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Morning of March 31, 1974. Sunday.



I am halfway between full lucidity and still trying to work out if it might be a real-life scenario that I am in as it is very vivid and I have a high degree of mental clarity. I am on my school bus going home (perhaps about two-thirds of the way home in considering landmarks), traveling north. I am seated at about the middle of the bus on the left side (in regards to facing the front of the bus), nearest the aisle (though I remain uncertain if there is a schoolmate seated to my left though the bus seems more crowded than it would be in reality). Classmate Jeanette P turns her head around and looks back at me from near the front of the bus (also the left side and closest to the aisle) and smiles as if she is going to tell me something important (or that is the impression I first get). Instead, she just happily says, “Claude Smith…”. It is not sarcastic or condescending, but the way she says it is still somewhat annoying even though she seems cheerful and friendly. I guess what annoys me is the fact she sounds so assertive and even supportive while making such a seemingly blatant mistake or slight, regardless of her intent.

“That’s not my name,” I reply, sort of passively (while wondering how she had forgotten my last name). I try not to sound angry or as if responding to an affront. My dream fades at about this point and I remain annoyed at the nature of my dream directly after waking. I had not gotten the chance to see her reaction to what I had said (though she was still smiling as I was speaking). No one else had spoken to me at any point.

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There seems to be a specific outer layer of the preconscious where the preconscious personification (in this case Jeanette P) is not viably “with” the dream self, though, as here, not always aggressively so. This is curious, as I would otherwise assume such a “separation” to occur in a deeper level of the dream state. However, the logical probable explanation for this would be that the dream self is not perceived as the conscious self, so thus there is a deliberate lack of communication in the preconscious transition (as it would be biologically problematic to stay in the dream state at this point). I have documented and studied a number of versions of this situation since early childhood. It mostly only occurs in the final waking stage.

The main purpose of many shorter non-lucid dreams (rather than having a whole-self-relevant “interpretation”) and the last section of the majority of dreams in general is to return the dreamer into whole consciousness (utilizing liminal space, “return flight” metaphors, or visual coalescence in many cases). At the raw level, this is done with a falling jolt (or in some cases rising up), the loss of teeth, or something similar to trigger a stronger emotional reaction, such as being undressed in public, both a dream sign and reminder of where the real self is and a situation that might trigger emergent consciousness.

This dream utilizes the common “return flight” in a form I do not tag as such as it just features a seemingly ordinary school bus (though is still “the journey home” waking metaphor). Again, as my dream self identity is not my full conscious self identity (other than in apex lucidity), I am called the wrong name in the last stages of emergence. The emergence stage is validated by Jeanette P being at the front of the bus and “dismissing” my dream self (as my dream self metaphorically “reminds behind” rather than with a coalescence event).