On Van Eeden, LaBerge, and Hobson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writing a dream--

--is actually kind of complicated.

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

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

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

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

put it together,

and call it a dream.

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

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

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

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

Me, I like organized chaos.

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

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

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

just know that a short movie is in the works.

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

Rewind, Again

I've given myself an assignment.

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

Sketches. Diagrams. I'm excited to start.

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

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

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

So I think I want things to make sense.

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

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

These better not make sense at all.

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

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

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

So, anyway.

One week! Then it begins.

Unsent

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

From oldest to most recent:

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

Tap Tap Tap

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

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

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

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

Ever get that feeling?

Or, speaking of feelings,

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

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

nope. it's not coming to me.

Random

I couldn't sleep.... but I was tired.

Thoughts that went through my head:

Lay down with the lights off. Stare into the darkness until you can see the room around you. Then close your eyes and imagine you still see everything. Now close your "eyes." Can't do it? Isn't that annoying?

Place your hand on something and stare at it, unmoving. Think about everything that your skin is coming into contact with......and what it would feel like to slide your fingers across it. Reach for your mouse/touchpad without moving your hand. Don't actually do it, just imagine it.

Or, imagine for a minute that we're not really moving our bodies. Ever. And that the world as we know it is actually just a plane of "reality" conforming to our bodies. So that every part of us is always completely surrounded by this material of folded reality.

And suppose that if we discover a way to manipulate reality in a different way than we already do (or is it reality that manipulates us?), we come up with a way to traverse oceans and lands in moments instead of hours?

Listen to the air coming out of the vent. What note is that? An A? G? D? It could be any of them, couldn't it? It's like listening to a song with some other noise distorting your sense of hearing, and you end up thinking that song is on a different key. Or a different octave.

There's the brain and all its complexities...

And then there's the mind, which can control the brain.

What do we know about it?

Lockjaw

Last night I met with sleep paralysis again. It was inevitable, but I didn't know it was going to happen until I actually went to sleep. Silly me, I went to bed around 3:30 in the morning. Come to think of it, I wonder if it'll happen again tonight, because I'm up late and I took a nap earlier today (how do I manage to forget about triggers?)......


I talk about lockjaw in this post, but for the record, it's not the medically-defined tetanus kind of lockjaw that I have in mind (so if you're Googling it right now -- it's not that).
I do get lockjaw sometimes, but it hasn't happened in a couple of years. Basically, if I open my mouth too wide when I yawn, my jaw gets dislocated (I guess that's what happens), and I can't close my mouth (it hurts to try, and I can feel the strain on my muscles and bones). I panic every time that happens, but years of dealing with this problem has taught me that it can be fixed by shoving my thumbs in my mouth and actually positioning the lower jaw back in place. Gross, right? 
Sounds painful -- and it can be if you don't do it right, but I try to tell myself it's like chiropractics
(which doesn't actually help much, because that makes me just as nervous)....


sleep paralysis + lockjaw = nightmare




Me: you should sleep. are you sleepy?

Me: OMG btw i had sleep paralysis again last night

Matt: not really

Matt: tell me about it

Me: i slept on my side so that i WOULDN'T get it

Me: but it was so strong and unavoidable that it happened anyway

Me: i could feel it coming

Me: so when i was falling asleep, i got that tingly and panicked feeling

Me: so i tried to control it, but i couldn't; i fell into a dream

Me: i dreamt that i had lockjaw with my mouth open, and someone was forcing it shut

Me: so i thought i was going to break my jaw

Me: that's not the first time i've had that feeling during sleep paralysis

Me: i closed my mouth, and dreamt that i cracked my jaw

Me: but once my mouth was closed, it was still locked. this time, it was locked shut

Me: and i was clenching my teeth so strongly that i could feel all of my nerves in my mouth
        starting to ache

Me: so i got out of bed and went over to the mirror in anjel's room

Me: i got out of the lockjaw and opened my mouth to look at my teeth

Me: and they were all broken and ground down to the nerves

Me: i could see the pulp in the hollow parts, and they were all bleeding

Me: i could even taste the blood, it was so painful

Me: but i went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep to wake myself up, because i knew it
        wasn't real

Matt: you seriously have the worst fucking dreams!

