I have a skill in dreams that I never before thought about much in waking life. I can brace my elbows (on nothing) and hover around, just off the ground. My feet can brush the pavement, or I can be a little higher up. I can do this up to about a full story or so off the ground. I can also just do this in place and swing my legs around. It's different from flying, which I can also do when I remember to do it. Hovering happens in a healthy majority of my dreams as I walk around. It's faster and lazier than walking, and it's a nice sensation of coasting and smoothness. It almost always begins when I'm on a sidewalk, mostly when I'm waiting at a crosswalk.
My last dream this morning before I finally got out of bed involved hovering. It was a brightly lit, white-sky day and I was walking down the sidewalk, street on my right, approaching the intersection. Two men were ahead, one in the street on the right, one on the perpendicular bit of sidewalk I was approaching. When I got to the crosswalk, I leaned onto my elbows and started hovering. I paused to have a brief interaction with the men, we talked about something. I hovered out into the crosswalk, then up and to the right, into the middle of the intersection, except that I lifted up to about 10 feet up in the air above the men's heads... maybe 16 feet up total. We talked some more, though I don't know about what, and I lowered back down. I went to the man in the street, and I woke up.
I continued to think about this dream for a while, until I realized that hovering was a dream skill. That is, I knew I could do it in dreams, but my brain was confusing dream memories and waking memories and suggesting to me that I had, in the past, used this skill in real life. It took me most of the day of thinking to put the memories in the correct compartment. Not that I ever really believed I could hover, but it was truly an uncanny flipping of my vision of reality for a good portion of my day as I worked to process this. I think most of the problem was in the fact that I've never taken much time when waking to think about hovering, but I've done it so much in my dreams that it seems fairly normal.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Nov. 13/14
I'm at a nice, dimly lit restaurant, but I'm not really there, I'm just watching. Frasier and Miles Crane (of Frasier the t.v. show) are at a table chatting. One of my friends sits down at the table next to them, and I actually enter the scene and sit with her. George Clooney sits down at our table. He is wearing a casual suit and an eye patch. A few more of my friends arrive, as does another George Clooney. This one is wearing a sweater and has no eye patch. We all chat for a while.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Recurring themes/settings
Outside: Always either bright and cloudy, or a well-lit night. The sky is almost always a solid white or varying shades of deep/dark blues without any stars or clouds. Nighttime in cities means late at night with ample street-lighting. Occasionally a dream will start at twilight and progress into a darker night. Nighttime outside of cities brings indirect light from undetermined sources. It never rains on me. If it rains, I don't get wet.
Inside: During the day, indirectly sunlit. In large buildings, usually bright florescent lighting, well dispersed like at SPL's central branch in the stacks. During the night, light ranges from the same level of dark colors, but ample lighting as outside, to very dimly lit rooms. Dimly lit rooms are creepy. Light switches don't work, but sometimes I can will more light into a room. Once I threw a gorgeous pattern of light onto a ceiling that resembled the light and shadow patterns one might get from an intricate lamp or chandelier. Haunted houses have different lighting in every area.
Bathrooms: Never functional. Often giant, open rooms full of hundreds of different toilets, each with their own problems. Sometimes just a few stalls without toilets. Filth, overflowing water, dim lighting, mustard yellows, and hauntedness abounds. I used to get trapped in these, but more often now I find someone to lead me out of them, or just do a quick pass-through on my own.
Mirrors: Always functional, sometimes more than functional, never doorways, but occasionally threaten vortexes.
Cities: Almost always the same city, but different neighborhoods. Buses rarely show up if I'm at a bus stop, but sometimes I'm on a bus. Cars rarely exist. People on motorcycles sometimes give me a ride to somewhere new. Once I was in "France" and that city was distinctly different architecturally - colors were different too - a darker gray sky, and the buildings were sand-colored rather than black and metal. Very few people on the streets, though I sometimes have an entourage.
People from real life: Often manifest as two distinct people. Upon waking, it will take me a while to realize that they were both the same person, just different manifestations. Once recently, this tipped me off that I was dreaming, when two very similar manifestations of a friend entered an elevator with me.
Elevators: Rarely function properly, often take me to the wrong floor, or I get stuck in them; often end dreams. I prefer the stairs.
Stairs: Often emergency-exit style stairwells. If I'm running, I can hold the banister and fly around turns. This is fun, and speeds me up. In old mansions, there are always at least 2 stairwells. At least one of them will be falling apart in places, and at least one will be particularly more haunted than the others, but often more solid.
