jcallinor

non-dream/non-lucid/lucid

This dream moved around a whole lot so excuse any confusion

I began the dream in a large airy kitchen adjacent to a living room. Light spilled in from the gigantic windows behind me which lead to a porch, and I seemed to be the only person around. I looked at the layout of the home I was in and it looked like I was in a really expensive ski lodge - the kind you might see at Aspen. I saw breakfast on the table so I sat down to eat. It was at that point that my parents came downstairs followed by my sister. They all sat down at the table and the three of them started talking about some sort of activity they'd do today. I then commented on how our dog was absent and how I haven't seen her in a while. The DCs looked at me in shock and assured me she was around. I asserted that I had not seen her in the house which finally prompted a response. The DCs and I now ran around the house making a sweep to ensure our dog had not ran away. I checked downstairs (the downstairs of my 1st house no less), but found only movies and ran back upstairs. We all were panicking in the living room and my parents began to call the police

Then my alarm woke me up and I went back to sleep

I was on a ski lift taking me to the top of the Aspen mountain. Only the ski lift seemed to be inverted and we only moved in a horizontal direction over Aspen valley. My subconscious explained that I was part of a traveling yu-gi-oh card game team and we were at Aspen for a meet (I stopped liking card games when I was 9 but whatever) I then realized that the tournament was over and we were just leaving. I checked my pockets to make sure I had everything with me. I felt my phone and my card deck, and with confidence I told the lift DC to take me back to the hotel. He obliged and me off on a hill near a large tunnel. At this point I noticed that I was with 2 other DCs who were on my card game team. One of them (Sam) decided to wait at the top of the mountain so I told him to hold my bags while I checked out Aspen Valley. I walked to the bottom of the mountain and was greeted by a busy shopping area. I wandered through past DCs running about and eventually found a train which took us back to the hotel. At the train station near the hotel I found Sam without my luggage claiming he never had the luggage in the first place. I then went into the hotel and complained to my DC coach about Sam's forgetfulness. He told me to check my pockets and I found my phone and deck which reassured me. I then decided to go to the lower level of the hotel where there were several shops and met an older family friend. He told me that it was great catching up once we reached the bottom of the escalator and told me to wait in a chair near the ince cream shop. I did as he asked and sat in a chair. After a while I got bored and decided to masturbate (In public?), after a few minuted my better senses kicked in which told me to stop as people were watching. The family friend DC never returned so I decided to check out the ice cream store. I entered as DCs crowded the counter making it impossible to see what they were selling. After the DCs dispersed I saw an array of ice cream flavors and decided to buy a cone. I approached the woman at the counter when I noticed behind her there was a gigantic array of candies and other treats, but I made myself focus on the task at hand. I asked her for an ice cream cone and she responded with: what kind of sherbet? I responded red, then changed it to strawberry. She then stepped outside of the counter and asked what actual flavor I would like. I responded with Strawberry Banana (I think - it got a bit hazy). She scooped 2 servings of my second order and gave me two sherbets (not a bad deal) when I noticed a special needs girl was watching me over my shoulder. The girl asked if she could have some sherbet and the saleswoman encouraged me to give some to her. So I politely offered a scoop which she accepted with excitement. After the transaction I put all 3 cups into my pockets and walked back to my seat. As I was walking my surroundings changed and I noticed I was on the lift again except this time without Sam. We took the lift to a heavily wooded area that seemed to be stuck in summer. As they let us off we ran down the hill right up to a dock which was inverted as to seem like a ski jump. Naturally we ran the jump and found ourselves near Aspen Valley after the fall. We looked down at the shopping complex and saw tanks lining the streets destroying everything in their paths. I ran down to the shopping center and the tanks halted their firing. I then noticed the leader of the marines and deduced that since he was the head of the operations, if I killed him the firing would stop. So I ran after the man while the tanks began to fire all around me.

And I woke up

Weird dream

Just pinch yourself. As a prospect lucid dreamer I find my days becoming full of these Reality checks like this; I look twice at a digital clock to ensure the numbers have not changed to symbols, and the reassurance of a working light switch is enough to send me on my way knowing that what was happening around me was apart of my “reality.” I do these Reality checks in hopes that when I am dreaming I will remember to check for signs of Reality and in doing so realize that I am asleep and everything surrounding me is only a projection of my subconscious. But the questionable “reality” of our dreams raises another question in itself. How do we know what is real and what is false? For dreams feel real when you’re in them, its only when you wake up that you realize something was actually odd. This paper will be an investigation into finding Reality and if one can do so with absolute certainty.
When I first began exploring the topic my immediate reaction was one of disbelief. I thought back to the simple act of doing Reality checks and surmised that that was sufficient to determine the validity of the woken state. However on further examination I found the term “Reality check” was in itself and oxymoron. It relied on the assumption that the woken state is in fact Reality, as all checks designed to determine Reality essentially boil down to finding out how much our current state relates to the woken state. Which my preconceptions out of the way I was able to isolate the one process at our dispense for determining what is real: the senses. It seemed the most logical place to start as all Reality checks revolve around the senses and without them there is no other viable method. So I then was able to narrow this essay into a discussion of the validity of the senses.
In determining the validity of ones senses it is critical to understand their origin. Each one of the five senses is created through the process of outside stimuli sending signals through the body’s receptors (tongue, eyes, ears, nose, nervous system) that reach the brain cortex which then reproduces a response in a split second which forms one of the five senses. However this process raises the question of the validity of dreams; how is it that in so called “unreality” we can reproduce the senses without outside stimuli? While the stimulus that forms the dream senses seems organic it is actually a reproduction created absent outside influence and transmitted to the brain. In this way one can surmise that one determines real things by he recognition between outside and internal sensory stimuli. This narrows the debate to one question: how do we determine that stimuli are real. The lucid dream experience is best summarized by my friend Jon Sussman who has been a lucid dreamer for most of his life: “Waking up from smelling a rose to the smell of bread cooking in your kitchen is a revelation in and of itself, but shortly afterwards you are still asking yourself if the rose was more real than the bread,” (Jon Sussman). In his experience Sussman has been unable to distinguish between his senses in the dream and the senses of waking consciousness. Through this one is forced to come to the conclusion that the senses cannot determine between dreams and Reality as it is impossible to distinguish senses created though outside and internal stimuli.
So what conclusion can we come to? If we cannot determine between dreams and waking consciousness than how do we know that waking consciousness is real and not a series of internal stimuli created by an alternate state? The short answer is that we can’t; at our current level of knowledge our only method of determining reality is by its inter-subjective legitimacy. Thus I propose a redefinition of the word “reality:” reality n. – a state of mind believed to be valid and without fabrication. In arriving at this definition I do not require that waking consciousness is in fact entirely fabricated, just that it is impossible to tell if it is not. As Edgar Allen Poe put it: “All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream,” (Poe A Dream Within A Dream). In this way we can hope to approach the world with a thoughtfulness that is not bound by the limitations of woken consciousness, but transcends this state and searches for answers beyond our current comprehension. It is in this way that we are truly able to search for what’s real.