Virtual Light

Everything has been coming along a bit difficultly lately, I think my dreams reflect this more and more, they take on less of a plot-oriented action based affect and are just some sort of confabulation of emotion and movement through space. Dreams are getting harder to remember because I don’t wake with any resonant images, just a kind of “vibe” left over from the dream state. Something sleep (but not dream) related that happened to me recently: I fell off of my bed in the middle of the night, I don’t think that’s ever happened to me before and it was very strange, it wasn’t hard, I just sort of rolled off… I think I was in the middle of a dream when it happened but I’m not sure- I thought REM sleep prevented that from happening.

It’s funny, when I first saw this one I immediately thought “aw crap” but upon completing it, I saw that I did better than the first one… I think it was a matter of my attitude towards the test and I treated more like it was the real thing then the first time around. I found it to be a strange collection of samples… like I kept trying to guess which professors wrote the thing. I think strategy wise, it was not particularly helpful but in terms of making me feel more comfortable with the impending doom, it succeeded. Our class seems to be getting closer as a group with the exam looming over. I usually do pretty well on tests, but this is shaking my confidence in myself as an academic… it also makes me feel quite ridiculous for never learning Joyce in class and never reading more than a couple of experts of his work on my own (I took 252 in the summer and because of time constraints we cut Joyce for Heart of Darkness which I loath for the number of times I’ve had to study it) the exam makes me feel like the cannon is soo small and so vast at the same time… I think it’s because we have the “usual suspects” likely to show up and the huge amount of “likely” choices that I’ve hardly even heard of. This experience is very humbling, intimidating and ultimately valuable. And I cant wait for it to be over.

This test was a bit of a disappointment, a lot of the choices seemed to be really obvious, we did a number of them in class… I picked one thing relatively obscure (not for the sake of it but because I really felt like I knew it) which I hope was Ben Franklin… the piece about the wheel barrow. Overall, I’m not too happy with how I did because I got one completely wrong, I could not have been more wrong, and it was a very easy one that I just completely killed and buried…. When I should have picked the Steinbeck one, but that seemed to intimidate a number of us… while many of us really did “know” it and not pick it. It’s nerve-wracking to take a hearty education guess, the kind I think the test really wants you to make because it shows that you know how to use what it is you know about English literature. I’m glad it over but I sort of wish I had another go at it.

I’m in a philosophy class that I have every Monday and Wednesday, however, the professor is not my real teacher and we are not learning Aristotle- he ‘s my junior high school history teacher, one that I really loved and who taught me more history than my all my teachers over four years of high school. He starts to talk about what would happen if Socrates was alive during the industrial revolution… I remember back in the 7th grade it seemed like ALL we did was the industrial revolution. The class begins to laugh at him because it’s filled with adults and he’s acting like a child. He starts stammering and losses his train of thought, there’s a lot of tension in the air and everything feels a bit suspended, like someone hit the pause button. I begin to feel dizzy and I get very angry at the class, I try to do something vague to stop everything and to feel better but it’s not working, the teacher/professor is now gone and the class is just sort of meandering.

People seem to be waiting for a shuttle bus to come and take them to the next class. But the feeling is like they’re waiting to be taken to a next life or a higher plane- something grander than just the next class- but all this is just implied or understood, there is nothing apparent that would make me believe that. I don’t want to leave on the shuttle I want to stay in class, but I know that the class will disappear once everyone leaves. I can’t decide what I’m going to do and I wake up.

This is a nightmare I had when I was about 9 years old, it was completely terrifying at the time, the thing I feared the very most when I was young was losing my mother, I don’t think that’s changed all that much but when I was young I had this dream about it after my parents were watching a movie that I caught a few parts of. The movie is supposed to be a comedy, I forgot what it’s called but it’s about this kid in college that no one likes and he accidentally falls into a large vat of toxic waste, mutates and gets all these powers and takes revenge on his classmates. The movie is ridiculous, probably something like a satire… but it was really horrifying for my 9 year old self

I’m on a train (again) and I’m depressed… it feels very odd to be depressed in a dream but I know that that is exactly what I am. I am holding a photo album and look around eagerly for someone to share the pictures with. I am not too upset that no one is coming by and I look at each of the photos by myself. I don’t remember if I actually saw anything in the pictures, I recall is as a bunch of blurs but I know it was meaningful to the dream-me.

The conductor calls a stop and I decide to get off of the train. As I step out of the train and onto the platform I am somehow moved into another train. This train is the “platform/station train” and this is quite normal and convenient. There is some sort of circus performance on the track and people are watching and shouting obscene things at the production. The performers are not fazed by it, it might even be part of the show. I feel uncomfortable there and switch cars/platforms to a quieter one.

