I Have Weird Dreams
[big]The Otherverse[/big]
What is a dream? Is it your mind strolling through all the input of the day, and giving you a jumbled replay? Is it peering into an alternate reality? Is it simply your brain playing a “movie” for your entertainment?
I love when people share with me their dreams. I discover that each person’s dream style tends to uniquely match the person. There are those who have the normal everyday events in their dreams. There are those who tend to have more work related dreams. Those who tend to have more social oriented dreams.
My dreams tend to be unlike anyone else I know. I honestly don’t like to discuss them, because they are so… different.
In my dreams, [i]I am not me[/i].
Take a moment and swallow that concept. Ready? Ok, let’s continue...
When I say I am not me, I mean it. I am someone else entirely. I am always surrounded by people who know me, and I know them, but these people are calling me by the name of the person I am in the dream. I, upon waking, can remember these faces, remember these names, but do not know these people in my waking life. In my dreams, however, I do know them, and know them well.
In my dreams, I am places I have never been to in my waking life. One particular instance, where I actually was ME in my dream, I described to my grandmother this strange dream I had. I was standing in the parking lot of a HUGE mall. From this parking lot, I could see a highway sign indicating an exit that clearly read: “Orono”.
Orono, Maine is the city next to Bangor, which is where my mother’s side of the family lives.
My grandmother informed me that a few years after I last visited Bangor, the big field up the road from where my grandfather’s house is located on Stillwater Avenue, they had built a massive mall. And from the parking lot, there is indeed a highway exit sign for Orono, clearly visible.
I visited Bangor several years after the dream, when my grandfather had died. Standing there, the intense feeling of deja vu while looking at the very sign I had seen years ago, in a dream.
Months before moving to Vermont as a child, I dreamed of a massive pine tree, and a path through young maple trees, in this moderately dense wooded landscape.
That path was located across the street, behind a neighbor’s house. Those woods provided me years of play and relaxation (just getting away from it all) for a long time after I dreamed of it, before ever even seeing it.
One of the more interesting and impressionable dreams I had involved Las Vegas…circa 1959, maybe even earlier. The Strip…wasn’t anything like it is today, but that is an understatement. In my dream, we arranged bedding in a hayloft, at the place we stopped at. My name? Frank. Blonde and blue eyed. I’m not in my waking hours, but I saw my reflection in a mirror in the dream.
Are we beginning to grasp this strange nighttime affliction of mine?
In WWI or WWII, this one dream I had, I was crawling under a barbed wire barrier, when I got stuck. Such was my predicament, my arms were not free to wield the rifle I held, when I saw a shadow step above me. I know not exactly what he held in his hands, but I do know the horror of reaching my hand up and feeling the cool wet caress of my brains where the top of my skull should have been.
I know, I know. “Wow. Those are some strange dreams. But so what? No worse than the time I dreamt that little 6 inch clowns from inside the TV were changing me and my friends to mannequins if they caught us!”
Well, true, that. Except, have you ever been the opposite gender in a dream…?
I have.
Everyone I know, even if they dream that they are standing in ancient Mayan temples next to the local Shaman of pre-Columbus discovery times…dream that they are THEMSELVES, even if it is some variation, like being a Shaman themselves.
So, how can I explain my “Quantum Leap” style dreams that have been throughout my entire life?
Honestly, I can’t. But I do know this much. I have seen places in my dreams that I have never been to, but either visit later, or see something, or talk to someone that confirms what I saw.
So, what is dreaming? I’m not sure. All I know is as a writer, this particular “style” of dreaming serves me well, allowing me to grasp perspectives that I would not be able to, trapped solely in the body of this middle-aged middle-class east-coast white male.
Does it make any sense? Does it fit in the normal realm of science?
Nope, but who am I to argue? I know what I am when I am awake. When I sleep, however, then, and only then, does the universe hold surprises for me.
And you know what? I don’t mind at all.
