Careful now...

I awoke in the middle of the night last night with another of my occasional crises of personal identity.  In the past, I have awoken with a temporary amnesia affecting all knowledge of myself and the location in which I am sleeping.  These experiences only last several seconds, but they are highly impactful.  Last night’s occurrence was somewhat different.  The information regarding my history and present disposition were readily available to me, only I didn’t feel an ownership of them.  I felt like there was this well-defined set of details that I was supposed to step into, like a harness fixed to a plow.  And the details were mostly negative: problems, challenges, mistakes, etc.  And responsibilities.  I have a daughter whose requirements overshadow every waking moment of my life, and most of the moments of my near future.

This crisis passed in much the same way as the others have; that is to say, it didn’t last too long.  But the lingering questions are as pervasive as ever.  What is identity?  What is self?  It seems like there must be some sort of supernatural element to our nature, a soul if you will, otherwise our entire Human world, social structure, history, everything is all built on a collective memory of the species.  Our past deeds, crimes and accomplishments, jobs, our addresses, our names and family members, they all persist only because we remember them.  And memory itself is not well understood, except of course for the fact that it is unreliable.

So this morning I put on my Harness, made my lunch and my daughter’s lunch, kissed her goodbye, and headed out the door for work.  For what I remember to be my workplace.  As far as I can tell, they recognize me here.

A gentle rain in a drought

                I had a lucid dream last night.  It was probably one of my least spectacular lucid dreams, but it has come after a terrible dry spell for me.  Life changes and stress have conspired to upset my focus on lucid dreaming and I haven’t recorded a dream in my dream journal for probably a year or more.  So needless to say, becoming lucid last night is a big deal to me.  Here’s the dream:

                I’m in the guest bathroom at my parents’ house (where I live because I am a failure in most ways) and I’ve just had a nasty verbal fight with my father (something that happens regularly in my dreams, but not in waking life).  It’s a very small bathroom and the dream version is a very close approximation to the waking version.  Something causes me to question my reality so I administer the blow check and … TA DA!  I’m dreaming!  The realization causes a few ripples of instability in the dream, but I quickly bring myself under control and start thinking stability.  Like a boss, I immediately remember that looking at one’s hands is not only a method for stabilizing the dream, but also a trippy exercise for its own sake.  I examine my hands, and they don’t seem terribly unusual.  I think my fingers were rendered in the correct numbers, but some of the lengths are a bit off.

                Next I start thinking about what I want to do with this lucidity.  I notice the mirror is right where it ought to be, and of course I have wanted to experiment with mirrors in my dreamworld for years despite a mild fear of what horror I may see in my reflection.  I strode over to the mirror and saw a more or less normal looking reflection.  I don’t think it was a very faithful recreation of my actual reflection, but neither was it grotesque or absurd.  After this non-event, I thought again about what I wished to experience.  Flying came to mind, but I didn’t want to awaken by smashing violently through the ceiling as has happened to me in the past, so I made a rather half-hearted attempt at gentle levitation, to no avail.  Soon I was lured back into the dream state by an abrupt change of scenery, and so my lucidity came to an end.

                I’ll post any more notable dreams here as a way to hold myself accountable.  If you are interested in dreaming or lucidity or anything else, really, please leave me a comment or send me a message.