Me: as i was trying to wake myself up, whatever was forcing my mouth shut in the beginning
       came back

Me: and started shaking my shoulder violently

Me: i had to wrench myself out of sleep paralysis at that point

Me: and when i did, i actually turned around on my back and started gasping for air

Me: i was about to scream, but i didn't because anjel was asleep

Me: my dreams are awesome, and they make for good stories.. but it's such a pain when
         they're so REAL

Matt:   :-\ 

Me: because then i feel stuff like that

Me: and it's not fun

Me: for someone who's never been clawed by monsters or had her teeth ground down to the
         pulp, i find it frighteningly intriguing that my mind can simulate those sensations

Matt: your mind is insane :-P

Me: it is, isn't it?

Matt: i love it

Me: i have this notion that my mind is timeless

Me: that my imagination was mature for me when i was younger

Me: now it's more my age

Me: and when i'm old, my dreams at night will still be young

Me: but i also think it's like that for everyone

Headless and Hunched

I must have taken four or five naps yesterday.... BAD. IDEA.

At night, I lay in bed for a few minutes, getting myself settled in and comfortable. Then I closed my eyes and tried to remain lucid. For some reason, it didn't occur to me that I would be hit by sleep paralysis -- all I was concerned with was being able to trigger lucid dreaming and take advantage of it. So yes, this entire story is my own doing.

So there I was in bed, forming my own dream. I decided to go back to DC.

Everything was dark.

I could see my friends in the distance, but as I walked closer to them, I could make out their faces and sensed something was off (it's strange, how I can do all this in my head and yet forget that I'm doing it... I was lucid this entire time, consciously making decisions to go here or there, to bring this person into the dream or make them leave, but I forgot that it was all because I was asleep).

Their faces were different. Only slightly, but just enough that I felt odd. And the air was too perfect. I could feel my whole body tingling with the preface of sleep paralysis and thought, "Uh-oh............"

I spent what felt like the next few hours going around campus and hanging out with friends. At one point, I made them carry me on their shoulders through the halls of random dorms....

When I climbed back down from their shoulders, the scene changed without my willing it. I was alone in the dark hallways, and heard people's voices behind closed doors. The tingling sensation grew more intense, and I could hear the buzzing of electricity becoming louder and louder. Paralysis was coming.

So I walked along, telling myself I could do whatever I wanted. But I was having trouble holding on to my control.

I opened a door and found two of my guy friends in the room playing video games. So I sat down beside one of them and put my hand on his back to let him know I was there.
"Hey!" he said as he turned around to face me. His features were stretched apart just a little too much. Or his eyes were tilted half a degree more than they should have been.

Who was I looking at, again?

At any rate, I talked to him a bit and let him continue his game. I still had my hand on his shoulder, so I rubbed it up and down a couple of times and was about to say, "It's good to see you again,"

but then I was hit with the most unusual observation.

That was the realest thing I'd sensed in the dream so far.

I could feel every fiber of his shirt beneath my fingers as my hand moved across it. For a while, I couldn't define what it was, but it hit me hard. So hard that I was paralyzed by it. So hard that as I stared at the game on the screen, I could feel my world fading around me and saw something completely different.

I was in bed.

But I was still sitting on the couch next to my friend....still with my hand on his back, trying to figure out what I was touching.

What was I really touching?

My hand was lifted up; I could feel gravity. As I was dreaming, I was doing the same motions in bed. So what was I touching in real life?

I managed to open my eyes enough to see something by my legs.

Something was sitting on me, hunched over and facing the window beside the bed. It was a man wearing a dress shirt. As I continued to feel the shirt with my hand, my vision became clearer.

It was Matt.

My vision became clearer.

He was hunched over and dead. Headless.

My hand was still on his back.

My hand was still on my friend's back, and we were playing video games.

My hand was still on Matt's back....