Inside: During the day, indirectly sunlit. In large buildings, usually bright florescent lighting, well dispersed like at SPL's central branch in the stacks. During the night, light ranges from the same level of dark colors, but ample lighting as outside, to very dimly lit rooms. Dimly lit rooms are creepy. Light switches don't work, but sometimes I can will more light into a room. Once I threw a gorgeous pattern of light onto a ceiling that resembled the light and shadow patterns one might get from an intricate lamp or chandelier. Haunted houses have different lighting in every area.
Bathrooms: Never functional. Often giant, open rooms full of hundreds of different toilets, each with their own problems. Sometimes just a few stalls without toilets. Filth, overflowing water, dim lighting, mustard yellows, and hauntedness abounds. I used to get trapped in these, but more often now I find someone to lead me out of them, or just do a quick pass-through on my own.
Mirrors: Always functional, sometimes more than functional, never doorways, but occasionally threaten vortexes.
Cities: Almost always the same city, but different neighborhoods. Buses rarely show up if I'm at a bus stop, but sometimes I'm on a bus. Cars rarely exist. People on motorcycles sometimes give me a ride to somewhere new. Once I was in "France" and that city was distinctly different architecturally - colors were different too - a darker gray sky, and the buildings were sand-colored rather than black and metal. Very few people on the streets, though I sometimes have an entourage.
People from real life: Often manifest as two distinct people. Upon waking, it will take me a while to realize that they were both the same person, just different manifestations. Once recently, this tipped me off that I was dreaming, when two very similar manifestations of a friend entered an elevator with me.
Elevators: Rarely function properly, often take me to the wrong floor, or I get stuck in them; often end dreams. I prefer the stairs.
Stairs: Often emergency-exit style stairwells. If I'm running, I can hold the banister and fly around turns. This is fun, and speeds me up. In old mansions, there are always at least 2 stairwells. At least one of them will be falling apart in places, and at least one will be particularly more haunted than the others, but often more solid.
Wish fulfillment
Nov. 9, 4 am-ish: A former coworker of mine who has a lot of credit card debt runs into me. She is rich! A few months ago she left her business card on the front desk of a doctor's office and they put her info into the payroll database. She's been getting checks from them at an irregular frequency in varying, but large, amounts. She shows me her latest for $8,978.56. I ask if she's been able to pay off her debt, and she says yes, plus she's saved over $60k now. I joke, "you could pay off most of my debt!" and she replies, "Sure, how much do you want? I have more coming."
Early 2006?
It's a bright sunny day and I'm in my apartment in Portland. I've just walked out of my bedroom to the bathroom to do my morning mirror-stare. I look in the mirror and notice that things don't work quite right in it. Scariness potential abounds and I know better than to stay there. I'm slow and stuck, I have to grab the door frame and pull myself through with all my might. Once I'm out in the hall things are sunny again though.
I walk out into my living room and greet my cats. I see a stick and twig broom that Robin's aunt gave me a few years prior and I decide to go flying. I pick it up, take a seat, and Soma hops on. I encourage Robespierre to join us, but he refuses. He intends to stay with my physical form. I persuade him to just try the broom, but he weighs it down. He and Soma both get back off, and I go on without them.
I fly out my front door, across the parking lot, and out over the street, staying on the second-floor level at which I started. It is still bright and sunny, despite the sky being all white. Half a block from home, I fly above two men walking down the middle of the street. One is tall, skinny and blue, and the other is not tall, but not short, red and round. Otherwise, they are average people. I pause to ask them a suggestion of where to go, and they point north, down a cross-street, saying that there are some really good looking men in a town just a few blocks that way. I take their advice.
I walk out into my living room and greet my cats. I see a stick and twig broom that Robin's aunt gave me a few years prior and I decide to go flying. I pick it up, take a seat, and Soma hops on. I encourage Robespierre to join us, but he refuses. He intends to stay with my physical form. I persuade him to just try the broom, but he weighs it down. He and Soma both get back off, and I go on without them.
I fly out my front door, across the parking lot, and out over the street, staying on the second-floor level at which I started. It is still bright and sunny, despite the sky being all white. Half a block from home, I fly above two men walking down the middle of the street. One is tall, skinny and blue, and the other is not tall, but not short, red and round. Otherwise, they are average people. I pause to ask them a suggestion of where to go, and they point north, down a cross-street, saying that there are some really good looking men in a town just a few blocks that way. I take their advice.