The new platform is cleaner and more appealing but it is somewhat boring. I decide to look at the photo album again while waiting for the new train. Before I get it out a man walks up to me and starts talking to me. I am mildly attracted to him and this fuels our conversation, he asks to get on the train he is taking… I am offended by the insinuation and ask him leave. He leaves and I want to get to that album again. I start to become afraid that he’s taken it from me as punishment for not accepting his advances. Before I have a chance to see if he had in fact taken it I wake up.

Condensing my paper is proving to be very difficult. Firstly, I cannot seem to find a single piece that I do not feel is absolutely necessary. Secondly, I hate rereading my work and I cannot find a single piece that I am happy with. It is a miserable assignment and I loathe humanity for not wanting to read twenty different 18 page theses... forcing us to make them more digestible. I realize that I really am going to have to rewrite much of it and that I wont be able to get away with just cutting parts out and trimming everything down- the whole thing just sounds like a heavy academic paper, not a very good one mind you, but an academic one nonetheless- I don’t think that’s the tone that should be most prominent in this version of our papers- it should probably be something like a concise abstract or review, but when I get wordy I don’t know how to undo the verbiage.

I’m on a type of reality show where I have to work with a group of people to win some sort of prize. Actually, it’s not really a television show, it’s just a contest. The whole thing takes place inside a very cozy and homey looking house. Before the real games begin I decide to do something to get my team to have fun and I decide that we should have our own competition to see who could pull off the best practical joke on the other team. I love practical jokes and I could really see myself doing something like this in real life, I often try and convince people to do a big project that involves someone tricking someone else.
What I devised in my dream was telling the other team that the first competition between all of us for the grand prize will be won by the first person to take all their clothing off. Everyone tells me that they don’t believe me but I tell them that that’s part of the game, to figure out who’s competing and who’s overseeing the game and that this can change at any time. Someone says “hey, worst thing that happens is that I’m naked, and the best is that I win this round so I’m in” a lot of people agree with this guy’s logic and everyone begins to fight to get undressed first… it’s quite funny people at pulling at shirts and pants and it’s a little slowed so it’s not even chaotic just funny. I leave the group, pretty proud of my handiwork and one member of my team follows me into a bedroom and tells me that he doesn’t want to play anymore. That’s it… I think the dream was meant to continue but my alarm clock woke me up and I was frustrated not being able to continue the dream… usually I am able to finish my dreams but I guess my REM cycle needed more time that I allowed it that morning. Oh well.

It has been a very rough couple of days, my beloved, beloved Scottish terrier, Tiger Lily, died Wednesday night. She’s been with me and my mother for over 10 years and we’re both having a ridiculously difficult time recovering… everything happened very quickly and we were not given any time to get used to the idea of letting her go. My house feels so empty without her in it, I keep thinking I hear her paws pattering across the floor.

Wednesday night I had a very short dream that I was in a great big field where everything was dark and in my dream I had the thought that I was in a washing machine- that’s all I can remember, I wonder what it means.
I
know that I’ve had many dreams that included her and I wish I could remember one that I could post. Rather I’ll post something that I was always curious about- does anyone know if dogs dream… as most dog owners would know- sometimes while they are asleep they whimper or bark and even move their feet as if they’re running. Whenever Lily would do this really excitedly I’d assume she was having a nightmare because it sounds so dire… sometimes I’d wake her up and want to comfort her, but I don’t really know if she needed comforting in those moments or if she wanted to go back to doggy-dreamland and chase more squirrels and rolled up socks (which seemed to excite her even more than squirrels at times) there really is no way to know the content of animals’ dreams.

I’m somewhere in the Middle East, everything is very foreign and creepy looking, I just saw the movie Babel so that might be what’s influencing this dream… can’t be sure though. I’m on a tour of some kind of “Old City” it’s a walking tour of whatever country this is… we walk through lots of things that are obviously tourist attractions… then we walk through a narrowing swerving road, everything is stone and dusty and it’s a combination of old urban architecture and wide desert- we walk into a large cave that is a place to get refreshments and I am now with both my parents. There is someone inside this cave that seems to belong there but he’s very frightening and I don’t like being around him- he’s old and typically Middle Eastern, his face and clothes are dirty and he seems to get into some sort of altercation with the people who lead our tour, even though I’m not really conscious of any of the other people there. I am standing my a soda machine and something awful happens with the man (I forgot the details of this part already) after whatever issue got resolved we decided to leave, as we’re leaving we see UN workers move into the cave and feel a little bit relieved. I realize that I left my wallet in on a small shabby table in the cave and I want to run back for it, my father runs back instead. I get very nervous because I realize that the UN can’t really help us or take sides… as I’m getting more anxious I start to run toward the cave, and then I wake up.