Blue_Opossum

Afternoon of May 10, 2018. Thursday.



Although these dreams are documented and at least partly explained in much more detail elsewhere, here is yet another rundown on several dreams of the same basic template. They are all forms of the same waking process autosymbolism but with different preconscious and emergent consciousness factors as well as different depths of liminal dream control. (Liminal dream control is control of the dream state without awareness of being in the dream state. This is due to understanding autosymbolism and the nature of the dream state by way of the virtuous circle effect.)

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The Skunk (August 21, 1965; age 4). Doorway waking autosymbolism (doorway as autosymbolism for the exit point of the dream state). Preconscious Factor (with emergent consciousness correlation): Ambiguous; unfamiliar girl around my age to an uncertain transformation of her being my mother coming in to wake me. RAS modulation factor: Implied by the curious girl wanting to see what sort of creature is in the center of the dark room. Emergent Consciousness Factor: Sleeping skunk that suddenly wakes up forming question mark imagery with the white part of its body. Brief liminal dream control in non-lucidity. My dream self is puzzled by sudden vague lucidity, briefly uncertain if dreaming or awake, thus the floating question mark.

Witch Cat (February 14, 1969; age 8). Doorway autosymbolism transmuted into using the doorway to sustain my dream in non-lucidity. Preconscious Factor: The unfamiliar black cat with human-like intelligence and magical ability. The cat’s head seems to float and move up just in front of my face (from where she is in the doorway) in an eerie startling event - which is my dream self using the waking alert factor to deliberately but liminally sustain my dream - thus transmuting what would otherwise have been the RAS modulation factor of this dream. This is liminal awareness of my own eye movement in REM sleep. As such, the emergent consciousness factor (the presence of the cat) is sustained until my dream fades. (Note that this is only one event of many for this dream.) Mainly influenced by “Bewitched”; the episode “Mrs. Stephens, Where Are You?“ where Serena turns Darrin’s mother into a cat, so this dream can be seen as modulating my dream by borrowing this plot in the liminal goal to keep my mother from waking me.

The Orange Monster (October 30, 1970; age 9). Doorway waking autosymbolism (doorway as autosymbolism for the exit point of the dream state). Preconscious Factor: A hairy orange anthropomorphic monster had knocked on the front door. RAS modulation factor: The threat of a creature of unknown intentions at the door late at night. Emergent Consciousness Factor: The creature turns out to be my brother Jim, who is wearing a Halloween costume. Liminal dream control. Original threat transmuted into a familiar association with my cheerful brother Jim.

November Second Halloween (in three acts) (November 3, 1973; age 12). Doorway waking autosymbolism (doorway as autosymbolism for the exit point of the dream state). Preconscious Factor: My best friend Toby (who remains unseen). RAS modulation factor: The threat of several dogs on the carport, though not a real threat unless I choose to open the door. Emergent Consciousness Factor: The “dogs” turning out to only be flat images on a large poster (photographic) put over the doorway (by Toby) while a cassette of dogs barking was playing on a table on the carport (liminal space setting). On one level, this can easily be seen as liminally modulating my dream over the original RAS modulation, based on many previous dreams where a dog was a challenge to apex lucidity (in my will to lucidly modulate the dream state, as a dog is autosymbolism for obedience).

Surprise Aardvark! (September 19, 1981; age 20). Checkout waking autosymbolism (checkout as autosymbolism for the exit point of the dream state). Preconscious Factor: The implied cashier, though not present, though another dream character (unfamiliar female) goes to the checkout to take the role of the preconscious and drops a book behind the counter. RAS modulation factor: Not directly present, only implied by the “missing” cashier so that I do not “check out” of the dream state in a passive manner. Emergent Consciousness Factor: Sleeping aardvark that wakes up when the book is dropped, perceived as myself, starts talking and walks to the left (a liminal attempt at dream state reinduction). Brief liminal dream control in non-lucidity. The setting implies a library, which validates this as consciousness activation autosymbolism, as the non-lucid dream self does not possess viable reading skills (as most of what is read in the non-lucid dream state changes when looking back at it) or reasoning skills.

Snow Bear (November 17, 1982; age 21). Doorway waking autosymbolism (doorway as autosymbolism for the exit point of the dream state). Preconscious Factor: Polar bear. RAS modulation factor: The threat of the polar bear that I had thus far evaded, including with projected staircase autosymbolism earlier in the dream and even perceiving a setting as upside-down. Emergent Consciousness Factor: Polar bear standing up in doorway when I open it while expecting a mailman delivering a package. Non-lucidity in RAS modulation. The polar bear becoming the preconscious to emergent consciousness factor in this case may be coincidentally based on the typical shift to doorway waking autosymbolism because of environmental noise - evidenced by expecting the mailman autosymbolism, which represents communication between the dream self and the conscious self identity in the waking transition, especially when there is a need to wake and attend to real physical needs or to discern the source of a noise.

