Another variation of a disturbing dream within a dream (false awakening)....

Another side note related to the unsettling dream I had during a nap Sunday evening (in which three different times, I thought I had woken myself up, but then realized I was still stuck in the dream).

I had thought it was likely a lucid dream, but I just looked up lucid dreaming and the description was a little different than I remembered or thought, in that it seems like oftentimes with lucid dreams, you're aware that you're having a dream and can somewhat control the dream. Then I saw a description for what's referred to as a false awakening/vivid dream that seems closer to what I sometimes experience. Or perhaps a variation of both. But with me, in addition to not realizing I'm dreaming (until I wake up or shortly before that), I also can't control the dream, and have some trouble waking myself up (which is what makes it extra disturbing - not realizing I'm dreaming and thus not being able to wake myself up and then having more trouble than usual waking myself up even after I do realize - because with my more regular dreams, even if it's a disturbing or violent one, I am aware that it's a dream and do not usually have a huge problem waking myself up from it if I want to/choose to do so...)...

Part of some description of false awakening dreams (from Wikipedia):

"A false awakening is a vivid and convincing occurrence in a dream where one experiences awakening from sleep, though in reality continues to sleep. It is mostly associated with another dream, however it may occur as its own. After a false awakening, subjects often dream they are performing their daily morning routine such as showering or eating breakfast. False awakenings, mainly those in which one dreams that they have awoken from a sleep that featured dreams, take on aspects of a double dream or a dream within a dream...

Studies have shown that false awakening is closely related to lucid dreaming that often transforms into one another. The only differentiating feature between them is that the dreamer has a logical understanding of the dream in a lucid dream, while that is not the case in a false awakening.

Once one realizes they are falsely awakened, they either wake up or begin lucid dreaming."

Another personal example of one of these false awakening/vivid dreams was this time when I felt like I had woken up and gotten out of bed, but felt really off-kilter and edgy and like something was weirdly awry, but didn't know what or why and so I walked to my bedroom mirror to look and see if something was wrong with my face and then I saw these empty holes where my eyes used to be and I was like, "Oh my god, I have no eyes, my eyes are gone, what happened to my eyes!?!" But then I was like, "Wait, if I had no eyes, I wouldn't be able to look in the mirror and SEE that I had no eyes" and then I realized I was still stuck in some unsettling dream state, but even after realizing that, I had trouble waking myself up. That's the disturbing thing with these dreams for me. At first, I don't even realize it's a dream, but then even when I do, I have trouble opening my eyes and re-entering real life reality.

Another personal example (the first one I remember) was way back when I was in college and had my own individual dorm room. I felt like I had woken up but was walking around in circles in my room, feeling edgy and uncomfortable and didn't know why. I thought maybe what had woken me up was some sort of uncomfortable sound. I walked to my door to peak out the peephole and saw a man with a gun standing right outside my door and he was about to shoot me. But then I realized my door didn't actually have a peephole, which caused me to realize I was still stuck in a dream.

A more recent personal example would be a few years ago when I had a seizure in a dream (I didn't have a real seizure, it just happened in the dream, which has actually happened more than once, which sort of sucks, because my seizures are confusing enough in real life). When I have one of my seizures in real life, my brain is confused and discombobulated for about half an hour to an hour afterwards. At first, I don't know what day it is, I don't know what time it is, I don't remember what I was doing before it happened, I have trouble using my phone, I have more memory issues than usual and more word issues than usual and everything is confusing. Well the dream in which I had a seizure exaggerated that sort of stuff even more. I thought I'd had a seizure in bed and had woken myself up and was now trying to figure out what to do. My house was dark and confusing. I was having trouble seeing and there seemed to be a power outage with the lighting. Then I felt like someone was trying to break into my house from the garage, based on some sound I heard in the garage. Then I felt like maybe someone was already in my house because I walked into the main room to try to turn a light on and a light bulb had been removed and there was a broken balloon affixed to the area where that light bulb used to be and I hadn't put it there. This particular dream that I didn't realize was a dream had me seeing strange things in my own home and trying to hide or figure out what to do. I thought about going into my garage but I thought someone was in there. I thought about running out my front door, but then what? At the time, there was a great deal of snow on the ground and all I had on was my pajamas.

