dream!
LADYTRAP, INC.
the flip side of reality
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a rooftop sahara
Waiting to go see a play for seven dollars. Who recommended it? It's a small-time production but it looks pretty good. Maybe someone I know is in it. No, wait-- I learn that there are only two people in the play: It's the true story of a black teenager from the ghetto who overcame racial stereotyping to become a world-class skating champion, and the idealistic female coach who pushed him to do it. The roles are played by the real characters, and I see the kid outside the box office, stretching with his board. I think to myself that it's impressive he can run through all those tricks consistently every night without fail. Well, I guess if he's one of the best that ever was then it's no surprise.
Waiting for the show to start I end up in a very tall deserted building with a group of men I just met. Maybe they are the men from the party last night. We are systematically exploring every floor, and there is some sort of game or task laid out for us. On every floor is a young girl (teenage?) in a pink dress, an older woman (about 40?) and maybe some items. The older woman tells us that the two of them represent the institution of "girlfriend"... the young one represents sexual attraction and she represents emotional and intellectual compatibility. Kind of like Greek gods?
Anyway, I forget what the activity is but as we systematically go through the floors the view of the city gets better and better. Is it San Diego in the future? Could it be Mexico? It is warm and dry.
A small group of us make it to the entrance to the roof, which is a mysterious little blue plastic puzzle with slides and screws and latches. I figure it out and we get on the roof, which is covered in sand. The many footprints tell us that there is another group of people up here, and we put our guard up. It is another group of men, trekking back across the sand from the distant far edge of the building. They look as if they have jut hiked across the Sahara. These is some sort of camaraderie between the two groups; even though we have never met, we have a lot in common, such as both having made it to the roof of this odd edifice.
We explore the small set of rooms on the roof and it looks as though a dozen people have moved into a tiny room in a hostel. There are bags and clothing and random bits of gear everywhere. We decide to leave, and I volunteer to climb through the hatch and have people hand me gear. Eventually every climbs back through., and there is still plenty of stuff in the room, and I climb back in to make a final sweep. That is when I discover the back room
The first feature of the back room I notice is a whole wall of candy dispensers. Great! Colorful! Swedish fish! Gummy bears! Mmm, I feast on those. Then I notice other odd items in this room... old-time drawings of naked women. Sexy and political paperbacks. Random photos I can't identify. I realise that this is a secret room where my grandfather hides everything he doesn't want my grandmother to see. Playing on a flat TV screen on the wall is a video of him accidentally driving my dad's Aerostar into the canal of a European city (Monaco?). Scandalous!
I think the following story happened earlier in the dream: Erica has somehow acquired one of those new Minis, it's blue, and I am driving it up a street in Golden Hill (or it looks like Golden Hill) with a group of us in the car. But I am maybe driving a bit too fast or I hit a slippery patch and the car goes into a spin. Two and a half full turns in total darkness, braced for collision, before I whip the wheel around and stabilize on the sidewalk without hitting anything. Cops gather, but since I'm convinced I haven't done anything wrong I'm not worried. It's like a freaking cop convention, though, and there are about 25 officers milling around We hang around forEVER waiting for them to get their act together and then they disappear into a record store or coffeeshop, It would have been pretty easy to just drive out of there but we stick around just in case they are watching fro somewhere secret. Erica and I pop across the street for a minute to use the toilet or look in another store and when we return after about 90 seconds, wouldn't you know it, there are 25 angry cops milling around thinking we skipped out on them.
We walk with one of the officers up the street and someone with us has a tooth fall out. I see this as license for my own teeth to fall out and I chew a little bit and all of my teeth crumble into broken bits which I spit out into my palm. It's takes a couple spits and a few passes of the tongue over the gums to get all the stray bits out.
Whenever my teeth fall out in dreams, it always feels EXACTLY the same. They crumble.
STRANGE LUCIDITY
Okay, I may be on to something here.