My hand was still on this dead man's back.....

I tried to pull it back and move away as far as I could, but was frozen.

I'm not awake. Oh God, I'm not awake, I can't be.

I wasn't. As I struggled to open my eyes, I saw him doubly. First as a headless man. Simultaneously, as a naked monster with pale skin. Pale as the shirt on his body that disappeared.

Struggling to move, I managed to scream. My voice was muffled, though, and I wasn't sure if it was in my head or in real life. Either way, I screamed as loud as I could. If I was really screaming, I hoped that someone would hear me and wake me up. But no one came. Was I simply whimpering?

The headless monster lifted its long, bony arms and reached for my shoulders. It scratched me with dirty claws. It scratched me, and I felt it. That's what really terrified me and caused me to scream some more.

But I finally managed to move my legs. I kicked and kicked to get it off of me, but that only made it angry....

I finally gained enough control to defend myself, frantically fall out of bed, and pull my body over to Anjel's side of the room.

I'm awake. I have to be awake.

Didn't want to turn around. I crawled over to Anjel, who was still sleeping, and whispered to her to wake her up. But she growled, and when she turned around, her face was not hers.

Closed doors are the most terrifying thing when you're trapped with two monsters in a sleep paralysis dream.....

I screamed as loud as I could, again, hoping my voice was heard somewhere. After fumbling with the lock and handle, I stumbled into the hallway to find Shiel, Mom, and Dad working on something. All of them had their backs turned to me, so I couldn't see their faces.

I ran downstairs before they reacted... reached the door, and fought with the locks again.

Why am I even doing this? I'm asleep! I can be outside without opening doors!!

But I couldn't will it..... So I pried the door open just in time to run outside and head towards Matt's house.

(For every time I've had to run away from my own overwhelming imagination, I ran to his house....

I never make it all the way. I always wake up just as I'm around the corner.)

Anyway, I woke up in bed once again. This time it was real, because I could feel everything. I could smell. I had to breathe. My ears picked up on the deafening silence around me. My throat didn't burn from screaming so much (so it never happened). My heart was racing. My body was tired. Nothing happened in real life, but I felt like I had scratches on me from the headless monster.

I never even moved. I was only asleep for 10-15 minutes total.

I refused to make any sudden movements or to even look over at Anjel, who was sleeping in the same position that I dreamt about. Instead, I texted Matt and Jess in an attempt to reassure myself that I was, in fact, awake.....and that nothing was going to happen anymore....

That's what I get for pushing the limits. Every time I decide I can handle experimenting with lucid dreams and sleep paralysis, something goes terribly wrong....

When will I ever learn? One night, this might prove to be too much for me.

Because I know I'm going to do this again. Perhaps even tonight.

the tide

This week sucks.

That's really all I need to say about my life; it's otherwise unimportant to dream updates.

So.....

I dreamt of a tidal wave. I thought of it as being about 40 feet high, but it was probably closer to twice that. It rose and fell at a safe enough distance that none of the buildings were obliterated, but it cause a major spike in the water level coming in to shore...somehow.

I was on the boardwalk (made of perfectly clean glass), talking with a friend's late father, when I got distracted by the rising tide. I left him, swung my legs over the glass wall, and climbed up onto a taller glass wall that extended high above the boardwalk, as if it was a barrier between the land and sea... I sat on top of it and panicked as the water rose and rose and rose.... until it reached the brim and overflowed.

"Run," I yelled at everyone. I ran, too.

I ran into another dream when I found a friend. I tried to tell her about the tidal wave that I imagined, but she wasn't listening very well.

not happy

I miss my strange, messed-up dreams. These nights as of late have been...... tame (for me), to say the least.

During the school year, is it the stress that sets them off? Is it over-stimulation of my imagination throughout the day, in studio?

And during the summer, is it the lack of a real social life and all the free time to over-stimulate my imagination that gets me going?

Whatever it is, I'm in a "happy place" right now -- a steady work mode, a steady day. A steady week. And a pretty regular sleep schedule. Full 8 hours every night so far.

It's boring.