Uber-Dreamscape

Current mood: contemplative

Currently listening to: The Air Conditioner

Sometimes when laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, I get a bit contemplative. I suppose it’s not all that unusual, but as I bridge the gap between the waking world and dreams, I often think about the blurry line between the two. Working as much as I do (often half-asleep as it is) I tend to think that sometimes “real life” is just another dream. It’s hard to tell sometimes. My mind starts drifting… but that’s not a good way to describe it. Everyone says their mind “drifts,” but this implies something … deeper. It’s like the part of your mind that makes up “you” is slowly seeping away, slipping down dark cracks into some place deep in the Earth, where light hasn’t been seen since the world was formed. Like you’re somehow disconnected from that which we call “the real world.” Sounds, like the air conditioner, the fan, the computer, or just the movement of the house as it creaks in the wind, get amplified, and each sound seems to branch, like lightning, or tree roots, or veins in the leaf of a tree… spreading out, spawning another thought somehow related to the first, but not immediately apparent as such.

When this happens to me I quite enjoy it. It’s nice to let myself go, it’s almost like floating. In the summer, if I’ve been on the water all day, when I go to bed I often still feel like I’m on the water, rocking back and forth with the random motions of the waves. Sometimes I forget which way is up, as if gravity is no longer working, or maybe just my inner ear is shutting down for the night. Trains of thought form, like so many rail cars, one after another, stretching out to impossible lengths – I wish I could capture them all. (I’m still waiting for the neural implant that will let me do so – I’ll be the first one in line for that!)

Almost as much fun as falling asleep is waking up naturally on a weekend (curse the alarm clock – it DESTROYS my dreams). You’re never quite sure if you’re awake or still dreaming… and I make no apologizes for quoting the Matrix. What makes this real, and dreams not real? What is that addictive quality to dreams that makes you feel bad when you wake up from one, and want to go back to sleep, to re-capture the dream? I don’t know.

Sometimes, I get really whacked-out, and time & space seem to fall apart around me. I’ll lie in bed, staring at the suspended ceiling, and feel a throbbing in my mind – not the beat of my heart, although sometimes I check just to be sure, it feels so real. I can hear something faintly, like people talking very quickly, maybe even in angry voices… I feel dizzy, like everything is spinning. Things seem to slow down, or at least they feel that way, though I can still hear things like the fan going at the same speed. Somehow, it all feels slower, but I feel faster. Like a local time distortion or something – it’s so hard to describe. Sometimes I feel like this when I’m sick – as a kid, it was usually a feeling I got when I had a stomach bug. But now, it can come without being sick, just lying there in bed, very still. Many times, my body also feels wired, as if it’s somehow gotten bigger, thicker, and clumsier. I feel like I’m viewing everything from very far away, like I’m falling down into the bed, shrinking maybe, or just slipping down those dark cracks in my mind. The sounds, the voices (or something like voices, maybe static?) seem to shift location… right… left… front… behind… Eventually it dies down, and I fall asleep, to dream about any number of things (some of which I’ve managed to capture here). Dreams of the future, dreams of wild fantasy (and by fantasy I mean “fiction” not anything else… you pervert). Dreams often of what I do during the day; driving, carrying papers & boxes, programming, answering tech support calls, getting up & getting dressed… these dreams are the worst, because when you wake up, you realize you have to do those things all over again. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it, lest I have such dreams tonight.

Why am I writing about this, you might ask yourself – if you’ve even bothered to read through all this seeming gibberish. Well, expression might be the answer – I don’t think you should ignore such things. Or, rather, I don’t believe I should ignore such things. I like to think out loud, often talking to myself, and dreams, or so I figure, are just another way of doing that. Still, dreams are so wonderful it’s a shame to have to wake up and destroy them. *sigh*

I’m afraid I’ve lost the feeling now of what started me writing this entry. As so often happens, by the time I get up & get to the computer, the thought is fading, and making the transition from thought in my head (which is so often perfect) to written word, though my hands and this keyboard, the “essence” of my thought is gone, and all that is left are empty, hollow sounding words that don’t resonate with me at all. Still, maybe that’s because I wrote them, and they might resonate with someone else – who knows? I’m just one geek in the world, after all.

-Keithius