Monday, January 19, 2004

I suppose some people out there are eagerly anticipating more of my wacky dream records =) so I shall not disappoint. Here are more musings on my dream experiences.

Sometimes I wonder if in dreams we see things that may happen in the future and so we are baffled by the contents of the dream since they are nothing we have ever done before. Then again, if we were to dream everything that we did during our waking state I wouldn't be here writing about my mysterious dreams. Have you never had the experience of being in a situation where you feel like you have been in the identical position doing the exact same thing someplace, sometime? They call it deja vu and yet it is truly nothing very mystical, only baffling. At least one person that I know has told me that he has had similar experiences to what I described. It somehow suggests that we have a latent memory of our dreams that we are not aware of but is existent in our minds somewhere to be released upon the proper stimulus - in this case being in the same situation as one was in that hidden memory. (I have no idea if latent is the right word to use here; forgive me if I'm terribly wrong) One is not completely sure that the memory came from a dream, simply that one possesses that memory. Might it be a cellular memory of an ancestor? I have as much of an idea as anyone of you do, I think, realizing that we'll probably never discover the answer in our lifetime since there is so much about the mind that we do not understand as yet.

A very baffling deja vu experience I once had goes like this (and I've never got anyone to understand it so never mind if you are completely lost; the emphasis is on baffling) It was one of those dreams where I dreamt that I was asleep and dreaming and in that dream in a dream I dreamt I did something - for convenience of explaination let's make that something spilling a cup of water (an awfully simple way to describe it really, since we do not here consider the where, when, why, how, etcetera). In my dream then I woke up and went about my daily routine and I happened to spill a cup of water in the identical fashion I had dreamt about in my dream in a dream - and the me that was in the dream was baffled by this deja vu experience. This is when I wake up i.e. really wake up and go about with my usual activities. What is exciting is that in the waking state I repeated the action of spilling a cup of water and had what I call a "deja vu of a deja vu" experience. Quite amusing really. Though really my deja vu experiences always happen in very normal situations like a conversation; nothing spectacular like spilling a cup of coffee or anything since if I realized I was in the situation to spill a cup of coffee I would take steps to prevent that. Indeed, recently I have taken to not doing the same things as I remember doing when I find myself in a deja vu situation, just for the fun of it. It almost feels like one is altering history, just that it is not history but the present.

Okay, so you didn't understand all the rubbish in those two insane paragraphs above. I would not advise that you start pulling out your hair trying to understand. In fact I think it's really quite impossible to know what it is like if you haven't experienced it before, you understand? Oh well, on to more dreamy exploits.

Another one of my personal experiences with dreams is how I seem to have especially bad nightmares when I am ill with a high fever. It reaches the point where I become delirious and start hallucinating and sleepwalking. I suppose from a spiritual or religious point of view one would say that the body's constitution and the mind are all weakest when one is ill, which is why the evil spirits or demons seize on that opportunity to attack the ill person, and that explanation had me convinced when I was young. Now I wonder if there isn't a scientific basis behind the phenomenon. I do wonder if there are people out there who experience the things I have described. Alas, my comments function has for some weird reason broken down so it will be admittedly quite difficult for you to leave some anecdotes.

The worst dream that I have ever had in a state of high fever (about 40 degrees I think, which is no laughing matter) is actually terribly unfrightening if viewed in a logical fashion. Basically it is this glass or large tank or some kind of receptacle that has clear glass sides which is being filled by water slowly, drop by drop by drop, and the scary part comes when the receptacle is full and the water surface is shivering with surface tension until at last one drop of water breaks that trembling surface and water flows down all the sides of the receptacle and I start becoming absolutely hysteric. I cannot explain why it is terrifying, except perhaps postulate that it is something about the inevitability of the water overflowing, the knowledge of the existence of a power that is exerting itself on the water to cause it to spill over, that frightens me. It is something akin to hearing a continuous loud sound, like a fire alarm. The sound does not frighten one since it is only sound, but the longer one hears the sound, the louder the sound seems to get until the sound seems to permeate every molecule of one's being and seeks to tear one apart. Perhaps it is simply the product of a hyperactive imagination, but it is frightening all the same.

What makes it worse is that, like a moth drawn to a flame, my mind is compelled to repeat the image over and over again, of water spilling down the glass walls of the receptacle, and any efforts to drive that image out only gives it more impetus to invade every corner of my mind and torment me endlessly. I am unable to close my eyes for fear of being left alone in the darkness of my closed eyelids with that overflowing water, and so I stare, terrified, at the ceiling above my bed, and pray for the nightmare to pass.

Did I mention I sleepwalk, too. Even though I find it impossible to remember things from a time so long ago, my parents tell me that I would walk around the house at night without knowing what I was doing, and that frightened them half to death. More recently, though, I have had sleepwalking experiences, most of which occured when I was having nightmares. I think it a by-product of my delirious state that I walk from one room to the next spouting incoherent nonsense. The disturbing thing is that in some corner of my mind I see myself walking and talking gibberish, as if through some hazy curtain, and yet I am powerless to control my actions. It is frightening to think how close to insanity I come to, tottering at the edge of some depthless chasm, and that one day I might actually fall.

I read somewhere that it is those who seek to suppress their emotions that end up insane, so I think I probably should not control myself too much. Thus I sometimes indulge in periodically crazy moods where I just do silly things for a laugh at myself (of course I don't do it public) and hope that it will stave off the trip to the IMH.

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Here's a song I really like, and it is in a way related to the subject too. Enjoy.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper I love you
Birds singing in the sycamore trees
Dream a little dream of me

Say nighty-night and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you miss me
While I'm alone as blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on dear
Just craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn dear
Just singing this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that put your worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me

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Avaris / 1/19/2004 05:33:00 PM

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