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.

Xanga Post 12: Sorted Out

Do you ever try to remember numbers or words in your dreams? They're usually really difficult for me to hold on to unless I write them down immediately after waking up. I don't know what they mean, but I'm always hopeful that I'll be able to look back at them later and suddenly understand.

In this case, I still don't understand the numbers. I don't understand the word, "Heritage." I don't know if I explored that further in the dream or not; I never mentioned it again. But there's a lot to say for the rest of the entry.

7.27.2005 __wednesday____

Hahaha oh my gosh
This morning I woke up a few minutes before 9, so I went back to sleep and I had a dream that seemed really long (woke up again around 9:20)..

It was about going back to school
First off, I didn't have a roster, so I didn't know what classes I had to go to, and Prendie was different. I was in this place in another dream, but I don't know if it was "Prendie" in that one. Anyway, it had two wings, and the hall connecting it looked like a ballroom. One wing's rooms were numbered 1/17, 1/18, 1/19, etc. And the other wing was numbered 208, 209, 210, etc. Above the doorway to the second hall was the word "Heritage" - I don't know if there was a word above the other passageway to the opposite wing.

I was in a room watching Channel One, before classes started - it was like a bedroom, even with a carpeted floor and a bed, and everything was cluttered. I picked up my books in a hurry to find my roster and left the room. I asked Evie to help me, and she brought me to a room next door. And there I saw Mr. Kornaki from St. Clement, and he gave me two papers. And then I dropped my books and picked them up again. And I noticed as I was walking hurriedly that I was holding a book that said something like "St. Clement Plays."

I looked at my roster, but I couldn't remember where I was going or where I even was. And then I ended up in the main hall - but nothing was in the main hall, just a huge empty room lined with tiles or something that was made to look like several doors. Everything was old and brown. And the ceiling was high. Then a woman came in from the hallway behind me and started dancing and singing. And for a moment I was shown a close-up of her feet, and as she danced like a graceful ballerina, she leaned on her toes and reminded me of a swan. Then she led me into a library and showed me around. And pulled back a curtain (I could still hear a song in the background) to show a wall lined with books. And around, on tables and all over the floor piled on each other, more books. I saw chairs and recognized them immediately - I even knew that some tables were missing, and that furniture was being moved.

Then I dropped my books again, and so I picked them up. She smiled at me, and then Anjel came in to help me gather them. I looked more closely at them to see that they weren't at all the books I needed with me. The ones I'd been carrying had titles containing the words "Gnomes" and "Gargoyles" and "Dwarves" - faerie tale books, mythical creatures. I panicked, but I couldn't seem to get myself together, partially because I knew I wouldn't get through the first day of school.. I would be marked absent because I wasn't in homeroom. "What is my homeroom, anyway?" I wondered - it was Mr. Masluk's room xD and then I got excited and wanted to tell Mary. But then I finally realized that I hadn't seen Mary at all, or any other of my friends.

So. In a summary - I had a nightmare about the first day of school as a Sophomore. lol

It's true, of course, that dream time is different from real time. I've had dreams that lasted hours or days, only to wake up and see that 1 hour has passed by (it's a great feeling). Also, the opposite has happened: I've slept for a full 8 hours and dreamt of nothing but a face and a voice. As we all know, anything can change in dreams. Time is no exception.

This is the first time I read this entry in a few years. I completely forgot about this, but reading it again brought back clear pictures, especially the main hall of Prendie. More than once or twice, I've dreamt of Prendie's hallways and classrooms....but merged with other settings, such as bedrooms, living rooms, or something similar to a convention center.

Architecturally, in real life, the combination of many settings more than defeats the purpose of a place. Can you imagine if life was full of classrooms sometimes furnished with old couches, worn beds, or kitchen counters? Of course, there are instances in which these are acceptable: culinary schools, for instance, have kitchen counters all over the place. But you would never walk into a study hall to sit on top of a small refrigerator and work on math assignments.
In dreams, though, it makes perfect sense at the time. Nothing is really too out of the ordinary, is it? So the place can be whatever you want it to be; it's anywhere. And if you keep that mentality (or at least keep yourself ignoring the rules and logic of the waking world), then you can become a lucid dreamer. Build your own world. That's just something I like to think about.