ANYWAY, this is getting too long, but part of what I'm saying is whatever these sort of dreams are (lucid dreams or false awakening/vivid dreams or some sort of combination), I don't realize it's a dream at first, and then I have a hard time waking myself up, and after that, I remember a lot of details from the dream including visuals and the visuals tend to be pretty realistic and associated with my own space and it's a little too creepazoidacle, but at least I can somehow incorporate it into some poetry?

Drooling or Melting or Staining the Sheet (Three Interconnected Dreams)...

Woke myself up from a nap, was having trouble seeing anything, was stepping on and bumping into stuff on my bedroom floor as I attempted to segue from my bedroom to my main room. Finally made it to the doorway leading into that main room and there was a deer standing in my main room. I gasped, stepped back into the bedroom, shut the door, and felt panic and uncertainty about what to do next. Thought about calling my mom, but was still having trouble seeing and figuring out how to use my phone. At some point, I finally realized I only THOUGHT I had woken myself up and was stuck in dream land and then made an effort to wake myself up again. Thought I had done so a second time (still had trouble seeing and confusion), then realized AGAIN, I was STILL in bed. I don't remember the details of the second dream state that well.

Then I made an effort to wake myself a THIRD time and this time when I'd woken myself up, I could see better (or I actually turned on the light) and was staring at my bed with confusion, because a light purple blanket was covering the bed and I'm someone who doesn't regularly make the bed let alone sleep on top of the covers. Then I internally worried that someone had somehow snuck into my home and made the bed for me and who knows what else. Then I slowly began to pull down the covers that I had apparently slept on top of and there was a dog treat (which looked like a Milk-Bone biscuit) near the top of my bed and it was wet as though something had been licking it. Mind you, I don't have a dog in my home in recent years. Then the dog biscuit started drooling or melting or staining the sheet.

Then I realized I STILL hadn't actually woken myself up and I started to worry that perhaps I was dying. It's not like I've never had times before where I thought I had woken myself up from a dream and then realized I hadn't, but it doesn't usually happen three times in a row, with three different variations. Then I finally DID manage to actually wake myself up. Unless I just THINK I'm typing this but am still in bed. This is part of the reason I don't frequently take naps.

On a side note, the dog treat under the covers kind of reminded me of a hotel that puts chocolates on the pillows. Except the dog treat was in my own home, on my own bed, underneath the covers, wet, drooly and if it had been left for me, I didn't know who had left it or why.

On another side note, the deer in my main room, after I was finally awake, caused me to think of the white horse in Twin Peaks. (I'm not going to analyze that right now, but I will say I'm not on any drugs, other than my seizure pill). Furthermore, when sitting in the passenger seat earlier today, I did see a dead deer in someone's front yard.

Malfunctioning Tampon Dispenser Dream

Not sure how to interpret this odd little dream last night (or at least the part I remember). I was in a public restroom that had one of those tampon dispensers where you stick in coins to have it pop out tampons. But the dispenser was malfunctioning and instead of tampons, a bunch of colorful masks were sticking out of its slots. Nobody else was in the restroom, so I quickly stole some of the masks and stuck them in my purse. Then I walked out of the restroom and was in some crappy college bar from which everyone was gone and there was trash all over the floor. Half empty plastic cups, wet wads of paper towels, no people other than me.

a dream in which food is way more interesting than me

Didn't sleep well last night. Had a small series of oddly bothersome little dreams involving me and poetry and people I'm involved with.

In one dream, my sister, who has only ever been to one of my poetry readings, told me that all of my poetry was like the same poem on repeat, like boring hospital food or like repeatedly watching some class on feminine hygiene products.

In another dream, I was sitting in an airport or mall restaurant with two people who had chosen to visit me there a little bit before I had to head to work. I had about 15 minutes, so I figured we were just going to sit there and talk, but instead they both bought big fancy sandwiches and started eating them in front of me, even though I didn't have time to eat anything. I got upset that in the limited amount of time we had together, they were both more focused on eating than on listening to me, I said something about that, the man acted like it was no big deal, and said his daughter was always hungry. I told him that he had a sandwich too, it was right in front of my face, and I might as well just leave and go to work. He casually said okay. Then I got in front of the woman's face, called her a hog, and left.

