My subconscious is trying to help me. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm sitting at a drafting table for drawing, and my subconscious is talking to me. It's a disembodied, god-like voice that says, "We need to do what we can to help her." (By this, the subconscious is referring to waking, conscious me.) The me at the draft board agrees. 

"What about this?" asks the disembodied voice. 

Then the me at the drawing table gasps as the disembodied subconscious gives her a blurry alien to draw. And she immediately realizes that she'll (I'll) have to learn to think completely differently if she's going to figure out how to draw this effectively. 

INTERPRETATION

I was in the middle of drawing a portrait for the first time in perhaps a decade when I had this dream, and there were many points at which I realized that I needed to think of the visual information totally differently in order to create some way to represent it with pencil. 

I took art classes in high school, and I remember one section that would talk about creating different textures for things like trees or rocks using different pen strokes, and using different sort of tricks like making the background lighter and less detailed in order to create the impression of distance. These sorts of things seemed important at many points in the creation of my portrait, because simply looking at the reference images wasn't enough to get a good result. I had to draw what I knew, rather than what I saw, and that required thinking differently about the visual information. 

I think it's helpful in broadly applicable ways to come up with ways to think of things differently like this. 

The orchestra playing in a castle that might blow over. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm at a concert of orchestral music. I'm inside what appears to be some kind of irregularly-shaped castle. The walls are made of stone bricks, and it's dark inside with dramatic rays of sunlight highlighting important things like the stage and the audience. But the audience is placed in irregular clumps all around the orchestra pit based on the strange angles of the walls. 

As the music plays, I go to my seat, which is at the very top of an extremely, extremely tall, narrow tower that only barely has enough space for me to climb up a rickety bamboo and rope ladder, which buckles, creaks, and sways with every step up. 

I get to the "bird's nest" where the seats are, and it's full. There are dozens of people in it, listening to the music. But I can still see over the edge, and it looks like a bottomless pit down there. 

I feel terrified, but I also know that it's a real privilege to be at this concert, so I suck it up and have a seat. I know I'll feel better once I sit down. 

Then the concert is over, and I see dozens of cats all over the castle jumping up on the stairs and other stones like little mountain goats. They love it. 

Someone starts playing choir music on a CD player that I find kind of creepy. I put on some other music that's more neutral. It's about tomatoes. I like it a lot better. It's not cheerful, but it's not grandiosely gloomy either. I don't know why more people don't like the tomato music. I feel as though it doesn't go one way or the other enough to be popular.

INTERPRETATION

Do you ever feel as though life is a beautiful nightmare? That's what I feel when I think of this dream. Life and the situation with the wobbly tower are terrifying. They're confusing. They're unsettling. But it's all very beautiful. And you realize you're lucky to be witnessing it.

With the tomato music, it makes me think of how tomato juice is supposed to neutralize skunk odor. My dad used to listen to this really creepy choir music that made me feel really upset when I was a child, and I would ask him to change it, and he would refuse. That went on for two decades. To me, that grandiosely gloomy choral sound is very similar to his worldview. And as someone who is well-medicated and relatively happy, I think of life as being much more neutral than that. I mean, the cats are having a great time. It's mainly a matter of where your focus is. 

My conservative, religious friend gets serious about trying drag. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM 

I'm watching a rather conservative, religious friend pick out dozens of different sequined outfits, high heels, wigs, makeup, jewelry, and dresses in this fashion warehouse we're visiting. He's really, really excited and serious about starting to do drag. He's even looking on his 2-in-1 laptop for more stuff he can buy online while we're shopping in person. 

He packs up all his stuff to do drag, and brings it home... 

...and he never uses it. He completely abandons the whole idea of doing drag. 

INTERPRETATION

I think this is a problem I have. I'll prepare for a career, and then I won't even get started with it. I think I'm worried that the same thing will happen with what I'm studying for right now. But I feel as though this is going to be the thing that carries me into old age, financially. 

My baby asks me a challenging question. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

DREAM

I'm going on vacation, and my friends are going to babysit for me. (Well, they'll help me watch my infant at least.)