Sometimes, there is a smooth transition from one setting to another in my dreams, such as a carpet in the main hall of Prendie instead of the hard stone floors. It's not a very sudden change, but more gradual as I walk along on my way to the Old Library that has replaced the cafeteria. And in the carpeted library, once I walk through the heavy doors, all the walls and bookshelves are made of some kind of dark cherry wood. Another example of smooth transitioning is seeing a person, such as Mr. Kornacki (someone I knew from my grade school), who reminds me of another place or time that later makes its way into the dream.
Other times, the change is more sudden, like the bed in the middle of the classroom. When I dream of things like this now, I know enough that it's out of the ordinary that I feel a little strange while I'm still asleep. Like I can almost feel myself lying in bed. But I've trained myself not to linger around that idea, or else I'll lose my slight lucidity and wake up (this morning, actually, I had a dream in which I became lucid enough to project Matt as a character, completely taking the place of another person who previously stood where he was).... And if I don't notice these oddities? Well, then I keep dreaming, as I did in this 2005 dream. And I can't bring in people, objects, or places.

This dream -- a conglomeration of settings, memories, and passive associations -- screams for me to see with a lucid eye. Passive associations, by the way, are (to me) exactly that: something we associate with another, without making an effort to do so. Maybe I associate "Prendie" with "home," thus the random array of bedroom furniture and casual clutter. Or the ballerina reminded me so much of some fantasical creature that the books I was carrying suddenly had titles or key words on them: "Gnomes," "Gargoyles," and "Dwarves."

But as I was saying:
Those types of things, all those details, urge me to think of what they mean to me in real life, so that I can realize I'm in a dream. A lot of times, it's too late for me to hold on to the dream once I snap out of that puppet dreamer phase and actively take control of myself again. My heart rate goes up with excitement, and I can feel it. There are only a few seconds for me to calm down enough to stay in control; if I miss that window, I often find myself staring at my own eyelids with my eyebrows furrowed. Too much effort and awareness. I lose it. And I'm awake.

I think you're waiting for me to talk about Inception. I wish you knew how much I would love to talk about that movie and integrate the concept of familiar places with what was explained in the movie, or even to talk about time. Or, I don't know, how about dreams within dreams (the most I've had was 3)...?

But for the sake of people who have not yet seen the movie, I shall refrain from doing so. Because if I do discuss the movie, I would go into much detail.

So, there you have it. My "nightmare," going by the name for this dream as many people would describe it, was more or less a messy file cabinet of memories. It was a wonderland of triggers for lucid dreaming, but I was blind.

Xanga Post 11: Sensible Nonsense

7.23.2005 __saturday____

Just had lunch a while ago, and I asked, "Did you ever hear anything when you were half asleep and think it was real?" And I was going to explain why I asked that, but I couldn't remember everything. And then we started talking about other things.

Oh, now I remember what happened last night! I was trying to fall asleep but I couldn't, so I listened to music on my CD player (didn't really help, since it was loud -_-). I was about to fall asleep, but I was only half asleep. I heard - or imagined, I guess - a conversation going on, between a man and someone else. I don't remember who else it was. But then I heard someone shout/yell, and then I opened my eyes and took off my headphones, but everyone in the house was asleep by then (that is, except for myself - and Evie, who was upstairs in her room scrapbooking until after sunrise.. lol). So I decided that it was my imagination, since I didn't hear anything after I sat up.
Then later on that night, I faced the ceiling and put the pillow over my eyes, almost falling asleep again. Then I saw inside my mind, all these doors floating in a blackness, and among those doors I came across one that didn't have a door, but had a doorway. Inside I could see something, like stairs, but they led forward instead of up or down, and a tall, thin cyprus tree. But I couldn't see beyond that because there was a mist creeping out. Then the doors slowly shifted - or I shifted - and I was led away from it; I couldn't go back because I began concentrating on going back. When I tried too hard, all I could see were the lids of my eyes.