Earliest recurring dream
I'm not sure when this started, but probably very early and before more fleshed out dreams started to stay with me. It occurs most often while I am falling asleep, rather than in deep sleep. It happened the most when I was 8 or 9.
Early version: Sepia tones. Inside a vertical rectangle little particles drift about lazily, with a lot of space between them. They might bump, but are not crowded. All of a sudden it gets busy and crowded with millions of little particles crowding up the rectangle.
This would make me wake up suddenly, filled with terror. It often took a long time for me to be willing to close my eyes again.
Later versions: Sometimes incorporated into fuller dreams, once set on an airplane, where people were calm and in their seats, then cluttering the aisles and moving frantically in turbulence. When in fuller dreams the cycle can often repeat multiple times without waking me up. It is also far less scary, though still unsettling.
Variations: When I was 7-10 years old, while falling asleep, I would have half-dreams where my bed would float up the wall till it started to turn to float across the ceiling. At this point, gravity would take hold and I would tumble out of the floating bed into my awake bed. I would wake up with a start, but no terror.
From 9-12 or so, I was able to control the floating sensation sometimes, so that my bed was a teeter-totter of sorts, though this was in a mostly awake state.
Early version: Sepia tones. Inside a vertical rectangle little particles drift about lazily, with a lot of space between them. They might bump, but are not crowded. All of a sudden it gets busy and crowded with millions of little particles crowding up the rectangle.
This would make me wake up suddenly, filled with terror. It often took a long time for me to be willing to close my eyes again.
Later versions: Sometimes incorporated into fuller dreams, once set on an airplane, where people were calm and in their seats, then cluttering the aisles and moving frantically in turbulence. When in fuller dreams the cycle can often repeat multiple times without waking me up. It is also far less scary, though still unsettling.
Variations: When I was 7-10 years old, while falling asleep, I would have half-dreams where my bed would float up the wall till it started to turn to float across the ceiling. At this point, gravity would take hold and I would tumble out of the floating bed into my awake bed. I would wake up with a start, but no terror.
From 9-12 or so, I was able to control the floating sensation sometimes, so that my bed was a teeter-totter of sorts, though this was in a mostly awake state.
Nov. 8/9, 2007
I'm in a house, which is strange, but not quite haunted. I am with people, and there are other people there as well. Someone/thing is not exactly after me, but I'm avoiding them. Something is in the basement 22 floors below the main level, and I walk through the yellow kitchen into a gray stairwell to go towards it. My group of people gets waylaid one by one on the way through the house and kitchen, so that I am alone by the time I enter the stairwell. I consider going on, but decide to wait for them to catch up. Alternatingly, I peek through the barely cracked door back to the kitchen, and down the stairs. I wait.
My earliest dream memory
Early 1985, I am 4 years old: I'm outside my house, on the right side of it if you were looking from the street. There's an outhouse there, which shouldn't be there, and my 7 year old brother is sitting on the toilet. I know this because the outhouse is built out of screen doors. My dad holds my left hand as we wait for my brother, but a clown interrupts. I don't like clowns, and I really don't like this one. He grabs my right hand and reaches into the outhouse and grabs my brother's left pulling us away from my house and my dad, pulling us to the circus. My brother's pants are around his ankles, but his shirt is long.
We're at the circus, which is a gray, cement-block-walled auditorium, much longer than it is wide. We're on a stage which takes up most of one short wall. Folding metal chairs provide audience seating, but for now it's just clowns milling about. I'm in a gray jumpsuit and being forced to ride a large men's bicycle and my brother is in a gray leotard and pink tutu and has been pushed out onto the tightrope. A crowd arrives and fills the seats. My parents are in the front row, center seats, and I call out to them to save us, but they don't recognize me.
We're at the circus, which is a gray, cement-block-walled auditorium, much longer than it is wide. We're on a stage which takes up most of one short wall. Folding metal chairs provide audience seating, but for now it's just clowns milling about. I'm in a gray jumpsuit and being forced to ride a large men's bicycle and my brother is in a gray leotard and pink tutu and has been pushed out onto the tightrope. A crowd arrives and fills the seats. My parents are in the front row, center seats, and I call out to them to save us, but they don't recognize me.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
1st blog ever
My title is a bit of a lie. I've blogged a little on tribe and facebook, but this is my first dedicated to blogging blog. And it even has a bit of at theme. I've decided to record my dreams here. I may stray into other things though... we'll see.
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