false awakening

Night of November 2, 1969. Sunday.



This was recurring as a young boy when first moving to Cubitis in 1968. It related somewhat to my previous attempts to watch the movie “Cat People” at my sister Marilyn’s apartment in 1966 (1942 version, which I first tried watching around age four and could not focus on it - I thought for some reason that it was about groups of black house cats going after people, which it was not of course) but was somehow never able to get through it as I always fell asleep whenever it aired. To date, I have still not seen the entire movie.

Still, Simone Simon (more as the Irena Dubrovna persona), the actress (rare recurring childhood celebrity dream, I suppose) is my mother as she appeared in that movie. She sleeps in my room because I am supposedly ill (although I do not actually feel ill in any way, perhaps just a mild cold). This recurred over several nights, and part of the reason seems to be that my mother in real life shared my room for a short time when I was ill and was a heavy snorer - her snores transforming into “wolf growls” in my light sleeps.

My bed was aligned along the east wall of my room at the time, the foot blocking the jalousie-window door to the carport (of which there were two, the other with living room access), oriented south to north. My mother’s bed on the northwest corner, head to the west and west to east orientation. In the near-darkness, lumpy blankets could look like anything, including animals at rest.

I remember many times, waking up and getting a distinct impression that Simone Simon would protect me in either her adult human form or as a panther if a different animal wandered into my room - these were often restless half-sleeps. However, I sometimes also got the impression that there was a wolf at the foot of my real mother’s bed. This was not a strong impression or nightmare, just an odd uneasiness and “I’d better check every now and then by looking up” routine.

Night of July 25, 1968 to Morning of July 26, 1968.

Important: The above date reference has been validated to be the first, most vivid, and longest version of this recurring childhood dream theme (as well as of the most precognitive layers).



My dream starts out with a precognitive scene, with Linda, a girl I knew from school, feeding “our chickens” in the backyard at Cubitis (this was when we still had a rabbit farm - and a worm farm - and my father had not even begun to think about raising chickens yet). The look is quite the same as it would be, with high, wobbly fences and several different enclosures, as well as the eventually partly dismantled rabbit shed being a part of it all. In fact, a little later on, he had made a concrete rabbit for an entrance ornament, in which, later, it also looked like a chick lying on its back (as if hatching from an egg), the rabbit’s ears transforming into the chicken’s beak in the visual “translation”. The girl is still outside when the moon is out, although the chickens are far less active. It then seems like I am looking at the images in a sort of farming magazine or real estate catalog (I did a little “photo projection” in real life at the time, so the change is not that unusual to me).

Eventually, I cross the highway (at night) and there is a “haunted house” where the house of Karen and Kenny S should be, and no other houses around it. I think it is two floors, or maybe three. (Karen’s was only a small one-storey house and very similar to mine.)

When I walk in, I notice a dark blue cartoon-like spider named “Hairy”/“Harry”, about half as high as I am. It has mischievous animated human eyes, but is more like just an oval with the eyes and lines for the mouth and coming out of the “body” for the legs. I think this is connected with a cartoon version of “The Addams Family”, as I eventually see a few other characters, which are not really frightening in any way.

A little later, there is a visually “perfect” scene (as if exactly replayed) from “Tickle Me”, an Elvis Presley movie that eventually features a haunted house with a “hidden treasure”. The scene seems to somehow relate to the hand in the box (Addams Family) to the hand coming out of the tiny door above the fireplace and punching people as in “Tickle Me” (with a brief impression of seeing myself in the scene). The imagery is exact and very vibrant. There is also the scene with the “ghost grandmother” in the rocking chair which somehow seems to be occurring in my father’s larger walk-in/sliding doors closet, yet I am still in the “haunted house”.

Later on is an additional part that was also precisely precognitive. I open a small window in a door and see a werewolf moving towards me a certain way, and there is some sort of funny game-like idea (similar to older “Captain Kangaroo” show openings that I had never seen before at that time) of shutting the window (in the door) with the door open - or leaving the window open, but with the door closed and so on, but the werewolf (starting out like a shadowy figure) - a sort of gray color and looking sort of “stiff” like a toy or model with hands raised that are not moving much, and a slight swaying side to side as he walks. At the same time, I understand that he is my brother-in-law, Verdell. Later on, for some reason, when he (my brother-in-law, Verdell) was visiting in real life (he only came down to Florida with my sister every two years or so for a few days), he bought a werewolf (wolf man) model with no explanation, even surprising my sister (there were various monster models in the store). The original model was grayish; the image (above) is of a painted figure but is from the same kit. In my dream, Verdell had looked just like the model, no shirt, pants held up with a belt, and no shoes. There was even a rat running around his foot.

