Excerpts from Notebook X, the private journal of Deep Thought:

I've always worked my best at night. Starting around ten or eleven in the evening, until about two or three, the apathetic nothingness that usually occupies my mind becomes replaced with a euphoria of sorts. It makes my mind clearer; fresher.

At night, I often have epiphanies of sorts. Nothing major, just small fragments of insights into my life. Usually, I'm awake enough to remember them (one of the many perks of being an insomniac,) but once dawn breaks, I can never bring myself to commit to any of them.

I won't get into any of the details now, but I want to start recording these revelations in this book.[/b]


I had a nightmare last night... If one can really call it that. The things I have are less like nightmares and a lot more like very lucid dreams. By this I mean, conscious dreams. Can a dream really be a nightmare if you know it's not real?

I digress. The point at hand is the content of aforementioned dream, not its nature. At the start of the dream, things seemed normal; in fact, at this point, I could have sworn I was awake. I was playing video games on my computer, and I could have sworn the games were real. I broke my iPod as well, although I can't quite remember how. At that point - how can I explain it - I "jumped." Not only physically, but it also seemed like a jump from reality to fantasy.

At a certain point in all my dreams, I am paralyzed; my entire body is numb. Sometimes, in this state, I can move, but I remain numb. During this phase, all sound tends to fade away, except for one or two different sounds.

During this particular dream, I was hovering in midair after I jumped. This is relatively new to my dreamscape, but not entirely foreign. Then, a voice came to me. I wish I could remember exactly what it said, but it sounded sort of like Frank the rabbit from Donnie Darko. It said something along the lines of "Watch out" or "Be careful." I thought the exact words were "Watch your step," but that doesn't seem right now.

At that point, I began to struggle against the confines of my dream's paralysis. In the past, this has always been a physical struggle, but lately I have found it equally effective simply to close my eyes and force myself mentally to wake up. It often takes several "half awakenings" before I become fully conscious. The last thing to return is the feeling in my limbs, and sound. The first ting is usually my breath and eyesight, however blurry.

Also of note is the fact that despite the fact that these dreams seem to take hours, when I consult the clock afterwards, only minutes have passed.

Now for some speculations. There is a possiblity that these experiences are caffeine-related - they are indeed "jittery" in nature and occur less on light I have refrained from consuming the drug. Also, they seem to be related to light stimuli somehow, although this is entirely based on speculation, there is no evidence to back it up. On a more private note, many of these dreams occur shortly after I have become sexually aroused, although this may just be by chance.

Before I retire, I would like to record one more thing about this phenomenon. It occurs only when I have difficulty sleeping. When I can't sleep, I become drowsy quite suddenly and descend into a dream. When I awaken, only minutes have passed, and I have a clear memory of exactly what I was doing before I lost consciousness. After my reawakening, I fall asleep very easily. The phenomenon never or almost never occurs twice in one night.

Aside from these experiences, I'd like to document a dream I had last night; it involved my return to "H" (location withheld,) and "D" (name withheld,) "A" (name withheld,) and "M" (name withheld.) The three seemed to be the same person, ad I suppose "D's" persona was dominant - I simply found this particular ream of note, ad perhaps I will analyze it further at a future date.[/b]


I just awoke from another of those nightmares. I knew I was going to have one tonight, too. I'd like to note that the reality I visit in these dreams is a very broken one; as if I am perceiving a world half of reality and half of dreams; although I can tell now that there is nothing remotely real about it at all. I'd also like to record the ambient sound inherent of these dream sequences, and the pressure headaches I receive afterwards relating to this sound. In my next entry, I also would like to elaborate on my consciousness during these phenomena. I know this is a stupid theory, but the heater is on almost every time this happens... perhaps I can add this to my list of potential stimuli.[/b]


Didn't sleep a wink last night. Don't think it meant anything, I just wasn't quite ready for it yet. I'm basically living off of Excedrin right now. Takes the edge off, if you know what I mean. Can't really talk much. I'm in class right now: Just wanted to take note of this. It's not exactly a common experience, but it's certainly not foreign to me, either.[/b]


Haven't slept in two nights now, going on three. I'm not sure why this is happening, but I'm confident my body can't hold up like this much longer. I'm sure I'll be able to get some sleep sooner or later.[/b]


So much for getting any sleep tonight... I suppose I might as well try to get some homework don while I wait for everyone else to wake up. Just watch, I'm going to sleep like a baby tomorrow night... (well, tonight, technically,) and Saturday night, and all of a sudden stop sleeping again at school nights. It'd be just my luck, too. Seriously, I wouldn't doubt it.[/b]


I slept for about three hours today, between the hours of five and eight in the evening. During this time, I had an interesting dream which I would like to record and discuss here at present.

The first part of my dream involved my final days at "S" (location withheld,) and how I would have liked them to be spent. I could go into great detail about this, but I shall not, as the details are fairly irrelevant. This, in concurrence with my previous dream about returning to "H" (location withheld,) could reflect a deep-seated desire to return to the places that once rejected me. Go figure.

The second part of the dream involved a complete digression into the childish self; doing reckless stunts on the bicycle, making fast friends with new people, eating candy even.

This, I find most interesting. Could this apparent digression represent my desire to dissolve my adolescent and adult inhibitions, allowing a new, changed person to rise from the ashes?

A bit melodramatic, I know, but then again, what's not melodramatic about the human condition, especially the dynamic realm that is one's dreams?[/b]
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