And my dream?
Well, I don't know how one led to the other, but everything seemed to connect in my dream. We were in a mall, and two little kids ran by Evie when she was going to catch up to me from a store - one was a girl, and one was a boy, each running in opposited directions. Then Evie started talking about "children these days" and how things would be different "if" XD
And then she stopped - I thought she was thinking of what to say next to complete her sentence, but then she pulled out a square picture frame that held a snapshot of Scout from "To Kill a Mockingbird". And then we were at a house, our house, and on the wall were more picture frames. But in places were painted outlines of more frames that weren't there yet. And she placed it in one that fit.
Then we were going to Church at St. Clement, and The Beatles came out of a car o_O... And we started talking to them.. I opened the door for them.
Ringo: *sing-song* Romney!
Me: You're welcome.
Ringo: Ooo...kay..
(I think it confused him in my dream because "You're welcome" is something said in real life that makes sense at this time, and this dream made no sense)
Then we came to another door leading directly inside the church. I opened it again.
Ringo: *sing-song* You're welcome!
Me: ... Romney ...?
(And this seemed to make more sense to him.)
Ringo: Georgie!!

And that's all I remember from that point on, except for the part when I sat down in a pew by myself and beside me were the two little children again.




wth this means nothing to me

It was around this time that I started thinking about some signs of sleep paralysis. I didn't know what it was, but I knew enough about these tendencies that there ought to be a name for it.

What I imagined hearing was something with the tone of the beginning of an argument. It started out as a regular conversation, but then the voices slowly started getting higher and louder. They were interrupted by a third voice that seemed to yell at them, maybe to stop. That's when I sat up in bed, tore off my headphones, and stared into the darkness.

Sometimes, these days, I lie still when these things happen, keep myself awake enough to let it continue, and listen to what happens....
It usually repeats itself, in loops of seconds or minutes.
I hear, "Whyyy....." in my own voice, but raspy.
I hear someone call my name in a deeper whisper.
I hear resounding phrases of music.
Earlier tonight (much earlier...), when I was washing dishes with music on, I clearly heard a man's voice in the dining room behind me say loudly, "Hey! Steph!" It was a voice I hadn't recognized, so I dropped the sponge I was holding, snapped my head up, and waited. But nothing came. It's sad that I still have to turn around to make sure nobody's there. I must look like a deer in the headlights: so obvious.

The cyprus tree, and the horizontal steps.
The steps would best be described as nothing more than triangles to climb over, like an obstacle course. But in the dream, it wasn't that at all. They still worked as steps.
The cyprus tree hiding behind a curtain of fog is the beginning of another dream I had either before or after this half-dream. I think it was after this. It took place in a topiary garden/maze -- undoubtedly representing some problem I had to work out. And what was I trying to get to, in the dream? I don't know, I never finished it. Maybe that's why I've been waiting years to have that dream come to me again.

The rest of my entry isn't that important to me. But for the sake of archiving consistently, all right.

I don't know what to say about the scene with Evie talking about children, but it's interesting that she's now working on becoming a teacher for children.
Perhaps I just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird; that's my best guess.
And finally, the Beatles and Romney.
I still have no idea what that was about. But that name came up before I'd heard anything about Mitt Romney. Even then, why should his name show up in my dream? Get out.

All in all, my current response to this particular dream night is

still

wth this means nothing to me

To be nicer about it, and to give an explanation I'm sure a lot of people can relate to,
not all dreams mean anything. You can try to pull them apart and read into them in more depth, but I think that's just trying too hard. Most of the time, you're probably going to end up with something like, "I have a problem."
Well, yeah. You just dreamed about nonsense. I'd say you're pretty crazy.

Just kidding. I shouldn't be one to talk about that.

But most, if not all the time, dreams contain things that we've experienced during the daytime. It may not be that obvious when the dream is ongoing, but when you think about it later, it's crystal clear. Even if it's not very evident, it's there: things seen, heard, felt throughout the day. Things you want to ignore that cross your mind before you can stop and bury them again.

Dreams are so personal and intimate. If you had the most ridiculous dream but woke up with a bittersweet feeling, nobody else would quite understand when you try to explain it (and they may even laugh, as I'm sure you might have if you've read any of my other entries and wondered why I'm so serious about them). That emotion is attached to you and the dream; it probably is also attached to a memory or a thought, which is what makes it so personal. Trace that emotion back to its starting point, and you could actually find an underlying meaning in the nonsense you've dreamt up.
You've already done this. That bittersweet feeling I mentioned -- you know what it means when you first wake up. But then it escapes you. So either hold on to it, or try to hold on to the emotion and trace it back.
Have you ever stopped think about how vulnerable you are when you sleep, both physically and mentally?

Vulnerable to everyone, including yourself.