I wake up to find someone in my room (Carolina and a friend?), trying to find room on the dresser for a speaker they found on the floor. I think "that's odd, I don't keep that on the floor" and when I go to investigate it seems that Sparky's glass tank had slipped and fallen against the wall, knocking other items off in the process. The tank lies at an angle against the wall, and the top edges are shattered. cracked glass everywhere. The lid is gone as well, but fortunately poor Sparky is still in the tank.
As I grab the tank from either side to stabilize it, I'm thinking that the sound of it falling must have woken me up but I don't remember actually hearing a crash. The thought that I may be dreaming quickly crosses my mind but I dismiss it almost immediately and I grab feel the glass and notice how real it seems. But further investigations into this tactile experience make me suspicious after all and eventually I realise I AM dreaming because I consciously pull myself away from my vertical position in front of the tank, backwards across the room an into a horizontal position on my back in bed. I can sense the covers all around me with the blanket is wrapped up over my ears. I can't remember now if my eyes were partially open (that's what it felt like at the time) or if I was just using my other senses, since it was fairly dark in the room.
Wonderfully, though, as soon as I had this confirmation that I was indeed dreaming, rather than wake up, I was able to delicately nudge my awareness back into the dreamworld. The sensation of thinking I was vertical and then discovering my body was horizontal was fascinating, so rather than return to the broken lizard tank (which I now knew was complete fabrication so all worry had ceased) I went directly into experimenting with floating. I "floated" back into an upright position, my body and loose limbs hanging freely in the air, and continued rising and pitching forward until I was near the ceiling and facing floor below me. Amazing. It felt great, as if I had been freed from gravity, and as if I could have done this much earlier in life had I only known that the confines of the physical world were merely an illusion keeping us in check.
By this point I was fully aware that I was in lucidity and decided to move forward with it and try to explore this new existence. It was tough. A few times I flitted briefly back into my body in bed. This in itself was an incredible feeling, but was merely amusing (like a toy, fun but just a distraction) and with some practice I was able to avoid staying in the meat too long and waking up.
Just one of the first times I returned to my body came instantaneously with a knocking sound and an physical sensation, as if I had been struck in the head by a solid wooden ball.
I found myself being barraged with rapidly cycling colorful images in front of my face, almost too fast for me to grab any detail out of them. It was as if I was to choose one at random and dive into it, but for some reason I was stuck in this mode for some time. I could control the rate and rotation/motion of the images but was unable to just freely move into the universe as I had hoped.
I pondered this for a moment and flitted back into the body a few times. Then, laying there aware of the room and bed I decided to pool my efforts and try to connect with other dreamers or search for some other clue that lucid dreaming is truly more empowering than ordinary dreaming. (I thank Rikker for putting this idea in my head last week during a discussion of his own dream research several years ago.) I plunged back in and tried to pierce the moving imagery (which was still cycling while I was away), but was unable to totally free myself.
I eventually flitted back into my body for a final time and my awareness returned in full. Once again, my body felt wonderful and energetic and buzzed filled with physical joy, just as in my first lucidity experience exactly two weeks ago. Could this be adrenaline? Does adrenaline make you want to just lay there and savor it?
After enjoying this, I was tempted to write about my experiences immediately but it seemed worth the risk of forgetting it all in order to try to pursue it again. I had no more success and drifted into regular dreaming, but fortunately I remember it all well.
brief analysis
This experience gives me hope that I can truly take this dream research in a constructive direction. Last night I went to bed late (4am) but not sleepy. I could have stayed awake longer but since it was very quiet and I was alone I decided to go to bed with my wits about me in order to deliberately attempt to invoke lucidity. And it worked.
