Sunday, July 4, 2010

Return to the Journal Jar

A bit of a respite from revisiting Greece, we’ll be traveling at the speed of dreams today, thanks to our prompt from the jarful– a gift from my mother of a jar full of prompts to get you writing about something, no matter what. Thanks again, Mom!

PROMPT: Did you dream last night? What do you remember?

I remember that yes, I did dream last night, as I do most nights. But that’s about it. If the dream isn’t thought about consciously, right after I awake, then it is lost to the subconscious again. Most of it slips back into the soup anyway, but if I am feeling remarkable when I wake up, I usually remember quite a bit about the dream, at least for the first few moments of being awake again.

Dreams have always been very powerful in affecting my waking life. As I’ve gained intellect and vocabulary and explored my physical world, it’s gotten more complicated, but I still have a regular experience of wordless emotion and euphoric realization while dreaming, about once a month or so. Some are more prominent than others, but the emotions are very real and exhilarating. I wrote about one recently, in my blog entry called “The Dream of Life,” that I felt was a strong source of clarity and cleansing. I had the experience of being fully awake in the dream, fully aware that I was dreaming. But the awareness was fleeting; I remember questioning if I was alive or dead or dying, if this was my moment of truth where my life flashes before my eyes just before I am taken from life as I think I know it. It was exponentially intense.

One time I was dreaming that I had been a “bad boy” and was being chased by my Dad. He was about to break the door down, so I went to climb out the window. This coincided with me lunging out of bed and slamming my forehead into the bronze bust of a young man’s head that sat on the nightstand beside my bed. I head-butted the over 20 lb. bust clear off the

Haig Patigian, 1912

nightstand. In the dream, I thought that I had put my head through the old-fashioned plate-glass window and was surrounded by broken glass shards that could slice my jugular if I moved even a little bit. My wife was awake by then and turned on the light, allowing “reality” to settle in on me. I had to ice my head to get the swelling down on the knot– it was the size of a racquetball.

Not all of my dreams are that exciting, thank goodness.

I hope that I dream tonight so that I can expound on this topic. I’ll try and remember to get up immediately and write down at least some notes. Sounds like a fun assignment for the subconscious, doesn’t it?

4 comments:

Deb said...

Dreams are so fascinating-- whether nightmare or utopia. I have always told myself to keep paper by the bedside to write down my dreams, but I never have followed through on it. What really gets me is when I have seemingly forgotten my dream, and then something will happen later in the day that brings the whole dream back. I love when that happens. Keep writing, and keep dreaming.

Farlar said...

I often have very vivid dreams and remember them for days, sometimes even years, but I've never had one spill over into reality like your head butting of the bust.

P.S. I can never resist a double dog dare.

Suzy said...

You got my heart pounding remembering that dream night.

I still can vividly remember a dream I had more than once as a child. It would happen when I was sick. I was supposed to have an operation and I was on an operating table but there were several of them and they were circlng around and around like a ferris wheel. I happened to be on the wrong one. Always woke me up scared.

Gerri said...

So glad to see the Journal Jar is being put to use and that you are enjoying it. I don't usually remember my dreams, but maybe if I start paying attention when I first wake up I will recall what I dreamed about!

Keep up the good work...