Wild West Dreamin'

So for the... third? time I've had an episode of sleep paralysis.
The first time was a dream where a demon threatened to kill my daughter and then when I woke up, he was still there in my room.  Then he left to go kill her and it was only after he left that I was able to move.
The second time was also a case of waking dreams; I can't tell you how many times I "woke" up in that dream, but in the last one I ended up staring at a ghost for several minutes until I realized it was actually a curtain and my eyes were open for real.
The third was not quite as scary but for some reason I still didn't get very good sleep.

Last night I dreamed I was still living in Virginia, and my wife and brother and I were in my parents' house.  Everything was going fine until, for some reason, I looked outside and noticed that there was a band of wild west villains hunting house to house.
And at this point my brain did weird things.  I forgot that I had kids, or moved away from Virginia, or had my own house. It was like those memories were behind some sort of wall I couldn't breach.  I suddenly knew that this was Billy the Kid, and that he was after *me* because he thought that grandpa stole his gold, only that this was a misunderstanding and we were innocent.
We had to keep quiet, stay hidden.  This easily would have turned into a nightmare had I stayed asleep.
Instead, as we were hiding, we pulled down the blinds as Billy the Kid came up to them.  I realized I couldn't look away from the blinds to make sure my wife was ok.  I was transfixed.  And then that wall started to vanish.  I realized my eyes were open as I was staring at actual blinds... but at first I couldn't figure out where in the world I was.  It took a good minute before I was able to move and that wall finally vanished. I was staring at the blinds in my room the whole time.

I'm curious as to why I keep having these "waking nightmares" and sleep paralysis.  Thankfully they are rare.

Eternal waking

My brain is a jerk.

A few nights ago, while my wife was away, I was stuck at home watching the kids.  I had put them both to bed, and stayed up a bit too late watching science videos on youtube.  I went to bed myself, but I felt guilty. I had yelled at my daughter earlier that day... and I am pretty certain my brain decided to punish me for it.

I dreamed that Addy woke me up because she was afraid there were intruders in the house.  I was simply beyond "tired" and had difficulty getting out of bed at all.  I went to check and could see out the window that there was a dog out there... and a bunch of people doing something to it.  Then I woke up, because Addy was calling for me.  I shrugged it off as a strange dream and crawled out of bed - still lethargic from lack of sleep - to see what was wrong.

Then I woke up.  Addy was in my room saying she had a nightmare.

Then I woke up.  Every time it was another excuse.  Monsters, fire, whatever.  It felt like I was Alex in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic.  I lost track of how many times I "woke up."  Eventually I started to just shake my head when I woke, as if doing so could throw the dream, and its accompanying lethargy, from my head. And every time it felt REAL.  Perhaps I really was shaking my head in reality but never waking?  Or maybe I was waking, but falling back asleep.  Each time I woke, I was in the same position on my side.

When I woke for the last time, I was lying on my side staring at something that looked unnatural in my bathroom - a tall, pulsating, white, shapeless mass. But I could only hear the echoed memories of Addy; she was nowhere to be seen.  I must have stared at that thing in my bathroom for a full 5 minutes before I realized it was a shower curtain, and it was only my mind that made it look like it was moving.  I had really woken up and instantly ran to check on the sleeping kids... and out the window to make sure no one was there.

I have no concept of what time it was, and I forgot to check.  I don't know how long I slept... or if I really slept at all.  All I do know is that I am still ridiculously tired and my brain is still a grade A jerk.

California Dreamin'

Memory is something that is subjective, unreliable, easily-swayed, and often flawed, but it also forms the very foundation of who we are.  What are we if not the sum of all our experiences, the sum of our memories?  Most people think they have an excellent memory, but most people are quite wrong.  I think my memory is pretty good, and I have some evidence to back this up, but I am probably wrong as well.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to engage in a conversation about earliest memories.  What is your earliest memory?

Most people didn't remember things until they were in kindergarten or first grade.  One woman claimed she didn't remember anything until second grade.  I remember stuff from when I was 3.  Not 3rd grade.  Just 3.  Maybe even earlier.  And it's not a little.  I remember a good deal.  Granted, it is probably wrong, probably jaded or influenced by later thoughts. However, anything I remember from California is likely from before the age of 6.  This is what I remember.

One of my first memories is when I escaped the den and got into the kitchen.  I was an early reader, and apparently around 2 or 3 I could read some words, words I had a vested interest in... namely the word "sugar."  I remember thinking it was a weird word because it didn't sound the way it was spelled.  I knew sugar was a white, granulated substance that starts with an S and is found in the kitchen.  So when I found a small blue box of the stuff, I downed it.

To this day, I still cannot stand anything that is over-salted.

But there are more.  So many more.  I remember the dog, a standard poodle, running me down in the back yard after it escaped from the gate/got away from the person at the gate.  I don't remember anything AFTER that.  I remember that there was  tall red or brown fence and a very large dog on the other side that would peek over it at us, but I honestly can't tell you what the dog looked like.  I remember the back yard, the swing, there was something else back there, electrical... perhaps a pole. I remember when they were building the addition to the house, there was sawdust in the driveway and I had on shoes with tiger stripes on them... so I thought if I stepped in the sawdust it would look like tiger footprints and scare people.  I don't think it worked.

