(no subject)
A few nights ago I had a dream that requires some real-time back-story and introduces something entirely new.
In my early teens I'd sometimes start to wake and feel paralyzed. The feeling itself was something like being unnerved, disconnected, powerless and tingly and needly, like jumping sparks that just hung in the gap, and I'd try to move my head or hand or leg or open my eyes and nothing would happen. Those days also involved an occult phase of thought and so I thought it was spirit-goblin trying to sit on my chest and squash me. There would be a rising panic and I'd fight and fight and fight; sometimes willing just one finger to move or to thrash everything. Later I came to accept it as sleep-paralysis and that my growing body was still fiddling with all the new enzymes and the correct metabolic pathways and proportions so that sometimes my mind woke before the chemical kinetics did.
So this night, I must have had a particularly thoughtful day and happened a pickle and a glass of grape juice before bed because I had a rapid sequence of vibrant and tactile dreams, full of people and places and short stories. I don't remember if I did have a pickle or even a glass of juice that night, because I didn't buy a new jar of Bick's until Tuesday and I worry about the sugar in juice on my teeth before bed, and never mind the bad taste the next morning but sometimes I still do it anyway so it could have happened. Beside that, now most of the dreams-scenes have faded into a secondary colors and squiggles of hair.
But the last bit still stands out. I was dreaming that I was waking, and that my eyes partially opened. Lying on my side I could see, coming out from under my head, part of my elbow-pit and the radius and ulna of my forearm as they curved down to my chest, forming a little basket, and I felt my ear on my pillow. But then I also felt that negative electric tingle that I remembered. In the dream I remembered what I thought it used to mean, and what I thought of it now, and I felt myself in between the two opinions. I thought about fighting, and was getting a little scared. But instead, this time, I just let go. I thought I'd let the prickly current feeling run it's course. And it grew, and swelled, and brightened. And I caught fire . I burst into flames. The little basket just ignited in front of my face and I couldn't pull my head away. In that instant, from nothing, I heard a kind of strike and the intake of air and just watched the oranges and yellows and blue curl right into my open eyes. And then I fought; suppress it, put it back, to much, not want, don't understand, move, wake up.
I very rarely have nightmares. More often, my dreams are too cool so that even the horror bits are kinda awesome and I transform and walk through walls and am aware.
I never spontaneously combusted myself in a dream before. That is a new one.
post edit: Although I'm past those spooky-culty days, I never could explain why one night after falling asleep on my pillow I awoke that morn to find it had been stuffed in between the mattress and box spring that I was sleeping on.
In my early teens I'd sometimes start to wake and feel paralyzed. The feeling itself was something like being unnerved, disconnected, powerless and tingly and needly, like jumping sparks that just hung in the gap, and I'd try to move my head or hand or leg or open my eyes and nothing would happen. Those days also involved an occult phase of thought and so I thought it was spirit-goblin trying to sit on my chest and squash me. There would be a rising panic and I'd fight and fight and fight; sometimes willing just one finger to move or to thrash everything. Later I came to accept it as sleep-paralysis and that my growing body was still fiddling with all the new enzymes and the correct metabolic pathways and proportions so that sometimes my mind woke before the chemical kinetics did.
So this night, I must have had a particularly thoughtful day and happened a pickle and a glass of grape juice before bed because I had a rapid sequence of vibrant and tactile dreams, full of people and places and short stories. I don't remember if I did have a pickle or even a glass of juice that night, because I didn't buy a new jar of Bick's until Tuesday and I worry about the sugar in juice on my teeth before bed, and never mind the bad taste the next morning but sometimes I still do it anyway so it could have happened. Beside that, now most of the dreams-scenes have faded into a secondary colors and squiggles of hair.
But the last bit still stands out. I was dreaming that I was waking, and that my eyes partially opened. Lying on my side I could see, coming out from under my head, part of my elbow-pit and the radius and ulna of my forearm as they curved down to my chest, forming a little basket, and I felt my ear on my pillow. But then I also felt that negative electric tingle that I remembered. In the dream I remembered what I thought it used to mean, and what I thought of it now, and I felt myself in between the two opinions. I thought about fighting, and was getting a little scared. But instead, this time, I just let go. I thought I'd let the prickly current feeling run it's course. And it grew, and swelled, and brightened. And I caught fire . I burst into flames. The little basket just ignited in front of my face and I couldn't pull my head away. In that instant, from nothing, I heard a kind of strike and the intake of air and just watched the oranges and yellows and blue curl right into my open eyes. And then I fought; suppress it, put it back, to much, not want, don't understand, move, wake up.
I very rarely have nightmares. More often, my dreams are too cool so that even the horror bits are kinda awesome and I transform and walk through walls and am aware.
I never spontaneously combusted myself in a dream before. That is a new one.
post edit: Although I'm past those spooky-culty days, I never could explain why one night after falling asleep on my pillow I awoke that morn to find it had been stuffed in between the mattress and box spring that I was sleeping on.