Holographic Toy Tiger (March 14, 2016; age 55). Doorway waking autosymbolism (doorway as autosymbolism for the exit point of the dream state). Preconscious Factor to Emergent Consciousness Correlation: Zsuzsanna. RAS modulation factor: Sublimated (as toy tiger). Emergent Consciousness Factor: Stuffed toy tiger. Sustained liminal dream control in non-lucidity (the fake tiger still licks its lips upon seeing Zsuzsanna in the doorway). My dream self tries to safely intensify the dream state by testing tactility, which is here a dream state indicator (subliminal awareness of being in the dream state) as evidenced by the blanket and the “sleeping” tiger (stuffed toy that begins to have living attributes in the last segment). Liminal modulation of the dream state.

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Morning of August 21, 1965. Saturday.



In early morning, I am walking through an outdoor maze-like area in an undetermined location with about six other children of whom are unfamiliar. On each side of the old and broken sidewalk are various unusual plants in flower boxes of about two feet high of which are adjacent to the sidewalk. Some of the plants are as high as about three feet, but many seem to be drying out, some stems almost straw-like. Some of the plants seem like oversized sandspurs (Cenchrus), though a few have attractive flowers. The area is possibly an abandoned plant nursery or the forgotten large garden of someone who had moved. There is conversation, but I mostly had only recalled a girl saying something about “the garden bed”.

Someone’s forgotten private garden may more likely be the case, as we eventually seem to be in the unmaintained backyard of a suburban residence.

There seems to be the presence of an unusual odor, firstly thought to be coming from some pale flowers.

We all walk closer to the back of the house. A girl in our small group opens the back door of this house. There appears to be something moving in the darkness in the center of the room. It is seemingly a skunk, but we can only see the white part of it very clearly. I suddenly become aware that it is startled and puzzled by our presence, and curiously, and very interestingly, the white part (body and tail) quickly form a question mark. The formation of the question mark, which seems to hover in the air (though I am still aware that a skunk is there) creates an intriguing sense of awe and surprise upon waking, as if the skunk’s surprise and puzzlement are my own; as if I am the skunk being awakened by the girl in the doorway.

At this last point, I am seemingly also immediately (without implied to have walked here) near the center of the dark room, looking at the white vertical question mark while seeing the girl’s silhouette in the doorway. I eventually consider that it is my mother coming in to look in on me as I am sleeping (a puzzling transformation of the girl around my age suddenly becoming an adult as well as briefly perceiving myself as a skunk).

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This is one of many childhood dreams that taught me that dreams were based on the autosymbolic nature of the dream state and waking transition rather than having a waking life “interpretation”. The phrase “garden bed” in this case is an indicator that I am asleep and dreaming, though I do not become lucid here other than in the final moments.

The transition of the preconscious shifts from my dream self’s perspective to seeing the skunk as my emergent consciousness. As with many other dreams, the autosymbolism is directly based on the puzzlement of becoming aware that I am dreaming. (This is inherent to the foundational meaning of all waking process autosymbolism.)

The unknown girl in the doorway establishes this as doorway waking autosymbolism (a very common waking process). The door is autosymbolism for the impending exit from my dream in the final scene as well as the door to my real-life bedroom (and in fact, I have often used this knowledge for both liminal dream control and deliberately vivifying the dream state). It is a girl around my age due to the downscaling of my mother (who is usually the one to wake me while standing in my doorway).

The skunk and its intriguing transformation into a question mark represents my puzzlement in liminal space (dark featureless room in this case rather than a more defined autosymbolic liminal space construct such as a porch or parking lot), as well as a form of defense against the preconscious factor in my liminal focus of not wanting to get out of bed just yet even though my dream self’s vague intent is to find my way back to my conscious self identity (which is basically what a dream is).

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I believe that this dream also had a precognitive thread, first validated in 1978 when my parents and I moved back to Wisconsin. The backyard and the back of the house in my dream seemed to match, in appearance, color, and orientation and distance (relative to the 901 Rose Street building we lived in on the second floor years previously), to the house my sister Marilyn (who had lived in the apartment across from my parents and I on Rose Street) was living in years later. (This is curious, as the majority of my dreams otherwise have unique fictitious composites as a setting.) Additionally, my father built cinder block flower boxes (similar to those of my dream) onto the front of our house after we had moved to Florida in 1967.

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Morning of May 10, 2018. Thursday.



I am in an unknown location that has somewhat of the essence of the middle room of the east side of the King Street boarding house (where I have not been since 1990). I am putting together this year’s education report.

Curiously, a young female from the Brisbane Department of Education is present (though is a fictitious character or at least unfamiliar). I am showing her the documents that have been correlated thus far. One section is based on a calorie intake study relating to cereal. In going through the papers, I recall that half of the documents relate to my own education and are also due.

I notice a sheet of A4 paper that I had apparently sketched a helicopter on, lengthwise on the paper. I am wondering if it is complete or needs labeling.

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Helicopters in my dreams are a common form of vestibular system correlation in anticipation of the drop.

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