Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Dreamscapes



One thing I believe, in my heart of hearts, is that dreams are not just the product of my conscious/unconscious mind but rather a completely alternate reality that I visit sometimes. I can only access that reality by falling asleep, just as I can only visit New York by way of the Bolt bus or Amtrak.

That's why I love my dreams. Ordinarily, I'm quite good at remembering at least one or two when I wake up. I've trained myself over time to lie quietly for a minute when I wake up. I ask myself, "Where was I just now?" Almost always a dream scenario emerges into consciousness.

Lately - don't know why - I am having a hell of a time remembering these journeys to the land of dreams. I haven't been sleeping well, so maybe it's as simple as that, like buying a ticket that you think will take you to New York but ending up in Philadelphia instead.

Perhaps that metaphor has been sufficently played out, eh?

I've been keeping a pad of paper and pencil next to my bed so that I can at least sketch out a few scenes in the middle of the night, if I'm fortunate enough to wake up and remember anything. The idea is that these few words will jog my memory when morning arrives. Last night my dream felt So Important that I actually turned on the light and wrote the following:

Danny fires crossbow inside house. Reckless ass. No one hurt.
Boxes w/precious stones, jewels
Giant maps medieval Europe, & upstate New York
In their face (maps)
Photos horses, no New York, Mongolian


Sadly, as usual these days, I have no clue where I was last night, what I was up to. Imagine me shrugging. What the fuhhh.

21 comments:

Steve Reed said...

Ha! It's awesome that you wrote that down and still don't remember the details. That just shows how far away you really were! Dreams are AMAZING, aren't they??

When I woke up this morning I knew I'd been dreaming and I took a few minutes to remember them -- and I came up with nothing. :(

Ronda Laveen said...

Whoa! The vision I got was of Danny fighting on this battle field that exists in another timeline. Before the house was there. He doesn't know about the house's existence so is unencumbered. You do. Like a scene from the book Time Line is what I saw.

Funny you should bring up dreams, I was just telling a friend that it suddenly dawned on my that I invented the cure for fibromyalgia and chronic pain last night in my dreams. And now I can't remember what it was. It was SO SIMPLE though, dang.

Maybe tonight...

Rosaria Williams said...

I usually don't remember much of dreams. When I do, I replay them for a while, trying to understand their messages. Dreams help us discover our innermost fears and wishes.

steven said...

i remember some dreams for years afterwards and others are gone the moment i wake. the ones that are most challenging are the ones where i can feel the colour and the flavour and even details of the narrative but they won't unpack for me! i've heard music in dreams, seen paintings, and then wished that my life was such that i could write music or had the time to paint the paintings! life is but a dream. steven

Elizabeth said...

Your second pic a major dream scape.
I love my dreams which are generally interesting
love reading Jung's thoughts
and somewhat agree with Freud that 'dreams are the royal road to the unconscious'
sometimes you can re-capture your last nights dream when you relax into sleep the next night.....

Bee said...

I wonder how the Mongolian bit fit into it? How intriguing.

I can remember having vivid dreams last night, but at this moment I cannot recall a single thing about them! For some reason, I've been sleeping like a log under my goosedown duvet.

Gorgeous lit-up tree. It's like a Xmas apparition!

ellen abbott said...

I had a variation on the house dream I think last night. I remember carrying a duck around under my arm. It was a house duck and it had gotten out and I was trying to get it back in the house. I think I remember being locked out of my room and trying to figure a way in. And in the end, my lover (from a past or future life) came and gave me a sweet kiss. Loving but not erotic. Sigh. I love it when he visits.

Reya Mellicker said...

Carrying a duck under your arm? Oh man, that is so cool.

Ronda I just read the book Time Line a couple of weeks ago so ... wow. There's a crossbow as part of the Terra Cotta warrior show at NGS.

Steve you WILL remember your dreams, you will. I know it.

Steven, yes ... yes.

Reya Mellicker said...

Bee I think what I meant by "Mongolian" is that the horses were Mongolian horses, not upstate New York horses.

And ... so what???

Lisa Ursu said...

Amazing display of lights on that tree
I LOVE it!
I haven't been intentional towards dreaming and I really must change that. There is so much to learn there.
Thanks for the reminder Reya.

Lori ann said...

The changes to your blog are dreamlike. I love it, the night photos and the header image. My gosh.
Maybe this is your reality now and your peacefully content so theres no need to go elsewhere, or to remember anyway.
your words for me are so kind Reya, I hope you know how much I appreciate them. thank you.
xoxoxoxo

Linda Sue said...