Later on, after a few other misadventures, I find myself in a locker room (precognitive to one I spent time in later on in life; I had not at that point known what the one at the new middle school - featured in my dream - looked like - everything was correctly oriented). In fact, I was wondering how I got in such a place, inside of a seeming residential home. I later notice a very strange-looking cat (like the one from Disney’s “Cinderella”, whose name is “Lucifer”) sitting on a dark purplish-indigo velvet pillow with golden tassels - on top of what seems to be the hallway water fountain. However, it changes into (or is chased off by) a more normal-looking cat. It is then female and jumps up and “kisses” me (exactly like the opening credits for “Bewitched”, and with fluttering stars, real sparkles, and such - years later, I found my wife had a cat named Sparky when I first met her) and turns into Brenda (the girl who often seemed to represent my unknown future wife).

There is quite a bit more that I did not record fully when younger. During this particular time period, I wrote all my dreams out - often with pictures - on color notebook paper (not allowed for usage in school later on), mostly lighter hues of pink, purplish, greenish, yellowish, and bluish. I guess it was a pain for teachers to have to try to read pencil print on color paper (especially darker such as purple), hard enough to read on white paper.

Night of April 8, 1978. Saturday.



[An interesting aspect of dreams is that they are more closely tied to biological patterns than clearer rational thoughts, the neural energies which are free of conscious self distractions; a more natural flow of circadian rhythms. Sometimes.]

I am semi-lucid, though it has been a challenge to not have my thoughts fall upon concerns relating to rats being in Cubitis when that has never been a problem before. It is ironic in regard to having had a pet rat named “Ben” that had just happened to become trapped in a cage with a black micro-bantam rooster in the chicken shed.

[In reality, at least four large rats started to become active in the plenum space of our home and the rafters of the chicken shed for the first time and only a few months prior to our move to Wisconsin. There was a part of the ceiling in my room that had been damaged by a leak and the softer tile eventually sagged down to be directly open to the space below the roof, which the rats sometimes occupied (though no rat had ever come through that opening in my ceiling despite my wariness at times). My father eventually covered the opening with a piece of plywood. They sometimes ran across our clothesline even though they seemed too big to do this as easily as they did.]

I am in my Cubitis bedroom in the middle of the night but I am somehow aware of the presence of a giant rat in the now empty chicken shed. There is also a sense of isolation, an illogical idea that no one else is around for miles. I can see the movement of this giant rat in the background behind the first partial wall of the shed, mostly only moving from left to right and back again at which point it does not seem to be aware of me. It is about the size of a horse. Even though I am aware that I am dreaming, I seem unable to focus on something other than this potential threat.

[Rat symbolism seems to be related to biology in some cases, having proven to appear in dreams as a symbolic precursor to a flu or other illness when there were yet no outward signs.]

At one point, seemingly while standing outside somewhere but in a semi-dark area that is mostly featureless, yet also sensing that I am in bed at the same time, I look directly up and see the giant rat leaping down upon me, vertically from above, headfirst, and it almost seems cartoon-like, even flexing human-like fingers. Despite the rat’s mouth seeming not that close or even very large, even as it is almost upon me, more of a comedic essence than realistic, I soon realize that I had been swallowed and I am then suddenly apparently floating inside its stomach. My waking is very slow. There is the sustained sense of being in hot liquid and floating on my back. This disturbing experience seems to last about twenty seconds until I rise through liminal space and feel of a normal physical presence upon waking.

[This was an immediate precursor to a virus, and yet also seemingly of a precognitive connection to my brother Dennis (half-brother on my mother’s side), regarding negative associations after my move back to Wisconsin. He even had a cartoonish tattoo later that was identical to the imagery in one part of my dream, the second-from-last rendering of imagery. What is also interesting is that some of the imagery at the beginning of my dream had a very eerie but unrealistic appearance; a superimposed aspect that is identical as that from the “Night of the Rat” segment from the movie “Nightmares”, which did not come out until 1983. The rat was rendered much more realistically in the first segments than it was in the last scenes.]

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Morning of August 21, 1976. Saturday.



This very long dream event came about after falling asleep again before eleven o'clock in the afternoon, with the sun streaming through the windows but not directly near me. My parents were not in the house during this time. My more nightmarish dreams happened mostly in daylight, sometimes with the sun’s rays shining in through the curtains or windows as here and perhaps triggered by the body’s need to get up and do things, thus the dream state seems to become “hostile” to the dream self.

This one started out during the longest sleep paralysis I have ever had, about thirty to forty minutes, and it was during this time that I partly woke several times, going back into a very lucidly aware dream state. My head was “buzzing” at different times, but there was no “out of body” perception at any point. I was asleep on the couch in the middle of the living room, facing east, my head to the north. (Normally, sleep paralysis is enjoyable for me.)