So I guess my dreams were insinuating that in some people's minds hospital food is more interesting than my poetry and me - sandwiches are more interesting than anything I have to say - and I might as well just shove feminine hygiene products into my mouth and spit them out on repeat.

Oh and if I get upset at a man for acting thoughtless and careless, then I'll call another woman a hog. 🐷

Temporarily Disconnected with Brain Space Invaders

I had a rather disturbing false awakened lucid dream. Maybe because I took a nap at a weird time (starting a little after 11:00 PM with my alarm set to get up at 12:30 AM - and before lying down, I thought there was a possibility my mom might call me before I got up, because sometimes she does call me in the midnight to 12:45 AM time frame).

I called my mom and she acted like it was an unexpectedly late time for me to be calling her. Then I felt confused because it's not uncommon for her to call me at that time. Then I realized I was still lying down and couldn't even remember the reason why I had called her. Then our phone call got randomly disconnected. Then I suddenly couldn't get my phone to work and could barely see anything on my phone. At first I was worried that my mom would freak out because I wasn't calling her back and wasn't answering if she was trying to call me back. It reminded me of times in the past, shortly before I had a seizure, when I couldn't see any of the fine print on my phone and couldn't seem to remember how to use it, because my brain became temporarily disconnected.

I repeatedly tried to use my phone (trying to call my mom, then trying to call Darryl) with no success, then I realized that part of the issue might be because every room in the house was dark and I couldn't see very well. But then, hardly any light in the house was working. It wasn't a power outage, because the kitchen light was on. But it was on with less than 1/4th the amount of light as usual and then when I started staring at it, I saw that the light fixture was haphazardly dangling from the ceiling and then it crashed down to the ground, shooting shards of glass across the floor, and since there was no light in the kitchen anymore, I had to stay away from there, so that I didn't step on glass. I could barely see my phone and it wasn't working regularly at all and it said SPAM and I thought it had been hacked.

No ceiling light I tried to turn on worked. I walked to the corner of my living room where I have a floor light, but not only was it also not working, but the lamp fixture had been removed. Something that looked like a broken balloon was dangling there. I started to worry that someone had invaded my home, but why and how, because it was full of snow outside. I thought about grabbing a flashlight, but they were in a drawer in my kitchen and I was worried I'd step on glass, but I had to take that risk, because I had no idea what was going on and could barely see. Then I heard someone open the side door of my garage, and thought maybe my parents had come over to check on me, because of my lack of response to their phone calls, they thought I'd had a seizure or maybe it was an invader.

Then I woke up, less than ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off, but during the whole dream, I hadn't even known it was a dream. I had thought I had made a semi-random phone call while still in bed, then had gotten up and been walking around in my own home in the dark, seeing error after error, feeling increasingly disconcerted that either my space had been invaded or something had gone awry with my own brain.

“Singular annotation to feel his complication of contraries” ( a line from this morning's dream)

Weird dream this morning including the ex and the past.  I don’t remember the details of the dream, but I do remember its strange impact on my brain after I woke up.  I woke up too early, hearing garbage truck sounds and still in my mind was the visual that was taking place in the dream at that time, which included mountainous outdoor terrain, the ex, an ex of his, and me in the background.  In the background I was talking with an ex co-worker of mine whose father was some sort of horoscope expert or bipolar disorder expert or something like that (in another remembered visual from the dream, the father looked like a Transcendental Meditation teacher from my past – which makes sense in a way, because in retrospect, after I suddenly awoke from the dream, I felt like I had been in the midst of an unexpectedly intense Transcendental Meditation).  

As soon as I awoke, I immediately wrote down the phrase the woman was saying to me, which had been said to her by her father:

“Singular annotation to feel his complication of contraries”.

I didn’t know exactly what those words meant, but they were meant as a definition of the ex – and even though I didn’t know exactly what they meant, they definitely seemed to make sense – and then as soon as I awoke and wrote that phrase down, all sorts of stuff started rapidly popping out of my head.  Memories in the form of words and sounds and images.

***

Sudden ongoing increasing contraries of the ex:

Super sweet/terribly mean/almost uncaring.

Singing goofball hilarious songs/yelling at me/yelling at the TV/yelling out the window.

Being an affectionate hugger/telling me my fingers felt like snakes/punching the cupboard doors.

