Sunday, August 30, 2020

California Dreaming




Friday night I dreamt it was the first day of class and I was teaching in front of the room with no clothes on. I was totally unprepared, and all the students were being jerks. I walked around showing them a data set I just wrote on a gum wrapper. Then I looked over and saw the professor who sits in on my classes when I’m being reviewed, looking horrified, so I started to put on clothes, saying, “I should probably put these clothes on,” and he looked at me like, “Ya think?” 


Tomorrow is the first day at Sac State and I’m ready. I feel much better than I did Friday. Stress reared its head earlier in the week. I dreamt I got black out drunk, waking up in a hotel bed with one of my best friends. It wasn’t like that. I never turned into sexy-lady drunk. I was more of a Roseanne drunk; I  get loud, funny and rude. In the dream everyone was mad because someone had spiked my drink the night before, but I was secretly happy he did it.


I wasn’t hungover, but still needed to lay in bed and watch TV that morning with my kids. We watched a Youtube video on lucid dreams. The clip starts by saying, the best minds of time use this practice to heighten their intelligence.

The way to train your mind to “wake up” while you’re asleep is by frequently saying to yourself when you’re awake, “If I’m asleep, I can push my finger through my hand.” 

Then you try to push your finger through your hand, and when it won’t go you say out loud, “I’m awake.”

The pattern will cause you to say that when you’re dreaming, but your finger will go through your hand if you’re in a dream, and you say, “I’m asleep!” And you’re given the paintbrush to your dreamscape.


I was easily onboard until they gave a warning, don’t freak out from the sleep paralysis because your mind is now awake, but your body won’t move. During this part of the video they show a shadowy figure trying to claw themselves from a clear steamed up coffin.


Whenever I’ve experienced sleep-paralysis, where I wake up but my body is asleep, I go into panic, screaming at myself, “Wake up!” and trying to open my eyes. It does feel like being trapped in a coffin. The video claims, if I stay calm, it is the opportunity to launch into lucid dreaming, creating whatever reality I want, gaining insight into my curiosities.


Even though we had fun that day pushing our finger into our palm, and then throwing up our hands saying, “I’m awake.” As I was mapping out how I’d dive into the most glorious dream, I started worrying that the kids might feel that hellish dream-state, and began squashing our lucid dream plans.  


I like to think I’d be smart and go into a lucid dream with a plan of hunting for great ideas, but I can’t  trust myself. I’d be so elated by getting over the mental straitjacket of sleep paralysis, I’d go right to living my wildest dream, and kick it off by walking into a room with all my friends shouting, “Who's ready to party?” And we’d get loud, and laugh, and keep all our clothes on.






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