The main events involved two pieces of furniture that the sun’s rays had been shining upon now and then in real life, but somehow also creating a nightmarish shadowy gloomy effect in the room. One was a kitchen chair, looking much the same as in real life and starting to “walk” from the same position from near the partially open curtains in real life at the time. The other was the small green metal typewriter table on wheels, with the built-in bendable lamp, with the conical green metal lampshade. (See photo; it is the same as I had). As the sun went behind the clouds now and then, but still keeping the room light enough to see all the details as I drifted in and out of lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis, either the chair or the small table would “walk” towards me in an ominous, menacing way at a particular time. What came the closest to me was the small green typewriter table, its lamp being the “head” and the bendable part being the “neck” of some sort of miniature surreal “giraffe” as it moved towards me, appearing to “study” me (with the light bulb “face”) and I was hearing its groaning and clacking “legs” and “feet” upon the tiled floor (even though it has wheels). As the last energies of sleep paralysis wore off, I finally caught myself staring at the chair in the room in real life (although when it was walking, it did not have as much a menacing presence as the small table). It did not move of course, yet still looked the same as from my dream, facing directly towards me in perfect perspective and still having a creepy essence before I was fully awake. This was fascinating to me after being fully awake for a time. It was almost like a game, where I would open and close my eyes to check whether or not the furniture was really seemingly alive or potentially menacing.

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This is obvious sunrise symbolism with the related dawning consciousness event. A light bulb (especially if on) is also analogous to getting an idea, used as such in various newspaper cartoons and comic strips. It is also a sunrise metaphor (logic related to daytime wakefulness and being “bright” as in contrast to a “dim” person or akin to the phrase “the lights are on but no one’s home”, indicating the dreams self is aware and active but not fully awake and conscious). It is fairly common to have unusual dreams when sleeping in a different location and here, the bendable lamp stretched towards me to create an aggressive sense of sunrise (the yellowish glow) and the need to fully wake. It was as if my conscious self was annoyed by me still being asleep.

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My lovely wife Zsuzsanna has also had a lucid nightmare with this theme, yet she was watching the upright electric floor fan “walking” towards her on its otherwise flat-to-the-floor four “legs” and moving its “head” (the motor and fan) in a very similar way as the small table with the bendable lamp (in a seemingly menacing “observing” way) as in mine.

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Morning of May 4, 1974. Saturday.

Dream #: 2,693-02. Reading time: 53 sec.

One of my male classmates (Bobby G) and seemingly another one, (Wayne H), seems to be in my front yard. (These classmates have been obnoxious to me in real life.)

I had a false awakening into this situation and remain unaware I am still dreaming. These two boys may be there to make bullying remarks or cause other problems.

At one point, when I look out through the open jalousie windows, I notice what may be somewhat illegible handwriting, seemingly from a felt pen, on about four or five lower louvers. I am unsure how it got there. It may be something I wrote that might cause me embarrassment, though I am unable to make out the words, only various letters. It may be writing from my dream journal that somehow ended up on the jalousie panes, but I do not recall doing this.

I see Bobby walking away from the front of the house, but I do not know if he read it. It may be that some of the writing became distorted from being wet or partly washed off when my mother was watering the flower box.

There is a reset where there seems to be an unknown dark-haired girl to the right (in my view), but I do not know if she is his friend or concerned about me.

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Night of January 2, 1970. Friday.



This dream was more likely into the very early morning of the next day, perhaps around one or two am of the (beginning of) third of January. In my dream, I am aware that I am “sleeping” on my right side and oriented with my head to the north though the bed is in the southwest corner of my room and aligned against the west large jalousie windows. The time in my dream probably reflects the same time it is in reality. Even though I am apparently “sleeping” I am still aware of a scene (still in my dream-body as such - in my in-dream “sleeping” role yet somehow fully aware at the same time), of a shadowy unknown presence moving quickly into my room, a bony hand (seemingly of an adult - I am only nine at the time) gripping me on my left shoulder, me suddenly being aware and “waking” and turning around to look - and yet the presence, perhaps a human being, is gone immediately. I am left with a strange feeling on who it could have been - perhaps my future self with an important “message” for me, but the “other older me” left because I was asleep - but in contemplation, no human being could move that fast - though there is no stronger fear or concern remaining in my thoughts a short time later.

This is a rather unique dream in that it was a directly self-fulfilling “anniversary” type where, in 1977 on January 2, my dream reversed the roles; that is, I dreamt of touching a younger version of me on the left shoulder while in my Cubitis bedroom in the exact same setting and feeling of time. I do not really see this mundane connection of a self-fulfilling dream as remotely odd or unexplainable (even though others had when I was younger), especially in regards to the thousands of my dreams that did have unexplainable aspects concerning remote-viewing and precognition, which were always validated in very interesting ways.

The name of the second movie on “Shock Theatre” this night was called “The Clutching Hand”, though I did not see it or know of its plot (I sometimes fell asleep before the second feature started), so the title alone could have been the trigger for this dream, though again, it was not horror-related.