Reya, Dreamworld is so much better than my REAL world- I am never dissapointed! Last night I dreamed that I was in a love relationship with a downsyndrom person- it was the purest most honest love I had ever known...
LOVE the second shot of the tree and reflection! Beautiful- dreamy!

Karen said...

Not too long ago I did this thing where, every morning for a week, when I first woke up I wrote down what I'd just seen, and kept writing until the moment I felt my conscious mind kick in and start either editing or wondering or whatever. Once I had written it down and stopped, I put that sheet away. At the end of the week I looked at all the sheets and SHAZAM, there were things there I had NO CLUE about, truly a wtf moment! It was really fascinating. There were one or two dream places or situations I was able to recall, or more accurately recall how I felt about being there, but most of them were totally mysterious to me.

I think I'll have to do it again soon (during a time when I'm not waking up with an alarm clock on a regular basis)... Thanks for helping me remember that! :)

Mrsupole said...

Last night I had a dream where everyone was tall except for me. Then I discovered the reason that everyone else was so tall. They all had an extra set of knees and calf leg bones. Which I guess is a lot better then having two thigh bones. Everyone thought I was weird because I was so short. I have a lot of strange weird dreams. I wonder if anyone has ever had a dream like that.

Sometimes dreams seem so real. I dream of my dog Scotty and that he has come back to visit me. I had him for 18 years. When he passed away, it was like losing a child. I sometimes will wake up after dreaming about him and I will have tears of joy, then I realize he did not come back and the tears become ones of sadness. I also do the same thing for my some of my cats, especially Thumper who depended on me so much.

I sometimes wonder how I can miss my pets more than I miss some people I have known. Although I think it is because our pets give us unconditional love, which is something that we rarely experience with the people in our lives.

I also have dreams where all my teeth get pulled out, then I wake up and make sure they are all still there. This is strange because I have only had my wisdom teeth pulled. But the worst dream I have is where I am falling and falling and sometimes it is so hard to wake up. I do not think I have ever actually landed, but the falling is bad enough and does not help with my fear of heights. I have fallen in real life as a child and so I am sure that has something to do with me always dreaming about it. I guess the feeling never truly goes away.

I think it is amazing that you can wake up and write things down about your dreams. It is totally cool what you wrote. I hope you keep doing that. Possibly the more you write, the more it will make sense.

I also love the pic of the trees, they are so majestic looking, and I just love trees. The lit up tree reflection is awesome too. Thanks for the pics.

God bless.

Tom said...

i've read about people controlling their dreams, or actually choosing what they want to dream of...but it's beyond me.

At least i don't still have that reacuring high school dream where i can never remember my locker combination... (it's the alligator dreams that haunt me now!)

Val said...

i love the new blog look! dreams - even when i do remember them they barely make any sense :-)

Reya Mellicker said...

Mrsupole that is one crazy dream!

I miss Jake more than many people I know of who have died. I just do. Maybe that will change over time.

Linda Sue, what a great dream1 Wow.

I actually remembered last night's dream. Ronda was there, visiting. It was a hot summer night so it was hard to keep "the bad guys" out of the house, but we collared one bad guy, tossed him out and locked the door. Then for the rest of the dream Ronda and I were congratulating each other. Very cool!

Whitney Lee said...

I've always wondered if part of the reason I love to sleep is that I dream so vividly, particularly now, during pregnancy.
What I've always found odd is that I often have violent dreams; weapons, running, blood, much danger, etc., and yet never awaken feeling frightened or upset. It's always more of a 'Hmmm...that's interesting' kind of feeling.
I do wonder why you aren't able to remember your dreams well lately. What is your subconscious working through?

*** said...

My favorite dream is when I'm flying... it's more like swimming through the air. I'd make this happen every night, if I could...

The waking dream or the sleeping dream - which is reality? Hummmmmmmm

I believe our dreams link us to other lifetimes - all the bits and pieces from our 'pasts' coming through the dark of night, as clues to help us decipher what's going on in this life.

Then, when it's our time to pass - voila! All our lifetime bits come together and we are complete - all great mysteries revealed! At that moment we are set free to fly onto the next dreammmmmmmmm........

Reya Mellicker said...

I LOVE flying dreams!

Mrsupole said...

Flying dreams have to be better than falling dreams.

But that is really cool that you and Ronda were getting rid of the bad guy. I hope you had a nice glass of wine while celebrating. Somehow the thought of you two catching the bad guy and then tossing him out is making me smile. I think it is just a cool metaphor for you two getting rid of the bad things around you and you being happy. Yup, that makes me smile. I like it when you are happy.

God bless.