We go to a train station, and I get on a couple different, short trains. It's a gray, dark, misty day. 

Then we go to their house and start playing video games. I find myself to be a character in the game, swinging off of an exploding helicopter. 

I come back to my real self and hold my baby. 

I start playing video games again.

I put the controller down, and then I hold up the baby over my head. He's grown older. He has a full head of strawberry blond hair. But he's no older than a very young toddler. He asks me, "What is a mind?" 

I'm not sure how to answer him. It's hard for me to define it. I just go with something simple, and say, "It's like thoughts." 

INTERPRETATION

I didn't really notice this at first, but I've been thinking a lot about the mind and soul lately. I wonder if a human being can have an indestructible essence. I kind of want to think a person can, yet I'm inclined to think a person doesn't. I've had experiences with psychosis, and my entire being is completely different under that amount of stress and paranoia. I no longer felt like me, although I would still have feelings. And real acts of kindness would always be able to poke through the overwhelming fear. But who would be the "me" to live on and on and on? Hopefully not that ill version of me. 

They think that either antipsychotic medication or the disease of schizophrenia lowers brain volume over time, and I wonder what that will mean for who I am and my quality of life in my 60s or 70s. I've learned that you can't just expect statistical likelihoods to apply to you, because everyone is impacted differently by disease and medication. So I'm not sure what the future will hold. All I can do is make the most of the functionality I do have right now--which is the same position we're all in, I suppose.

I know people with severe dementia. I'm not sure what their own experience of life is anymore, but all of a sudden, they can't be who they were to me. 

What does it even mean to be who you are though? Is the mind something that just encases and channels these drives we have based on our chemical composition? We know that everyone's brain power and speed dwindles with age. It's just a matter of when and to what degree. So at least in that one aspect, you're no longer yourself as you age. I suppose that means you're no longer quite yourself if you learn something new, too, because you've grown new connections in the neurons of your head. But that's not a bad thing. Who are you if you're always changing? 

I consider myself a convert to Buddhism, even if I do things I should not still--but some traditions believe you have an essence that survives and perhaps reincarnates. Some Buddhist traditions suggest that it's not important to know or prepare for what happens after you die, because that's not where your focus should be. Your focus should be on how best to live here and now. 

I think that's the most sensible position to take, but I like to consider the possibilities too. And I also wonder if there's a way to prepare for mental decline by really making mindfulness and other valued  perspectives and principles a subconscious habit. I doubt that would be enough to eliminate the irritability that seems to come with dementia. I've seen very, very sweet people go completely against their usual personalities after dementia hits. But even if it can only be for the here and now, it has to help. 

Dreaming up a new short story. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

A couple nights ago, I had a dream I keep thinking of.

Sometimes, I'll dream about my Lost Atlantis/Satyr Plays characters. Most of the time, it's not usable material for a real story. For example, I once had a dream that Sandi and Matt went to a movie, and when they came out, there was a giant octopus monster attacking the city. That just doesn't fit in with the universe I made for them in waking life.

But this time, I really wonder if I could use this for a story. 

The premise is simple: Shem decides to wear black eyeliner one day. Sandi goes bananas over it. She thinks it's incredible. Matt is uncomfortable about everything related to this. And the dream explores the social implications of this.  

Should I turn this into an actual short story? I am writing Satyr Plays 2. I've got the first or second drafts of about thirteen short stories right now. I just need a couple more stories to meet the same word count as the first Satyr Plays. 

It's weird to me that if you look at the stats, more people online seem more interested in the dramatic version, whereas the people I meet in real life seem to like my comedy better. 

Well, I have no time for either serious or silly creative hobbies, unfortunately. Every day this summer, I've been scrambling to do everything on my to-do list. Being busy often means I'll remember fewer dreams. If I go to sleep and wake up in a leisurely way, I can spend time laying in bed thinking of what I dreamed about, and can form my thoughts well enough to write them down.

Oh well. This dream diary was never really something I planned to do the way you plan and commit to a novel or a hobby. It just started to get interesting for me to explore my dreams and go back later to remember my life. I recommend trying it for yourself.