I deliberately tried to stay aware as I fell asleep and a few times caught myself drifting away. It was an interesting feeling (when I had the faculties to think about it) and once again I had the sensation that new signals were moving across my brain. This realisation often wakes me up completely, and I tested my ability to stay in the experience rather than be fully awakened. (inconclusive successes)
There is a break in continuity, however, between my initial awake state and entering the lucid state. I had put myself to bed on my back with the covers wrapped up around my ears. I was still in this same position during the lucidity session so I conclude that it must have occurred very shortly after going to bed. Or I remained motionless for a long time beforehand, which seems unlikely (and it was apparently still very dark outside).
This may have been a coincidence but my instinct tells me that the lucid dreaming was a successful result of the conditions under which I put myself to sleep. It's impossible to test this hypothesis, of course.
I had had two glasses of wine and a cup of coffee much earlier in the evening but the effects of each had worn off at least four hours before.
Last night I watched several animated films that may have had an influence on my experience:
One short piece by the Brothers Quay called The Comb (from the Museum of Sleep) was an exploration of a dream state, during which a character's hands stay affixed to the side rails of a ladder while s/he falls asleep. Standing with my hands on either side of the lizard tank (and being aware of the tactile experience) was very reminiscent of this.
In René LaLoux's Fantastic Planet adults from an 'advanced' civilization spend most of their time meditating in a dreamlike state while visiting with beings from other civilizations in the universe. This may have seeded me with the idea of contacting other dreamers. Also, pet humans with security collars locked around their necks are hauled backwards over great distances when their masters flip a switch. Could my moving backwards from the lizard tank to my bed come from this?
And Hiyao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke may have been the source of all those vivid color images.
That that leads me pose the question: Can you "prime" your dream states by injecting (loading?) major symbols into your memory before going to sleep? Could the proper choice of symbols or ideas give you the proper tools to achieve lucidity? That is worthy of further experimentation.
Later in the night I had an ordinary dream, but it almost seems silly to recount the frivolous details in light of the early evening's success. Josh from work has started a duplication shop and I take some papers and an audio tape there for a customer. To my shock, it costs hundreds of dollars!
Some very interesting observations from comparing the recall of this dream and recall of the lucid dream:
1) Even though it occurred much earlier, it was far easier to remember the vivid details of the lucidity experiences than those of the dream I had just before waking. This tells me that the way we store information during lucidity is similar to the process we use during waking life, and the memories are stored in a table location. Ordinary dreams are only held in a temporary memory buffer. This is why they are only vividly remembered just after waking. The only way to commit those to semipermanent memory is to think about them just after waking, ideally by writing them down or discussing them with one's self or a friend.
2) Another interesting point is my use of tense. When I am recounting my dream experiences, I am very careful to use whatever tenses come to mind, without thinking about it. I have discovered that while I am recalling a dream just after waking, I almost exclusively use the present tense. When I am recalling it later in the day, I almost exclusive use the past tense. This tells me that I am accessing the memories from different locations. Instant recall of dreaming is more like reliving the dream, and recalling it later is definitely more like retrieving it from memory. This supports my theory that we are in a nonordinary state of mind just when we awake in the morning.
One will notice that my recalling of lucid dreams, however, is in the past tense. In fact, in reading last night's experience, you can see that I switch tenses from present into past almost immediately after reaching the point of lucidity. This also suggests that awareness is acting differently than in regular dreaming.
This draws me to two conclusions:
A) Memories from regular dreams and memories from lucid dreams are stored differently in the brain. The latter are retained more permanently.
B) If one defines awareness as the system of memory retrieval and processing, Lucidity is closer to waking awareness than regular dreaming is.
corporate holy water
I enroll as a student at Woodbury. Erica and I both move into the dorms and it is terrible! You'd think for an expensive private school the dorms wouldn't be so terrible. The cafeteria is horrible and unnutritious, and everything is so OLD. Nevertheless I am excited to be a student here, and am looking forward to the classes.
