7. Fever Dreams - Beyond REM
One night after falling asleep, I found myself hurtling through dark, space-like emptiness. Although there was no light, I was aware of the sensation of movement, of speed, and I realized, that the conscious, thinking, feeling part of me was no longer behind my eyes or inside my body. “I” was somewhere else while my body slept in bed without “me.”
“Why am I here?” I wondered. “I am not supposed to be here.” But when I tried to become conscious inside my body, I realized that I'd have to pass back through unconsciousness first. This was entirely bewildering. I had never had to decide how to get back from a dream before! Going to sleep, dreaming, and waking up had always been so easy and natural. Now here I was – in bed but somewhere else – asleep but cognizant somehow, for though I was aware that I was still asleep – unconscious, in dreamland or somewhere else – I felt certain that I was also fully awake, even extra conscious and in some way, able to surround my body and flow through it. As I streamed through endless black space, it seemed as if I was being shown or told something; and I understood completely, as long as I remained in the darkness. The instant I began to awaken, I could feel my understanding dissolving into the nonsense of featureless pictures and unknown words.
Despite its strangeness, the dream was not frightening at all. It was getting back that scared me because it bore no resemblance to ordinary waking. It was as if I became stuck halfway for though I thought I was fully awake, I knew that some vital part of me still had not returned. Without it, everything I looked at, though familiar, also seemed very, very strange, and somehow unreal, inanimate or overly tangible.
A Soulless State
When I saw our dog, Punky, I screamed in horror, not because I was afraid of her, but because I was alarmed by my suddenly diminished perception. All I could see was a dog-object running around, wagging its tail. I couldn't feel her energy; I could no longer see her as a soul, as a connected Being. As I stared at her in fearful fascination, full consciousness quickly returned along with the spirit of everything.
Each of the several times that I had this strange awakening, I was half-aware of my poor mother looking worried and bewildered to see her usually rational and sweet-natured child so unreachable. Afterwards I sometimes developed a fever. But fever notwithstanding, each time that I awoke after such a dream, I'd contemplate the strange, inanimate perspective, wondering if that was how some people actually saw Living Beings, as “dog-objects” and “cat-objects.” Was that what hunters saw: “deer-objects?” And did murderers see “people-objects?” It seemed like such a horrendous possibility because that semi-conscious state felt like being only half-alive. I stopped wanting to forget the spiritual nature of life, assuming that the price of such forgetfulness would be the forfeiture of what I considered the most important part of my life.
Nothing on Earth was worth risking the possibility of becoming stuck in that soulless state. With that realization, the dreams stopped.
Eaton's Punkinhead
Continued
posted by Winter Child @ 3:19 p.m.
0 comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home