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    Blue_Opossum

    The Aquarium of Odd Lifeforms

    by , 01-21-2018 at 07:21 AM (334 Views)
    Morning of January 21, 2018. Sunday.



    This type of aquarium-based dream was more common when I was a teenager. (An aquarium typically represents the nature of the dream state itself as relative to the dream self’s faux mind and its transition back into consciousness.)

    My dream begins in the southwest bedroom of the Cubitis house. I am sitting on the bed (which is aligned east to west near the south windows) and facing the doorway. Also on the bed is a large but shallow rectangular aquarium. A smaller end is closest to the doorway. I had been watching the water getting higher until it is about half the depth of the aquarium.

    There are a number of unusual small creatures in the aquarium, the largest being a multicolored flatworm of about four inches long, which I view as intriguing.

    Marilyn (an older half-sister on my mother’s side) eventually comes into the room. I tell her about the flatworm as she looks at it.

    There are some very unlikely living creatures as well, including oversized diatoms, one which looks like a tiny rocking chair (of less than an inch high) with a cape attached to the back. The cape has a floral pattern. Another is a heraldic shield (escutcheon) with wings, also less than an inch high. The “rocking chair” swims with its “cape”, the “shield” with its “wings”.

    Eventually, there are a couple larger creatures, though I soon notice the water lowering. I also somehow pour out some of the water and suddenly, all the creatures simultaneously turn into small transparent ovals, as if the sudden lack of water caused them to cease to exist in their normal form as well as all die at the same time. This surprises me.

    Later, I have my aquarium outside in an unknown location. It is implied to be our backyard, though the house does not look familiar. There are no fences, though there is a sequence of several backyards in front of me and behind me. There is a dense forest off to my left. Zsuzsanna is present. A few other people are also around, but I am not focused on who they might be. Two small creatures (“rocking chair” and “shield”) are similar to how they originally appeared, as I had put more water into my aquarium again, which caused some of them to come back to life, more in the manner of a fast-growing seed. There are also now a couple of miniature mammals. One is a tiny bear (not a bear cub but a miniature adult bear). I am somewhat wary about it eventually growing much bigger. I recall that Zsuzsanna and I had recently watched a movie about a black bear posing a threat to a suburban neighborhood.

    I pick up the miniature bear, taking it out of my aquarium and placing it on the ground to my left, thinking that it may run off into the forest, which is what I would like it to do. It is now about the size of a cat. Instead, it runs off to my right, closer to the back of our house, which Zsuzsanna and I are somewhat concerned about (though there is no implied threat).



    Current conscious self threads with literal context: My dream self (personified subconscious) recalls that I am married to Zsuzsanna and that we have children, but I have no recall of where we live in reality (my most common dream state memory anomaly). My dream renders a fictional setting (though ambiguously combined with a real setting from my youth) that my dream self accepts as legitimate (a main factor of the dream state). The flatworm was influenced by our youngest son’s toy sticky slug that he had shown me a day ago, though it differs from my dream in that the toy is solely gray. Although the miniature bear in my dream’s final scene is of a literal thread of recent memory (in addition to the childhood association described below), relating to a movie Zsuzsanna and I had watched the night before, my memory is incorrect in that the movie, “Unnatural” (2016), featured a huge polar bear (with altered DNA) in Alaska and only as a threat to a few people in one lodge in an isolated region, not a black bear in a forest’s warm climate near a residential neighborhood as my dream self incorrectly recalled. (However, we had also seen a movie a couple days ago with a scene of a grizzly bear attacking a man, though this was also in a cold region; “The Revenant” from 2015.)

    Older conscious self threads with literal context: The miniature bear (before growing somewhat) was originally of an identical size as a mother bear in a model kit, “Black Bear and Cubs”, that my older sister Carol sent me for Christmas in 1972 (though one of many kits she sent me in the same package) while I was living in Cubitis. Marilyn seemed as she did in the 1970s. My attempting to recall whether or not she was still alive (she died on February 13, 2014), even though she was perceived as alive and in the room with me, is a type of memory ambiguity common to the dream state though of which could not occur in wakeful consciousness and is proof that I am aware, though on a subliminal level, that I am dreaming. (Liminal dream control is far more common for me than what is claimed by society as non-lucidity.)

    Literal induction thread: The bed at the beginning is both an induction factor and a dream state indicator. It is a subliminal thread of memory recognizing that I had gone to sleep (unrelated to the myth of “interpretation”).

    Metaphorical induction thread: The literal bed dream state indicator, as an induction factor, is combined with my most common metaphorical dream state induction symbolism, water rising. Water and water rising symbolizes sleep and entering deeper into the dream state.

    There is very slight vestibular system symbolism here. This would be the two smaller creatures, where one has a cape and the other, wings. Additionally, it reflects the nature of RAS mediation, the shield as a factor of “shielding” myself from RAS and the other, in contrast (the rocking chair), just being passive while “watching” my dream. A rocking chair also has a link to vestibular system symbolism, as it rocks back and forth. Additionally, a cape is a dream state indicator as it typically relates to an association with bed sheets.

    Although the common water lowering waking symbolism occurs, I (subliminally) reinduce my dream for a short time, though which soon triggers a RAS mediation factor (the bear) in the final scene. However, the bear does not grow very large or become a threat, and I do not run from it. It moves from my left to my right (common waking orientation symbolism), going towards our backyard, symbolizing my inevitable return to consciousness.


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    Updated 05-05-2018 at 11:07 AM by 1390

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    non-lucid

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