Waking

Parting from consciousness is always difficult for me. I hate the thought of actually going to sleep, even when I am so sleep deprived that hallucinations seem imminent. But once I am asleep, there are the dreams. Like Rashid's connection to the Ocean of Stories, at times, my Ocean of Dreams dries up, or rather my memory of that ocean abandons me. But for weeks, I will dream incessantly. Premonitions, adventures, psychological mazes....The worlds are truly fantastic. I feel submerged. Rejoining "reality" then is just as hard. I do not spring out of bed like a jack-in-the-box. This is a difficult maneuver....Perhaps even a P2C2E, but I will attempt the impossible regardless.

As the last threads of my latest dream unwind, letting me slip through the web like water through a sieve, I become vividly aware of the incessant replaying of a song on my cell phone. "Bad Day". As a side note, it may seem weird for me to choose a song with such an ominous title to greet the day with, but believe me, I have reasons. I find that everyone grows to hate whatever it is that is waking them up, even on a subconscious level. The sound then triggers a reflex that is less than comforting, and brings to mind all those mornings where one awakens terrified because he thinks he's late already. Secondly, I have some kind of superstitious attachment to the song, thinking that it will almost ward off that which it is. After all, it is OPPOSITES that attract. Thirdly, I found waking up to James Brown screaming "I feel good" was simply altogether too disturbing. Anyway, I digress.

After hitting the snooze button on my cell phone innumerable times, I slowly open my eyes. My hands are wound around my sheets....a sunrise yellow with intricate designs that I sometimes trace, semi-consciously with one finger in an attempt to delay the day. Eventually, I take a look around, making a sort of unconscious, ritualistic inventory of the room. Painting of abstract bluebird on a golden expanse that was completed senior year of high school. Imaginary city in graphite--freshman year of college. The open closet from which neglected clothing spills out of like a tiny stream. Mirror with a smile. Mounds of artwork stacked semi-neatly in the corner. More drawings on the walls, fragments of faces illumined by a phantom light. They greet me. I am surrounded by stacks of books and cds, potential stories, and I wake to a gallery of artwork, most of which I will admit is my own. (Time and money are required to be an avid collector)

Finally, I am just awake enough to think about getting up. Just awake enough to think about the day. And, swinging my feet out of bed to touch the floor, I rejoin "reality". The key to my being conscious rather than comatose, I find, is the greeting of these familiars....something like turning tumblers in a lock. Finally they fall into place. The door opens. But then again.... Transcending worlds is never easy.

"Thank you and Have a Nice Day..."

Dr. Sexson asked us to blog about our own experiences with the 20 minute lifetime. I thought about a moment stretching out into eternity for a single person while simultaneously others experience that same time period as a matter of mere minutes or even seconds. I thought of this in relation to dreams. We often experience entire lifetimes in dreams that science dictates to last only a few minutes. The worst example of this occurence for me is when I, inexplicably, dream an entire workday, only to have to wake up and go to work anyway. I will literally, or so I think, have breakfast, drive my car to work, then check people out. I will have entire conversations with coworkers and friends. I will interact with rude customers, all of whom are fictitious and exist entirely in my subconscious. Suddenly, a single sound will invade this "reality". Things shift, become distorted. Finally, it dawns on me, this sickening realization: "That god-awful noise is my alarm.....and this is a dream". Even in my dreams I cannot escape the 20 minute lifetime, and in horrifying similarity to the movie Groundhog Day, in my waking reality, I repeat the same day, with the same people, again.

The Water Genie Speaks

After writing my "paragraph written in the style of the Water Genie from Haroun and The Sea of Stories," I realized that though it sounded, in parts, like the Genie, it also sounds a lot like me (no surprise there). I realized that the point of this exercise may be just that--to emphasize that the act of storytelling is a balancing, transforming act. We respond to the influence of stories, even as we frame them in our own words. The oral story telling tradition may still be very much alive. Perhaps it is simply hiding within the written word...

Anyway, here it is: =)

It was late at night....past the time when most...sane or rational, even-keeled, and conventional citizens have tucked themselves into the covers, ready for sleep. But we refuse to part with consciousness. This was the time when silence hits the streets, and all the places with no magic during the day become transformed by the encroaching darkness, these murky waters of the unknown. Sleds in hand, we took to the hill. Hidden in the heart of residential pleasantries, deep within the suburban stronghold, there stood a hill, really a mound of dirt, but something as yet untouched by the civilization around it. It was here, beneath a darkened sky, that we flung ourselves into that inky void. We flew, we whooshed, we zoomed, and none but the stars were witness to our madness. After hours of needless, heedless, adventuring, we returned to our hideouts, our homes away from home, our humble abodes, our castles, our fortresses, our kingdoms, somewhat reluctantly abandoned in exchange for a night's worth of...sublime...experience. Retreating to those safer places, we could not shake the taste of air that freezes on contact nor the feel of ice crystals hidden in collars and melting slowly...agonizingly. The feeling is addictive. You see, darkness has a magic too...