Blue_Opossum

Morning of May 27, 1995. Saturday.



I find myself in the backyard of the Cubitis property in late morning. I vaguely recall a childhood dream (same setting and time) where a flying saucer hovered above me, casting a large round shadow over an area of the backyard and upon me. I am not viably lucid (that is, I remain unaware that I am dreaming), but there is faux lucidity where I illogically make the connections as relevant to presumed reality. I find the situation more interesting than threatening.

Zsuzsanna is present in the living room, looking through the east windows. I tell her of how this has happened before, and that the last time, I ran south, somehow vertically running straight down the side of a ravine, then running horizontally on the ground and across the surface of the river, and running vertically straight up the other side to continue running normally.

As I decide to attempt this again (even after over twenty-five years), I look back as I start to cheerfully run and see it is not a flying saucer but a hot air balloon. This puzzles me and instead of running straight down the side of the deep ravine as I near it, I awake with a slight falling sensation and with a mild hypnopompic kick. I am close to laughing aloud shortly after waking.

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Liminal space fallacy: This is a specific type of faux lucidity, where I attempt to duplicate an event from an older dream without realizing I am dreaming, yet I also perceive my situation as only my dream self could in a dream. Even so, this faux reasoning is something that could not occur in consciousness, and additionally, cannot even be logically perceived or resolved as even being possible, yet it is, as I am very familiar with its dynamics. For me, this proves that dreams are of an entirely different nature, purpose, and meaning than what most people claim.

Faux threads: Cubitis has not been my home since June 1978. Zsuzsanna has never been to America. The shadow was cast in the wrong direction (oriented southerly instead of westerly). There were no deeper ravines near where I lived. It is not possible to run vertically down or up the side of a ravine or run over the surface of a river.

Literal threads: Zsuzsanna’s presence, genuine recall of a childhood dream from 1969.

Current thread: Zsuzsanna’s presence only (that is, no viable recall of any other current life status, including our present address).

Vestibular system thread: The hot air balloon, in addition to being associated with breathing while sleeping, was biologically premonitory of the hypnopompic kick. (Falling in a dream is usually the result of natural vestibular system ambiguity by inherently not being able to balance the imaginary dream body in unconsciousness. As such, it is unrelated to the popular myth of “interpretation”.)

Emergent consciousness thread: The hot air balloon’s shadow signifies the looming essence of the conscious self and the inevitability of waking. This implies a different form of RAS mediation than when the preconscious is dominantly personified to rouse the emergent consciousness thread.

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Morning of March 7, 1997. Friday.



In my dream, I am apparently part of a science-fiction scenario, though it is not directly evidenced as being a movie in progress. Much of it seems impersonal and inconsequential to me despite the fanciful nature of the events. It is occurring in afternoon. The situation seemingly relates to invisible aliens coming to Earth to invade and conquer. However, the alien activity seems more like magic or perhaps even the work of one entity, though it is possibly just advanced technology that is being utilized. I feel vaguely puzzled about this situation, though I do not feel threatened at any time.

At one point, hot air balloons that first seem normal transform into brontosaurus shapes and eventually come down to land on the ground, becoming more lifelike. (Curiously, I do not make the association with parade balloons even though this was a probable influence.) Some people seem amused, others alarmed. (There is no focus on what may have happened to the people in the hot air balloons.) Some people remain in the area. Others flee. I remain impassive.

Another scene involves finding a business that may have been taken over and which is also corrupt. I burn some curtains by sending white lightning from my fingertips.

Don Knotts, another actor (possibly Andy Griffith), and I ride together in a car. The trip is uneventful.

There is also a scene where an unknown unfamiliar female has several guns in her house in preparation for the supposed increase of alien activity, which may change the nature of society. My dream fades with no dominant RAS mediation and a soft uneventful awakening.

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Looking at very familiar symbolism in this dream, it is recognized that the depth of my sleep changed a few times, which affected my level of lucidity. The hot air balloons are a combined link to real-time vestibular system dynamics and depth of breathing while sleeping. The balloons coming down to land on the ground signifies sustaining the dream state rather than the waking transition being more imminent. Despite natural vestibular system ambiguity while unconscious, my dream held my focus of imagination with living dinosaurs and aliens, factors not related to waking life.

The main liminal space division (other than the basic implication of ground and sky) features in the scene where I direct lightning at the curtains. The curtains are implied to be over either a window or a door. The liminal space divider is that which keeps the dream self identity as uncoalesced with the conscious self identity (which is why opening a door, normally a dream’s implied exit point or otherwise a shift in the present level of unconsciousness, sometimes serves as apex lucidity induction for me). Additionally, lightning symbolizes neural energy. As my dream self has the ability to produce and direct lightning, I am attempting to bring additional threads of awareness into the dream state, but there is a biological factor that mediates my depth of sleep and level of awareness. My lucidity is only at about fifty percent in this scene where it otherwise remains much less.

Still, the natural RAS mediation never fully dominates. In the final scene, the preconscious takes the role of an unfamiliar female who never uses her guns, which means I allow myself to enter the waking transition without a need for prompting.

My understanding and acceptance of the natural stages of the sleep cycle (and the inevitability of waking) and the dream state in this case prevented a more violent scenario. However, there are many times when I challenge RAS (due to wanting to sleep longer or to hold full control over the dream state) which results in shooting all contents of the waking space (inconsequential of course, other than coloring my mood to seeing my final dream of the sleeping period as frustrating for a short time).

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