Must be the voyeur in me.
What is a dream? Is it your mind strolling through all the input of the day, and giving you a jumbled replay? Is it peering into an alternate reality? Is it simply your brain playing a “movie” for your entertainment?
I love when people share with me their dreams. I discover that each person’s dream style tends to uniquely match the person. There are those who have the normal everyday events in their dreams. There are those who tend to have more work related dreams. Those who tend to have more social oriented dreams.
My dreams tend to be unlike anyone else I know. I honestly don’t like to discuss them, because they are so… different.
In my dreams, [i]I am not me[/i].
Take a moment and swallow that concept. Ready? Ok, let’s continue...
When I say I am not me, I mean it. I am someone else entirely. I am always surrounded by people who know me, and I know them, but these people are calling me by the name of the person I am in the dream. I, upon waking, can remember these faces, remember these names, but do not know these people in my waking life. In my dreams, however, I do know them, and know them well.
In my dreams, I am places I have never been to in my waking life. One particular instance, where I actually was ME in my dream, I described to my grandmother this strange dream I had. I was standing in the parking lot of a HUGE mall. From this parking lot, I could see a highway sign indicating an exit that clearly read: “Orono”.
Orono, Maine is the city next to Bangor, which is where my mother’s side of the family lives.
My grandmother informed me that a few years after I last visited Bangor, the big field up the road from where my grandfather’s house is located on Stillwater Avenue, they had built a massive mall. And from the parking lot, there is indeed a highway exit sign for Orono, clearly visible.
I visited Bangor several years after the dream, when my grandfather had died. Standing there, the intense feeling of deja vu while looking at the very sign I had seen years ago, in a dream.
Months before moving to Vermont as a child, I dreamed of a massive pine tree, and a path through young maple trees, in this moderately dense wooded landscape.
That path was located across the street, behind a neighbor’s house. Those woods provided me years of play and relaxation (just getting away from it all) for a long time after I dreamed of it, before ever even seeing it.
One of the more interesting and impressionable dreams I had involved Las Vegas…circa 1959, maybe even earlier. The Strip…wasn’t anything like it is today, but that is an understatement. In my dream, we arranged bedding in a hayloft, at the place we stopped at. My name? Frank. Blonde and blue eyed. I’m not in my waking hours, but I saw my reflection in a mirror in the dream.
Are we beginning to grasp this strange nighttime affliction of mine?
In WWI or WWII, this one dream I had, I was crawling under a barbed wire barrier, when I got stuck. Such was my predicament, my arms were not free to wield the rifle I held, when I saw a shadow step above me. I know not exactly what he held in his hands, but I do know the horror of reaching my hand up and feeling the cool wet caress of my brains where the top of my skull should have been.
I know, I know. “Wow. Those are some strange dreams. But so what? No worse than the time I dreamt that little 6 inch clowns from inside the TV were changing me and my friends to mannequins if they caught us!”
Well, true, that. Except, have you ever been the opposite gender in a dream…?
I have.
Everyone I know, even if they dream that they are standing in ancient Mayan temples next to the local Shaman of pre-Columbus discovery times…dream that they are THEMSELVES, even if it is some variation, like being a Shaman themselves.
So, how can I explain my “Quantum Leap” style dreams that have been throughout my entire life?
Honestly, I can’t. But I do know this much. I have seen places in my dreams that I have never been to, but either visit later, or see something, or talk to someone that confirms what I saw.
So, what is dreaming? I’m not sure. All I know is as a writer, this particular “style” of dreaming serves me well, allowing me to grasp perspectives that I would not be able to, trapped solely in the body of this middle-aged middle-class east-coast white male.
Does it make any sense? Does it fit in the normal realm of science?
Nope, but who am I to argue? I know what I am when I am awake. When I sleep, however, then, and only then, does the universe hold surprises for me.
And you know what? I don’t mind at all.
Must be the voyeur in me.
56-60, M