Erica and I end up in separate wings of the dorm. I share a room with a gymnastics/ballet girl who everyone makes fun of but who I think is pretty cool. Okay is especially cruel. Just because she acts cheesy doesn't mean she's a bad person. We also have a small reptile in the room; it could be Sparky or Jerry. Pat the impression that he is getting sick because there's not so much activity and stimulus in the new location.
Erica and I decide to rent a movie and I head down to Kensington Video. They have just closed, but the security guard lets me put a call in to the workers whoa re still down in the basement sorting videos. They are very accommodating but I forget the name of the movie we want to watch so I hang up and call Erica. Eventually I get it sorted out after talking to "the Video Grandmother". Apparently they are very accommodating to the Woodbury students since the school is next door and they get plenty of business from it.
We then take a walk around the Gaslamp to get out of the oppressive dorms. We find a cool-looking street, which is more like an old funky treesy street in Mission Hills than the built-up-with-nightlife hundred year old brick buildings. There is a long horizontal rock wall that climbers like to practice on, and I show Erica how to remove "climbing tags", which are laminated and colorful. Some details are missing here.
Later in the dream we go to a wedding. I sit next to Enav and tell her that she reminds me a lot of my sister. She asks if that isn't a bad sign and I say no, I adore my sister and that's why I enjoy hanging out with Enav so much. She even kind of looks like Karen.
I'm not sure how this happens but I end up onstage with the band or entertainers, as part of the wedding pre-show. But the curtain is still closed and we are goofing around, enjoying ourselves. Erica comes back to say that she is excited to have found the film she was looking for, the one with all the light and sounds and beautifully sculptured buildings. They had it one sale at the wedding.
Oh, the wedding was in a catholic church. Before entering, everyone dips their hands in the holy water. But it's not the really quick dip that we had when I was growing up. Instead, you really dip both your hands in there, swish them around a bit, and then rub them on each other, as if you are washing them. You then walk into the church with dripping hands.
This particular station is even more special. The company contracted to supply the holy water is celebrating their fiftieth or one-hundredth, or maybe even one-thousandth anniversary (holy water is big business now that Vatican deregulated it and turned production from the priests to private corporations), so they have their logo on a cream-colored stand behind the holy water bowl. It is a circle with what look like two in-profile PBS heads facing each other, one of them pointing slightly downward. There is a sort of yin-yang border between them. Inside each head is finer detail of an old bearded man, maybe meant to be either Jesus in his later years, or maybe God, or maybe even the CEO of the company. The logo is also finely woven into an intricate chain mail piece of fabric (About 8 inches square) in the bottom of the bowl. An additional step in teh process is to take this up after dunking your hands and swishing them, gaze at it for a while, move it around in your hands, and return it to the bottom.
gila monster
On my way to work in the Honda, I forget to bring my surfboards (will be surfing after work) and drive back to the house. On the way back I heard a new alarm that indicates my brakes have a problem, but 'm not too concerned since I had new brakes in just last month. I back up to the chain link gate as the thuggish neighbor comes in and out of his yard.
I get into the house and it's my mom's place. There are a few messages for me on the machine and a big pile of stuff of mine that I am to go through since she is cleaning out the garage. Bad news... it is hard for me to get rid of any of it and I salvage most of it from the path to destroyal.
Mom and Larry are planning a trip... first to Michigan for a week, including a weekend of camping, and then to Hawaii for a week. Will I feed the cat while she's out?
I then get to Cubic and rather than walk right upstairs to my office I decide to spend some time downstairs at my desk, sorting out papers. It feels good to clean up and get rid of the clutter. I place some drawings on my desk casually so that if anyone comes by that desk it will look as though I had been working on something detailes. I will be going upstairs to do some real work soon enough.
I see Caitlyn and Amber at their jobs. C has an interesting enough pharmacy job but it appears A hasn't lined anything good up yet. Her job is repetitive and boring. Bummer.
I don't get upstairs to the computer until 10:30.
