I Wouldn't Count On It

 Inception

    I wake up several times during the night, that is a given. It is also one of the reasons that dream recall is really important to me. Coming out of sleep is usually when the dreams are the strongest, although the dream might fight to keep you inside. The moment you are "aware" of any strangeness during the episode, you WILL wake up.

    Mundane dreams rarely wake you up. You will happily play along with whatever adventure is laid out before you, sometimes it will be from an outside perspective, as if you are watching a movie, until your involvement is needed. 

    When I wake up, there will be a few minutes where sitting quietly to search out any for any last impressions IS more important than a trip to the bathroom. That's the time any images might come through from dreams that I  had right before.

I woke up around around 4:45 this morning, not before the image of being in a basement hall that reminded me of a windowless Lodge meeting room, there were lunch tables reminiscent of a school lunchroom. The woman seated next to me had asked me something right before I woke up, we were working in this basement/meeting hall sorting and boxing things up. She says "What are you working on?" I replied "Well, Tenney just showed me a new way to organize our things." 

    I rarely dream about people I only know from Twitter - so this was new. Minutes before I was trying to organize a set of tags or cards that had various symbols or emblems to drop into each of the "packages" we were assembling. John Tenney was there helping or was the organizer, and noticed I was having trouble with the symbols. He sat beside me and patiently explained his method of organization that worked with any kind of data - from the known to the unknown. After taking the cards and spreading them out on the table he showed me and then let me try, telling me "Good, you've got it!" He pats me on the back and goes around to another side of the room. I finished the pile of cards, ready to distribute them before my table mate asked the question. 

The dream ends after I try to explain the method to the woman. Most of the time if there is symbolism in the dream, I try to remember it with a greater intensity and attention to detail. The tags, or cards with symbols on them were enough to garner a deeper rewind of this dream, John Tenney was in his typical long sleeve shirt with rolled up sleeves and wearing a tie that was slightly askew. The cards had black symbols printed on them, like Mayan pictograms or some other type of glyphs. I spent a little over ten minutes getting as much as I could from this one, deciding around 5:30 to get back to sleep.

I wake up again around 5:45, after a swirling mist of dreams - nothing important so I check to see if the memory of the earlier dream is still with me... YEP.

Back to sleep. 

    Now I am in the thick of things. I'm dropped off in the middle of the action. A large avenue with cars speeding by, but I have to make it across - one guy standing next to me takes off running into traffic and makes it without any injury. I try to remember the sequence of cars that he counted off before launching off the curb. I can only describe the road in front of me was like a traffic circle in England where the cars could come in either direction from the circle, madness to try and cross at night. Watching the other people walking the other side of the highway up a set of stairs to the bridge walkway to the "University" I really didn't think I would survive getting across. Against reason I took off, making it past the traffic coming from my right, a guy was next to me yelled "You have to time the cars from the left!" I made it to the small painted divider triangle barely before getting hit. The guy was right, the traffic on the left began and I had to time this next crossing to the slim walkway. Next thing I knew, I was across the road balancing on the wall above the roadway. Somehow I made a leap - Now I was next to the big fountain and pool next to the "University". 

    I was actually precariously on the edge of the pool, where a homeless man was wading in to get something he saw on the bottom, that looked like a short sword scabbard. He pulls out an ornately carved metal piece that he looks over several times and finally flicks the top with his thumb producing fire. Doing this several times he comes towards me and asks me "Is it a lighter or a sword? IS IT A LIGHTER - OR A SWORD?" Saying this several times before he advances towards me as I try to gain my balance on the edge of the wall with traffic speeding below only 12 feet below. I take his advance as threatening and don't want him to extend the blade that I knew must be hidden inside; he had not discovered which part to push and extend it. I teleport away from him onto the walkway, joining the other "students" on the way to the school that turns out to be a veterinary college.

    I run inside the building and start to overhear a story being told in the hallways about an escaped lion in the dentistry wing. The building has been cleared. Curiosity gets the better of me and I continue on through the school into the heart of danger. Carefully opening door after door, listening out for the sound of the animal in distress or breathing behind a wall. The reception area of the mock veterinary office was quiet and nicely carpeted, I pulled open the door to the exam area after I was sure there was no sounds of lion behind. Over the speaker an announcement was made that the lion had been taken care of, people began returning to the building. Someone who had been hiding in the bathroom flushed the toilet - the acoustics of the room and echo startled me because it sounded like a lion roaring.