Suddenly getting up early and immediately launching into a loud made up song while making bacon/having a drunk loud angry tirade about how great Hitler was.

***

After writing down those thoughts that spewed out after suddenly awaking from the dream, I felt suddenly compelled (for the first time in years) to open a hand written journal of mine, the first hand written journal I compiled after I had a stroke in January 2010.

Here is what it says on the very first page of that journal:

“March 9, 2010: POST-STROKE (diary)

Juliet Cook. The earliest part of this book is much older.

I tore out some words I no longer liked + saved the other words, which are pieces of other’s poetry + odd little words that I might use in a lighter poem of mine.

However, I’m not writing poetry any more, right now. Because I recently had a Stroke.  My reading and writing of words is slowly (slowly slowly) improving, but my writing of poetry is not yet. I’ve been reading poems by myself & others, but it’s tough to read them slowly or entirely understand them. I can no longer remember them (can’t read or write or speak or remember things as well as I used to post-stroke.) The last few years have been wonderful for me as far as poetry-writing and now…”

***

Maybe I will add more lines from my 2010 diary soon. 

It made me feel oddly emotional.  I’m not sure if anyone else would be the least bit interested though, so maybe I should just read them by myself and not bother typing it or talking about it to anyone else.  Not sure yet.

I do know that after awaking from my dream and then suddenly reading a few pages from my 2010 diary, I had another sudden visual from my past. Past dogs dying.

I do know that all of the thoughts/images I highlighted in green were real life events, not dream imagery.  The images of past dogs dying were real too. And my little journal entry was real. 

Middle-aged Dream

Part of last night’s dream:

Just as I am walking into a large public restroom, holding my small dog on a leash, a skinny, middle-aged woman is stepping out of one of the restroom’s stalls, nude, with her pubic hair removed.

‘Can anybody help me?’ she asks in an annoyed tone of voice, as though she already knows that nobody is going to. She was asking for help getting back on her wheelchair.  Everyone just ignores her and she says in an even more annoyed sounding voice, ‘Fine, I’ll call someone’.

That’s when I respond (because I don’t want to be another one of the people who just ignores something they don’t want to deal with or are not sure how to deal with), ‘I could try to help you.  The only reason I didn’t answer right away is because I have my dog and…’.

Meanwhile, everyone else is just washing their hands and ignoring the situation.

***

When my alarm clock woke me from the dream before I could try helping:

As usual when I wake from an unusual dream, I start wondering what it was ABOUT. 

How does a woman step out of a restroom stall, standing by herself, but need help getting back on her wheelchair? I didn’t ask myself that in the dream – in the dream it was more like if she asked for help, she needed help – why question why?  Of course, in real life, people (including me) question things a lot, sometimes to avoid diving in.  In real life, I don’t automatically help someone, unless I feel like they really need it – but how do I know?

Why was the woman nude – and why, after I woke from the dream, did I start wondering if that woman was some representation of ME – a skinny, middle-aged woman who sometimes wishes people would pay more attention to me than they do – but why should they? Maybe I’m an unattractive middle-aged weirdo that’s hard to identify/identify with. Granted, my character in the dream was walking my little dog and wearing a short skirt that many women my age probably wouldn’t wear.

Granted, in real life, I’m pretty skinny and like being skinny and I don’t think I look old, but maybe I do.  Maybe I look considerably older than I feel.  Maybe I look more akin to the annoyed, middle-aged woman who stepped out of the toilet stall nude, but there was nothing attractive about her nudity; it was just odd and disconcerting.  Her face looked old.  Her body was skinny and looked like it was in good shape, but even though she didn’t look unhealthy, she somehow looked too skinny.  And even though I remember seeing her shaved crotch,  I don’t remember seeing any breasts.  What’s that all about?

I’ve been having breast issues lately i.e. I wish I had some; not someone else’s, but I wish mine were a little more substantial instead of borderline nonexistent. Maybe borderline nonexistent is an overstatement.  Or maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m akin to a middle-aged, annoyed, annoying, somewhat disturbing person that’s the opposite of appealing when I get naked (physically OR expressively) and most people would rather just ignore it.

Accept for the younger version of myself that will TRY to help the annoying, unattractive, uncomfortable, nude older version of myself onto her seemingly unnecessary wheelchair. 

?