Blue_Opossum

Morning of November 13, 2019. Wednesday.

Dream #: 19,322-02. Reading time (optimized): 2 min 30 sec.



The gradual emergence of my instinctual self from slow-wave sleep into REM sleep carries the subliminal goal to achieve consciousness to get up to use the bathroom. My real-life identity is absent. The urge is not that pressing, so my dream self remains distracted within an imaginary realm, requiring considerable preconscious effort to arouse me from sleep due to warm weather.

I had been swimming underwater in an unknown resort hotel to find a bathroom. During this time, an unfamiliar male is also in the underwater hall, swimming several feet behind me. Soon, a big catfish (though not much bigger than me) appears and eats the other male after bumping into him several times. I manage to get into the underwater bathroom and close the door behind me. I consider it might be better to use a different bathroom as I am uncertain if the toilet works.

My dream self passively integrates with the precursory form of wall mediation (that modulates dream sleep into the waking process). The catfish is still outside the bathroom. It tries to eat me and keeps bumping into the door when I have it halfway open as well as striking my body. After a few minutes of battling the catfish, I swim out into the hall, and the catfish simultaneously swims into the bathroom, signifying escaping illusion to achieve wakefulness. I trap it inside by closing the door.

My emerging proprioception (and vestibular system correlation) atypically decreases in the next scene (again, due to the warm weather), similar to the dynamics of a false awakening, where I typically tell someone about my previous dreaming experience, though it is part of the same dream in this case.

While upstairs, I see several members of the public present in the lobby that is not underwater. I tell a male tourist (who is sitting on a couch) about the incident, as I do not see a hotel employee, though one soon arrives. He is unfamiliar and about thirty. I tell him in detail about the big catfish eating the other man. However, there is some uncertainty if the body would still be whole or if he would be in pieces, as I recall the catfish was not much bigger than me.

I become aware of the existence of my youngest son as a thread of my real identity emerges as I grow closer to wakefulness. My dream’s fictitious backstory now includes my son being at the resort with me, and we both need to find a bathroom. However, I start to lose my sense of self by falling back into passive dream meandering, which results in the preconscious pulling me back into the waking process by creating a post-Naiad simulacrum to increase proprioception again.

I realize, as the room grows darker and with decreasing detail with my dulling senses, I had been holding onto something with my right hand and cannot go any farther (or return to slow-wave sleep). It turns out to be the yellow elastic belt of an unfamiliar girl standing at the bottom of a staircase. (Yellow is the color that correlates with emerging consciousness because of its brightness and association with sunrise.) I walk back several feet as my dream vivifies as I once again grow closer to wakefulness. I look at the coil (vestibular system autosymbolism, specifically the cochlea) that covers the palm of my hand, though this is illogical as it implies her belt had an unrealistic amount of slack near the buckle. I apologize to her, making an unlikely excuse that I thought it was the baluster of the staircase I had been holding yet while continuing to walk. She remains cheerful. The stairs are my instinctual cue to wake (though I often use stairs to vivify a dream).

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Morning of May 24, 2015. Sunday.



I have returned to a fictional recurring dream location that I had been to several times before in past dreams, which is some sort of fancy resort, or was by this point, with a large lake mostly on the southern side in most cases and the fictional “enchanted forest” region north of the resort. Although it slightly reminds me of an area of the Mississippi River (or Black River area) of La Crosse, it also somehow reminds me of the essence of my elementary school’s playground in Florida, especially in this dream.

I talk to a younger male (who has a female staff member with him) about how I used to enjoy going out on the lake in a boat. However, as I grow closer to the end of my dream, I notice that most of the lake is gone, with only a few puddles remaining. There are still boats on the muddy ground, even a fishing boat farther out. I think about going out to look around but realize that the ground is probably too soft to safely walk on. I wanted my family to enjoy the area, although we may be staying here for a time anyway. There are not that many patrons in the area. I do not know or learn what had caused the lake to disappear. I even ponder upon why the resort would even be open with no more lake to supplement it.

This may be a very similar situation in meaning to my lifelong recurring fishing dreams (as well as similar dreams of the past where lakes or rivers become shallow or vanish during the course of my dream). One of the first ones similar to this regarding a body of water getting lower over time was “The Angler” from 1965. Over the last thirty years, I have more and more come to understand that it simply represents the waking process. As the water becomes lower over time, so also does the “deepness” or “impact” (or more “realistically” rendered detail in some cases) of the dream. It may also be that flood dreams sometimes represent a “struggle” with the waking process (especially if latent apnea is relative). In fact, even “escape” dreams (where you are trying to get away from something) may possibly only represent a “struggle” with the waking process in some cases, especially if the dream is also influenced or “scripted” by environmental sounds during sleep.