Eventually I leave work to go to my afternoon class. It is one leftover cheesy easy junior high math class I found out I had to take to get my engineering degree. It's even at the junior high. THAT is going to be weird. They'll certainly notice my age, what with my beard and all. I Also realise how much it is going to suck to be treated like a kid again, with rules and discipline.
I get to the junior high and somehow find my way inside the prison-ish fence. Two little kids (my god, what am I getting into?) directly me to my classroom, which is in the trailers on the other side of campus. I run and run to get there before the bell. The front side of the school is deserted but as I get deeper I come across many students setting up for a fair of sorts. A guy and a girl serving "Hottie Smoothies". Others recruiting for the rowing club. Various types of shopping. One babyfaced kid rides his bike up along next to me and I grab his sleeve for a boost.
The kid nervously directs me to my classroom and when I let go he almost eats it. As I run through the Stimulus Fair I start to wake up. But I really want to stay in the dream in order to see what the classroom is like and if I make it there on time so I cling to the images and consciously try to stay in the dream, despite the sound of pat putting around in the bathroom dragging me back into the waking world. But it works to some degree, and a series of images flashes across my vision. Some are related to the fair, but most are totally random as my mind lost its association with that school dream. The only one I can remember is the thick gear with "GILA MONSTER" printed on its center.
- - -
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tattered remains
MOPA guy takes us through old dilapidated tunnel to old beat-up baseball fields. What? Not renovated?
Ben is a dick about Erica's BBQ and puts a bottlecap in my pizza.
I put new trim up around model train store. Red stickers with piano keys or train tracks or book pages, end-on.
trials of the INS
With a small group of men I hike up a trail to camp in the woods. The spot is in a canyon, and there is a fire pit where someone had camped several times before. It has been a very warm day but a short while after the sun sets, as we are still sorting out the building of the fire, it gets surprisingly cold, and we all scramble to change into warmer clothing.
Later in the dream we camp in the same spot. Up the canyon a bit camp our friends, which is expected, but beyond them are some other campers, which is unheard of. They are irritable and ask everyone to be quiet. This time it has rained recently and since the fire pit is in a canyon the wood in it is soaked. In order that our new wood not get waterlogged as well, I build a square platform of bricks on top of which we lay the dry wood.
I am watching in the third person for the second part of the dream. It's as if I'm watching a documentary. We are observing the steps to obtaining U.S. citizenship by a college-aged Asian girl and a slightly older European woman. Part of the process is a test of responsibility and unfortunately the girls have lost one of the two house keys that were assigned to them upon arrival. The woman interviewing them is friendly, but a stickler for the rules, and it looks like that minor act will be a major obstacle. "Now, if you are lucky enough to remember where you lost that key, it would make a BIG difference." Ah, distress.
The scene shifts a bit, and the main character is now a Polish man (or other Eastern European). We are watching a dramatized reenactment of his remembering where the key is. He is on an airplane with his mother, talking about this and that. As the plane leaps down the runway and gains speed he talks faster and faster and starts to recite poetry. The plane lifts off in a terrible din, and by this point he is shouting furtively and enthusiastically. It is a patriotic poem from his own country and by the end his mother is standing with her hand over her heart and as the engines quiet again a delightful smile spreads over his face and we see that he has remembered where the key is.
The camera pulls back and he and his mother are just sitting in front of a laptop at a table, in airplane seats (remember, this was a reenactment, not a real plane). We now hear voices and see somewhat abstract images of his memory. He places the housekey in a clay cup. Back up a bit. He reads through the classifieds and places the key next to a blue-highlit ad for a workshop[ for rent. We see another ad in a later newspaper that says "Nice try, [his name], we have your key." Sure enough, he had gone to visit this workshop for rent (is he a woodworker?) and accidentally left his key somewhere there. The man renting the place assumed it was some sort of way for our hero to try to reserve the place for himself. No luck, they rented it to someone else, but he can now retrieve the key and get his citizenship!
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