Blue_Opossum

Saturday morning, 29 November 1975. Age 14.

Dream #: 3,267-01.

1 minute and 40 seconds to read.

Scene 1:

Toby Taylor and I are reminiscing about the 1962 movie “Tiko and the Shark” that I had watched a few times on the “CBS Children’s Film Festival.” We talk about the idea of a remake or sequel even though we also talk about Tiko’s life as if he was a real-world person we knew.

The setting, although appearing as the El Jobean fishing pier in Port Charlotte, Florida, in the early evening, implies the location is Bora Bora to bring about connections to the movie as I push my imagination into my dream’s ongoing narrative. As I talk, I focus on my dream corresponding with my intent as I narrate an idea for a fictitious sequel called “Tiko’s Treasure.”

Scene 2:

As I think about time travel and Tiko’s village, the pier dissolves, and I fall into the water. Although I see shark fins, I am unconcerned.

Toby is “still” on the pier, but it is now far away, contradicting the first implication. The narrative ambiguously implies it has not yet been built, but Toby is still in his original location, despite me being in the water about half a city block away from it. Even so, it seems I am communicating from the dream state (as a fantasy) to his imagined “real-world location” in the “future” (from my present location). More contradictory is that I now consider I might be (or become) Tiko (even though I am also me).

Scene 3:

I find myself in an unrealistic setting with grass huts. One grass hut may be a ticket booth for the “movie” I am exploring. Other grass huts may be for tourists.

The usual factor of arm mobility associations ambiguously integrates into the narrative, resulting in self-contradicting content.

Several “bowling balls” float in the water near one hut (as I consider there is a bowling alley for tourists nearby, but the balls sometimes roll from the hut into the water). The imagery becomes more like a cartoon at this point. They may be confused with large black pearls in the region to distract treasure hunters.

Eventually, I think they are probably coconuts.

Unusual Correlation:Curiously, there WAS a remake a few years after this dream. I found myself watching it when going through channels on my sister Marilyn’s television. The remake is “Beyond the Reef (Sharkboy of Bora Bora)” - made in 1979 but supposedly not released until 1981.

Saturday morning, 18 December 1971. Age 10.

Dream #: 1,825-01.

1 minute and 50 seconds to read.

Requires reading and understanding: MAPPED DREAM “Run from the Brontosaurus” in the first part of this report.

This dream is one of many from childhood that I still cherish, regardless of its usual predictable causality factors. I still view this dream as hilarious on one level.

While hand mobility and somatosensory response (often with summoning and handling coins) have occurred regularly in dreams since childhood, foot mobility with a somatosensory response in the bottoms of my feet is uncommon, though I also use my hands in this case - and it is still predictably tied to leg mobility as most outcomes in this mode.

The curious event here involves falling and breaking a window by landing on it from a reasonable height but remaining in the dream state. Although horizontal, it ties to using a door as a dream’s deliberate exit point. While my intent to exit is ongoing, it triggers an offset somatosensory dream segment instead. I had, however, deliberately jumped from a bridge to leave the dream state, expecting, if remaining in the dream, to land in the water, as with similar instances. That is what I find hilarious.

“Doubling” is a viable term for this dream sequence because I am still in the dream state for an additional vivid segment, and it combines two dream-exiting methods I have often used.

What caused this particular shifting response (rather than waking me up)? My guess is because of the lack of myoclonus in this case. (Even so, there have been more recent dreams where I remained in the dream state after feeling “the drop.”) Myoclonus most often wakes me from the dream’s physical illusions (particularly leg myoclonus at the beginning of every sleep cycle). It shifted into a somatosensory response (glass in the bottoms of my feet) but still did not wake me. A typical hand-based somatosensory response as a catalyst is an animal nibbling my fingers.

Again, the lightning (an increasing synaptic energy analogy) striking the dinosaur and bringing it to life (waking it up) was also a transition representing precursory wakefulness, though, at that point, my dream also shifted into another segment (though with my deliberate intent in the first instance - because in childhood, I learned to hold myself in the dream state even when there is an imaginary threat and now have gotten much better at it - see “Heraldic Dragon Storm” from 2023 for example).

The unrealistic stop-motion effect (movie influence) has occurred in many other dreams. These days, “bad CGI” also occasionally “corrupts” dream narratives. Animated content superimposed over otherwise realistic scenes has also often occurred since childhood.

Saturday morning, 18 December 1971. Age 10.

Dream #: 1,825-01.

2 minutes and 30 seconds to read.

Scene 1:

I intuitively respond to the dream state by “leaving my bed” (imagined) before dawn and “walking with intent” through the Cubitis house’s dark carport - toward our backyard rabbit shed (a recurrent beginning for this mode of dreaming).

A brontosaurus in suspended animation is present. I cannot pass it. Its head and neck lie across the short concrete path that extends into our backyard from the east end of our carport, stopping at our shed’s entrance. I illogically conclude my father dug it up while working on the real-world addition to the building.

Lightning strikes the dinosaur’s head, and it comes to life as I watch its head rise above me.

Scene 1 Influence and Causality:

This part of the narrative came from the 1960 movie “Dinosaurus.” However, in that movie, the brontosaurus was friendly. My dream integrates the essence of the dinosaur from the 1959 redundantly titled movie “The Giant Behemoth” and borrows from it more than “Dinosaurus” from this point.

Lightning striking the dinosaur’s head to “wake it up” (as in the movie) is cast here because of an increase in my intuitive response to dreaming, that is, gaining more metacognition while still in the dream state. Therefore, the dinosaur is this dream’s sleep simulacrum. Sleep simulacra have featured regularly in my dreams since childhood. I habitually seek out and wake up sleep simulacra by habit to vivify and sustain the dream state. I stay in the dream state (by choice) and “run” from the dinosaur without real-world emotion. This event exemplifies my lifelong trait of anticipating wakefulness while dreaming, yet it results in virtually infinite unique and satisfying narratives.

Scene 2:

Even though I am on foot, I soon reach the El Jobean bridge in Port Charlotte, though it takes over 40 minutes by car in real-world time. It incorrectly looks more like London Bridge when I look back while walking south. The time now seems like late afternoon. I get impressions of “toy” cars the size of real-world cars, though I do not focus on them. I find the bridge imagery fascinating. The dinosaur, which moves slowly in the distance, may not reach me as the bridge might collapse. It may not even be aware of me. It moves with an unrealistic stop-motion effect, as in the movie.

Scene 3:

When reaching about two-thirds of the length of the bridge under a blue sky, I decide I will jump from it because I reason it may collapse anyway to bring an end to my dream. (Illusory bodily awareness and sense of weight are too realistic for flying in this instance.) Even so, I am still vaguely unjustifiably wary of what will happen if the animal reaches me before I wake.

I sit on the railing and cheerfully jump, expecting I will merely wake up - though I do not. Instead, I enter a more vivid offset dream.

I feel an impression of landing on my feet, but there is a loud staccato sound of breaking glass. There is a brief cool “pain” in my feet. I am now in the southwest area of my real-world school’s playground (in the early morning), standing on a four-paned window I broke by landing on it.

I sit down and cheerfully pull flat triangular pieces of glass from the bottom of my feet. There are about five pieces in each. There is no blood, and I am unconcerned.

Outcome Causality:

My deliberate jump to leave the dream state caused a quick transition of responses from my vestibular cortex with imaginary movement (and the regularly occurring leg mobility theme every sleep cycle), a predictable auditory event of the sound of breaking glass (that has continually happened throughout my life, and which otherwise breaks the illusion of dreaming in contrast to here), and my somatosensory response (which often follows my vestibular-motor response).