my hand."

So you reach out to grab it ---- and then they pull it away from you before you close your fingers around it. But then they put it back once you frown and put down your hand. So you lift your hand again, but they pull it just out of reach.
And this goes on for about 10 more seconds before someone gets hurt (you don't even want the bacon anymore).

Imagine that feeling right after you wake up.
SUCKS, DOESN'T IT?

I want to tell you about my three-part dream that I had last night, but I have to follow the order that I established. As much as I admit this is getting boring, I just can't get side-tracked; otherwise, I will never finish this. And I am past the halfway mark in my Xanga entries, isn't that (kind of) exciting?

It will just have to get in line....

Speaking of three-part dreams--

9.2.2005 __friday____
That reminds me. I had three dreams combined in one - it was unusual. But I'll only post the second one on here because I don't know how to describe the first and third ones. I dreamt school started already and I was in class. It was history. There was a new girl, and people were saying she was really smart, so I was curious. But before the bell rang, she turned around in her seat and stared at me. And then she started insulting me! When the teacher began talking and we started reviewing what we remembered from last year, I was called on to answer a question and explain something.. So I stood up and the class listened to my answer and watched as I drew diagrams on the board. The questions just kept coming and I kept answering them, but they gradually became harder for me.. For some reason, I had to answer every question - but I was stuck on one of them. And then the new girl stood up and took over. I left and went to the back of the classroom to help a teacher fix something.

It's as if I was making up history in my mind. I was talking about things that made perfect sense in my dream, but now it doesn't mean anything to me. It was something about ... Christian and... something/someone with an "o" and "l" .. Hmm..

..

Oh. I bet it had something to do with Charlie and Lola.

Hahaha

I think this one speaks for itself. I'm a jealous person, and I always feel like I have to prove myself to someone. I feel threatened by people who are better than me; if they prove it, I feel useless.

I was a little annoyed when I read about how I didn't write down all 3 dreams, but I will take...my...word for it and just try to convince myself that they weren't all that important....

How many dreams do you have on average per night that you can remember? One? Two? I don't know if you've noticed (because it's not that apparent in my old Xanga posts so far), but I tend to have more than one dream on a good night's sleep. Either that, or I have extremely long, detailed ones that play out in scenes (which sometimes seem like separate dreams). I think the record I've had is four or five, but three might be the average.
I have woken up from a dream into a dream... and woken up from that dream into yet another dream. I'll tell you now: I was a bit flustered. Every time I "woke up," I was in my bed; it took me a while to realize the feeling of everything around me was still different from reality. Sadly, I don't remember writing it down anywhere. But that was too good of an experience to not record it, so I must've done it in one of my journals. I'd love to share it with you.
But that was out of the ordinary, for me. It hasn't happened like that since then. My sequential dreams aren't always related, although....

• ...there is almost always one in the series that is incredibly disturbing in retrospect.
• ...many times, I bring back some minor detail/random character/place that I dreamt of in the past, be it a couple of nights ago or a couple of years ago.
• ...the first dream tends to be short or nonsensical. I usually don't like to write them down, but sometimes I do, just for my own sake.

I dream in threes, and I like it. It lets me know that there is some kind of world in my head, some sort of order -- even if I'm the only one who can understand it fully.

It's like taking a handful of random objects from clutter and putting them in categories. It will take time to sort everything out, and in the beginning, for a while, it will seem like nothing is related to anything else. But in the end, all of these objects will have something in common:

they each define me, in a way that real life cannot.
I can't lie to myself in a dream, no matter how much I try. Analysis will tell me so.

Xanga Post 14: A Friendly Enemy

8.30.2005 __tuesday____
I had that recurring dream again. This time I was on the ledge to the right of the waterfall. And I was looking at the treetops instead of watching the girl wade out into the parasite-infested river. The top layers of leaves were black, but then the layers below them were dark green. And then it got lighter and lighter. Green, light green, yellow, until the leaves closest to the ground were white. But the fallen leaves on the ground looked like regular autumn leaves - brown, red, orange. I never noticed it before.

I mentioned the importance of the trees of the Waterfall Dreams in a previous post (that is a link). I said that I tried to look at what the trees looked like, but could never remember to do it. Evidently, I was wrong; I even wrote it down in fairly good detail.

I honestly don't remember what this looks like, anymore. Thank God I had the sense to write it down 5 years ago...
Since I don't remember this, I'm just guessing what I think is a valid point of view. When I think of tree canopies, I think about the sunlight and how powerful and quiet it is. The leaves exposed at the top of the forest are the ones that take in most of the sun. The farther away from the top of the canopy, the less exposed the leaves are. The leaves of the lowest branches of the trees remain untouched and pure: white.


The leaves are children of the branches,

which are children of the trunks,

which are children of seeds.

The youngest are the most innocent.
The oldest are the most protective.
The sunlight is both friend and enemy.

Xanga Post 13: Common Lucidity?

7.28.2005 __thursday____

Am I a lucid dreamer? Haha.. I was reading over my comments earlier, and I came across one that mentioned lucid dreaming, so I researched a little. You can't really teach someone to control their dreams. They can't help it sometimes, and just go with the flow. Well, I'm not sure.
I'm not a lucid dreamer because I can't control everything. But according to this web page, I have "high lucidity." xD
In my mind (both awake and asleep), I convince myself that I'm not really dreaming, but that I'm really somewhere else. Hehe.. I'm weird. But there are still dreams that make no sense to me, and I know they really are just dreams. They're complete nonsensical dreams that formed from what I've done or seen during the day. Others, I recognize places I've never visited while awake. Many of my dreams seem to take place in the same buildings, the same parks, the same rooms.

And I don't have those dreams that everyone else seems to have. The ones where "I'm flying," or "I'm being chased," or "I went to school naked" or "in my pajamas," or "I won the lottery"....I just think those are funny and dumb.

I have dreams about bells in towers that ring and clash and bring down walls. I have dreams about having to eat slugs as an antidote. I have dreams about climbing over walls and through tight spaces (beginning all my dreams), about wandering off to the same river of stale and murky water, and about seeing the same person who looks after me, who I (sadly) think I made up in my mind. And about balancing on logs in a dark red river.

HAHA!

That's so funny that I wrote that, especially after my last post on The Archidream that was about recognizing when you're given an easy opportunity to experience a lucid dream.

I stopped researching lucidity a couple of years ago. I decided I wanted to see what it's like for myself, and to find out the best way for me to reach that state of clarity. I remembered reading about how most people say it's best to have a stable sleeping pattern, and to get a good amount of rest. And to train by telling yourself what to dream as you're falling asleep.

So I tried those things, but the sleeping pattern didn't make a difference for me. If anything, having a consistent sleeping pattern made it harder for me to even realize I'm in a dream. I did try to tell myself what to dream (something as simple as, "I'm outside."), but I quickly realized that the real trick is not in what you tell yourself to dream -- it's in making sure you're mentally awake when your body is not. That's the whole purpose of the exercise.

I think I always get caught in that state before sleeping. I remind myself, too early, to be mentally awake. And I end up with sleep paralysis. It's harder to get out of sleep paralysis than it is to wake up from a lucid dream. Being stuck in sleep paralysis while knowing what you want to dream is like being separated from everything by glass walls. You know you can get to the dream, you just don't know how to. Or you have to break one of the walls to go back -- to move your body again and physically wake up.

I still don't know if everyone can be taught how to have lucid dreams. There are techniques and explanations to understand it, but I'm not sure about actually being able to apply it. What do you think?

As for the rest of the dreams I briefly mentioned at the end -- those are written down in my journals. They will eventually make their way in here.