I remember the massive house at the bottom of the hill that had the most amazing christmas decorations every year.  I remember when mom and dad went to Germany and we got to stay with our grandparents for a while.  I remember my grandparents' house... the back yard where there was a citrus tree and cat tombstones behind the bushes, a large, covered back porch wit ha screen-in room, a large avocado tree grew near the stairs and we used to swing on the branches.  There was a crawlspace under the house we used to play in, especially when cousins were over.  There was Amos, the dog that would sing with grandpa.  In the back room, there were pictures my sister drew before she died.  We had Christmas there one year, all our stuff on a hard, red-cushioned sofa.  I remember grandma sitting us kids down because someone dialed 911 and hung up.  I remember getting in trouble for touching (literally, I just TOUCHED) grandpa's stereo system.  This was after I was already in time out for swinging on the avocado branches. There was a wooden den you had to step down into with an old dial TV that clunked when you changed the channel.  Teddy Ruxpin was a show I used to watch on it, with my very own Teddy Ruxpin beside me.  I have so very many vivid memories of their house.

One of the earliest memories I have is from a dream.  Mind you, I was 2 or 3 at the time.  I used to lean down and "spit" (inject saliva?) into the carpet.. I have NO idea why.  It stopped after this dream.  I did it and mom and dad wanted to see me.  They were in bed, only on the side they normally weren't on.  Dad asked what it was I did and I explained it.  He wanted to try, but wouldn't get out of bed, so I got an old VHS tape and handed it to him.  After he spit into it, he got red and the top of his head popped open.  Things of all sorts, like those fake snakes in the peanut can, flew out of his head.  That one freaked me out.

I remember being potty trained.  I remember asking how much toilet paper to use to wipe.  Mom used to have us sing a little song (to the tune of "Beethoven's 5th", "I am all dooooone."  and if it was number two, we would complete the phrase with "going poopooooooo!") so she would know to come in and wipe us (don't ask, she has issues with cleanliness).  We had little potties that we took in the van with us on long trips.  I even remember some of those long trips.. the Grand Canyon where dad pretended to fall in and freaked out mom.  Once we were in the desert and needed to use some sort of bladder to cool the engine... not really sure.  And we had little white harnesses with leashes to keep us all in check.  Nowadays, they hide those things like little backpacks made of animals, but kids still know them for the straight jackets that they are.

I remember seeing a picture of a girl in our house, a girl I didn't recognize.  I believe I may have seen it in grandma and grandpa's house, too.  When I asked mom about it, she told me it was my sister in Heaven.  She didn't really say much more about her, other than her name.  Little did I know that the wounds were still very fresh to her.  After all, what is two or three years?

I remember seeing my dad's parents a few times in their home in California.  We didn't spent as much time with them, but we did like playing with Marc, our older cousin, the only one on that side of the family. He was in a wheel chair and we always get his hand-me-down underwear.

Perhaps my first memory, however, is when my grandmother... or was it my great grandmother... died.  I have only one memory of her... visiting her in a hospital or hospice room... seeing her on a bed in a strange place.  And then, a short time later, having to dress up to go to a funeral for her.

The more I delve into my memories, the more come back to me. Swim lessons, the old house, the old pets, throwing a wooden block at my brother's head (the scar is still there), having my brother's hairy birthmark removed (the scar is still there), seeing gaps in the bark of the tree in the front yard, going to school, my brother's first "girlfriend," teasing him about her, my first crush, taking forever to get to school if grandma or grandpa drove, slamming my foot in the door in the parking lot at the school, the poem I wrote in Kindergarten which won some sort of award (The Windbow), releasing tons of balloons from the church grounds, learning that if you poke a snail its eyes withdraw, ringing the bell at the church (or trying to, we didn't weight enough to pull the rope down too far), visiting my sister's grave with flowers, the Donut Man playing songs at our preschool, explaining to the class that both 2+4 AND 4+2 both equalled 6, hearing an autoharp for the first time, when my sister stepped on broken glass, when we celebrated by dead sister's birthday with spaghetti (her favorite), the many trips to Disneyland, the first time I stole something (a small piece of wood in the shape of an owl I think), our first ice cream cone (sitting on the washing machine so mom could clean us AFTER our first ice cream cone), Haley's Comet coming by and claiming I couldn't see it when I did (I was 4 then), bathing with all three of us in the tub at once, the little jingle on TV for a mexican restaurant (Ay-yi-yi-yi someone stole my taco!), learning how to read hyphenated words...

Perhaps that is enough nostalgia for now.  But I like to think that I was formed in those days, that those memories are someone at the core of who I am.  I feel sorry for people who don't remember these childhood formations. But perhaps this is why I have always been in touch with my "inner child."  In a sense, I still am that child.

Dream a little dream

When someone first asked me if I dream in color, I thought it was a joke.

Who doesn't dream in color?

I often have vivid dreams, and I remember a good deal of them.  Perhaps some scientist has (or will) correlate this to creativity.  Perhaps not.