    Mentally I needed to get out of the scenario and made my way out to the main lobby area where a student that manned the information desk was doing an internet search for one of her friends. This woman was dressed in a white ceremonial gown that could only be described as Princess Amidala meets African Princess meets the Byzantine version of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. A splendid array of cloth folded and beaded with shells and veil, positively out of place for the contemporary lobby info desk. The college was connected to the subway (Tube - London remember?) through a MALL entrance. I knew that I had to catch the train out of this dream, the rumble and screech of trains could be heard echoing in the distance so I set off running through the subterranean mall. Noticing my pace was too slow and I might miss the arriving train I took off using the slide method from previous dreams, picking up speed and nearly nocking down an Asian woman who was laden down with packages in both arms. As I turn to apologize, the dream suddenly changes again.

    I am back with John Tenney, we are in his home and he is going over the nuances of the technique he taught me on how to order my data, speaking from an open book and reciting verbatim till he shuts the tome and returns it to the place on the bookshelf. I ask him if he named this method - he replies "Python" and I sit puzzled, not because I don't agree with the name of his ordering system but I begin to remember the dream before when I was all over London. I was totally ignoring the lecture and had dropped into a fantasy of escapism. This crazy speed bump of dream crossover, separated by at least a half an hour brought me out of the dream. It's now 6:20AM

As I tried to figure out the dream while taking Leo out for a quick visit to the lawn, I wasn't sure that Tenney said "Python" - maybe something like  "Pythagoras"... I don't know because I wasn't listening.

    

Naptime "Flash" Dreams

These "Flash" dream sensations are fleeting and I would recommend trying to catch one as it happens. There have been times before where I've come to the conclusion that "We are dreaming, all of the time" - this can only be proven individually, if you are capable of waking yourself up instantly after catching up to a dream. Most of the times when you start dreaming, there is a mechanism involved to keep you asleep. The trick of waking up might not be easy at first when you change over from relaxation into a conscious/sleep state. These first dreams were from my morning "Nap."

The first dream was a view from above, there was a crowd of people moving along together, kind of like when you're watching a marathon - except, as my perspective came in closer for a look, these were all zombies. Again with the zombies as a particularly invasive image in my dreams.

The second dream was of a woman in traditional Japanese clothes running away from a man, also dressed traditionally for the period. He draws a sword and lunges forward catching the poor woman in the back.

The third dream was a little whimsical, three or four men were doing yo-yo tricks with light-up yo-yo's in the hold of a cargo plane They were obviously killing time on the night flight, the hold was darkened, save for some runner lights along the floor. As a point of familiarity the yo-yo's glowed lime-green.

A few days ago, while at work - I tested my ability to catch these dreams. Usually this works better when I'm feeling a level of tired that feels like when the power switch is turned off on a generator, grinding-to-a-halt tired.

The first dream (Which I may have Tweeted about jokingly) was more of a horror-movie themed scenario. A man is walking towards a large well-lit shed at night. He's carrying a woman's body, she's battered and bloody - we can't tell if she's alive or not. There is a look of shock or insanity on the man's face. He doesn't say a word, but continues towards the shed to complete some nefarious task. 09/27/2022

The next day, when I leaned back it only took less than thirty seconds to drop in on a dream that was "In Progress" like I had changed the channel from reality to sleep. Two gargoyle-like entities were flying in a two-seater Red Baron styled plane shooting at other gargoyle flown planes and mistakenly at a castle that caused the two to have a fight.

After I absorbed the first dream the theme was castles again, this time instead of gargoyles flying airplanes, the scene changed to dragons flying around, shooting flames from their gaping maw's in battle with each other. Two of the gargantuan flying serpents engaged in close battle, one used its foot talons to swipe at the breast of its opponent. The second dragon let out a screech and howl as the razor-sharp claws, drew blood.

I'm able to capture these "Flash" dreams just from the active practice of taking intermittent naps that resemble short narcoleptic episodes. My brain might be wired differently, then again I'm sure my sleep patterns were permanently distorted by working third shift for several years.