butterflies dream like androids do

[kleenexwoman]

I would like nothing more, right at this very moment, than to spend the entire night talking with people on YIM. Right now, that is my idea of paradise. Because I miss talking with people for hours on end and just BSing about zombies and bitching about classes or whatever. I haven't done that often lately.
But...god, I'm tired. And I've had a very, very surreal couple of days. Forgive my grammar, then, and also the comma key doesn't seem to be working too well.
Annie put in "Waking Life" yesterday while I was working on my Sociology paper. The film consists of people sitting around talking about philosophy. Except they're cartoons. Because it's someone's posthumous spiritual journey, and apparently the afterlife is animated.
Anyway, the main point of the film is "What is reality? Is it all a dream?" That kind of thing. I half-watched. These things are not new to me. I read Philip K. Dick books for intellectual dessert.
However, in all my years of having my mind blown into little bits on a regular basis, I've never had a lucid dream, which is supposed to be pretty much the epitome of surreality. Wanted to, but it wasn't a major problem for me. I daydream instead. Dreams are just your neurons throwing up, after all. No big deal.
So I went to sleep last night, and I dreamed. It started out perfectly normal; I'd gone back to Dad's house, and he'd turned it into an office building. If you know anything about the relationship between me and my dad and his new wife, you will see that this is a perfectly normal thing for me to dream. No big deal.
The weird part started when I went to get my room back--I stepped over a carpet of snails to the receptionist, and demanded that my room be covered in red velvet and broken glass. She smiled at me and handed me a small toy monkey. "This is your dream monkey," she said. "Whenever you see it, it's a sign that you're dreaming."
"Yeah," I said, "I know I'm dreaming already. No big deal."
"Oh." Her enigmatic smile disappeared. "Well, what are you going to do about it? Try waking up."
"I will when my alarm goes off," I said, "but I'd like my room back for now. And I want to talk to my dad about his wife."
"He's not in this dream," she said. "He's stepped out."
"OK," I said. "Is Brian here? How's he doing?"
"He's in another dream," she said. "Your Grandma Debbie took him out for ice cream."
"Can I go with them?" I asked. "I want some ice cream."
She got very mad at me. "This is your dream. That's his dream. You can't get across."
"That's what you think," I said.
"Don't leave," she protested. "You have to finish this one."
"Are you going to decorate my room in red velvet and broken glass, like I wanted?" I asked.
"No, we're not. You have to deal with that."
I gave the monkey back to her and walked down the hallway into a Victorian garden, full of light, where Brian was eating ice cream with Grandma Debbie. They seemed surprised to see me.

I don't know what that meant. Am I going to start having lucid dreams, now? Was I just too impressed by "Waking Life"? Is there something else going on? I'd like to imagine that all of my dreams are connected somehow. I mean, besides the fact that they all come from the same set of neurons. I doubt they are, though. What the hell does the red velvet and broken glass mean? What do the snails mean? ...actually, I already know what snails mean. I'm just not getting the red velvet and broken glass. Am I going to dream myself in a fur coat with Down's syndrome lovelies fawning over me? Will there be a volcano?

It's useless to speculate. I'm finishing my neo-Nazi protest paper, and then spending the rest of the night making signs. Perhaps the marker fumes will liberate my head enough to help me figure out whether I'm a butterfly or what. Or, you know, I'll probably just get a headache. But really, it's worth a try.

Comments

[goodbyeandhello.livejournal.com]

That's such a curious dream......I wish my dreams were like that..... =(

[ghostgecko.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. You were probably just dreaming you were in control of your dream. I think the current theory is that the brain is just firing randomly and when you wake up, your brain's sorting mechanism organizes it into a story.

[oddzade.livejournal.com]

Waking Life was pretty neat.

I used to have lucid dreams all the time. They can be pretty cool once you learn how to control them. Or you can just sit back and watch what happens. I think you'd have a blast. You can induce them if you train yourself to "wake up" within your dream.

Maybe life is but a dream within a dream, within a...you get the idea.

[he-dreams-awake.livejournal.com]

...you have no idea.

[he-dreams-awake.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the signs.


*twitchspaz* Too much going on in my head...

[squonk.livejournal.com]

Dreams are just your neurons throwing up. That's highly quotable. And kind of gross.

I've had terrible nightmares lately, like of horror-movie calibre, the kind you keep trying to make yourself wake up from and can't. I don't know what's up with that. Obviously the dreamcatcher on my wall does nothing. I wonder if this is because Phillipa chewed off some of the feathers. But the catcher part is intact, so...

Yeah.

[tophet-perish.livejournal.com]

are lucid dreams the sort you have when you're trying really hard to not sleep but you kind of nod off literally anyways?

I've made up wonderful stories by doing that with a pencil in my hand. Also, I used to have a place like your's in my dreams, only it was a house my family visited once.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Lucid dreams are the kind you have where you know that you're dreaming, so you can control what you do. I've talked to people who have been able to live entire lifetimes in their dreams. There's a lot of literature on it; apparently, the first step is finding the "dream trigger," the thing that shows you you're in a dream. Like not being able to read print, or not being able to regulate light levels. Little things like that. Apparently, mine is the aforementioned monkey.

[tophet-perish.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Mine's the fact that it's in color. But your's is WAY cooler.

[bestfiend.livejournal.com]

What a weird and fascinating dream. It's been ages since I've had any lucid dreams, but my childhood seemed full of them. I hope you continue to have more!

[vicfitz82.livejournal.com]

sometimes I think dreams, like viruses, only exist for their own purposes. Therefore, the point of having a dream is to get some ball of ideas rolling again. Whether we understand these ideas or not is irrelevant: that the dreams provoke our mind is the important thing. That's just what I think though. Lucid dreams are fun, I hope you have some.

[beetle-breath.livejournal.com]

I like Waking Life. I don't remember all of it, but it was good.

I've had vaguely lucid dreams, but they usually are dreams with me telling myself I need to get up NOW or I'll miss school.

Except I end up waking up at 4am convinced I'll miss school and it sucks.

[sighing-echo.livejournal.com]

Dreams are very tricky things. I don't think they could have anything near a single explanation.

Mine lately have been messages.