But in recent years, my dreams have become either entirely mundane or just plain ODD.

I did share my most recent nightmare with you all, an instance in which I was captured in a self-aware dream that led to me experiencing my first bout of sleep paralysis.

Last night, I had a similar situation.  Only this time, it was also a lucid dream.  A lucid dream is one in which you are aware that you are dreaming, and sometimes you can control the dream (or at least parts of it).  The difference is, the nightmare I experienced was definitely out of control.

This dream, however, was not as nightmarish.  I knew I wanted to get up early this morning so I could write before I had to take our daughter to school.  Usually when this happens, I wake up at various points in the night and glance at the clock, worried that I somehow set the alarm wrong or that the power went out in the night.  It inevitably leads to a very tired morning.

Last night, I woke up, but I couldn't move my body to check the time.  In fact, the need to continue sleep was so heavy on my mind that I only remained awake for a few moments before falling back to sleep.  When I did fall back asleep, I realized I was back in a dream.  I tried to get out of it again, but again I couldn't move or stay awake.  I began to search for help within my various dreams, which I started to realize I could control.  But that's not as fun as it could have been had I not been worried about the fact that I could not wake up.  I do not know how many times I glimpsed consciousness in the night.  The only movement I managed was a periodic hip wiggle.  I knew that at some point Amy would wake me up, or Addy would jump onto the bed and wake me up, or my alarm would go off and wake me up.

Amy did wake me up, but not for long.  I reached out to her in my dream state again, a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, asking her dream-self to somehow help me wake up.  It didn't work.  Addy jumped into bed with me, and woke up me and managed to break me from the paralysis, but I only managed roll over.  I was actually trying to roll OUT of bed.  My logic was that if I could plop on the floor, the impact would jolt my body into action.  But before I got that far, I fell asleep again.  It was my phone's alarm that woke me up completely.  Let me tell you, it is LOUD and it is ANNOYING.  More annoying, apparently than a 3-year old putting her beclawed, cold feet on your back.

When I was finally awake, I didn't want to go back to sleep for fear that I wouldn't be able to wake up again.  Hopefully, tonight will prove a little more restful.  But if not, perhaps I'll try to have more fun as a lucid dreamer.  Flying velociraptor, here I come!

Nightmare Fuel

I had a nightmare last night.  Well, a series of them.  I do not often have nightmares.  I know this because I remember a large number of dreams I have.  At least for a good number of hours.  Only in looking back on this dream was I able to really determine what was going on.

This nightmare was what I would call a "meta dream."  That means it was aware of the fact that it was a dream, but I wasn't.  At least not at first.  Similar to a lucid dream but the DREAM had the lucid part.  It started out as a normal dream, I believe my daughter was in it.  But at some point she was taken away… and then bad things started to happen.  It was almost like a home invasion, but the invader was not human.  It was too thin. too gaunt, too strong.  Its face was like a mask and the rest of it was black.  And it started to torture me.  I was tied down.  I was thrashing my head from side to side.  When I finally looked next to me, I saw a disturbing figure, almost human but with red stripes against its white face.  The only problem was… I had already woken up.

I was indeed awake when I saw that figure, and I remember calling for help.  I don't know if I actually said anything or if that was in my mind.  It was meant to be a shout, but what I heard, which could have been internal, was a whimper.  I couldn't move my arms, only my head.  And I was worried that it would be going for my daughter.  It took a few seconds before I was finally able to move again, and the figure vanished like the dream it was.  It had been lying next to me one moment, looking disfigured and torn open, and then it was all a memory…  Of course, when I went back to sleep, it continued.  At this point, the first figure, the thin one, was taunting me.  It knew I was dreaming, that I was asleep, and that I could do nothing about it.  I didn't get a very restful sleep last night.

I believe I just had my first instance of sleep paralysis.  I was likely awoken during my REM cycle, which is when you dream.  The brain has a mechanism that paralyzes the body during dreams so you don't actually act things out.  Sometimes, when you are suddenly awoken, this mechanism can be slow to turn off…  but it can also cause very realistic and terrifying hallucinations.  Strangely, I did some research on this a few weeks ago, specifically about the "hag" phenomenon.

When I look back, I can see some things that would have triggered this.  The first is that I went to bed late last night.  I was a bit depressed at failing to be even mentioned in the Dark Crystal contest.  When I get depressed, I tend to lose the desire to sleep or eat.  I also had seen an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Riker and other crew members go through the classic "alien abduction" scenario.  And that night, just as I was heading to bed, I heard a strange and disturbing sound that made me worry that someone was breaking in.  It's a big house, and with three cats such sounds occur from time to time.  I fell asleep while intently listening for footsteps, breathing, floor creaking, what have you.  My mind was going over what would happen, if I would be able to get to Addy in time, or if the intruder would even think to look in her hiding spot.  It was prime nightmare material, I tell you.

I hope I don't have another episode.  When you find yourself unable to move and staring at something that should not exist, when your daughter is threatened and you can do nothing about it… it is enough to make a guy not want to sleep again.