In Continuum.

Being Lucid

The army of red ants climbed over the top of the car,over our heads like a looming red cloud.They advanced,and at the center of the glass roof above,they stopped and circled,like vultures do at the sight of a carcass.I urged my mother to drive faster,but she took no notice of me.She kept her focus on the road,while i watched as the glass above cracked and the army of red ants advanced through the hole and into the car.I told her about the ant infestation that we were experiencing in the car then,but it didnt seem to have any effect on her.

The red ants came,and they came at me.I wasnt afraid,or frightened.Just terribly irritated,that's all.They climbed onto me,and one of them sank its fangs into my right palm.I tried to pull it out,but it only sank its fangs deeper.I groaned,and i slapped it against my thighs.Once,twice,three times.

BANG!

I was awake,on my bed in bunk yesterday morning.The morning sun flowed into the room,a blue bunk room this morning.I mustve been dreaming again,slapping myself literally to wake.I hope nobody saw it,or they mightve called an exorcist by now.Imagine sitting in bunk and your bunkmate starts to slap himself all of a sudden and none stop,shouting "Get off of me!Get off from me!" Yeah,you get the picture.Those bloody red ants...

So two things in life fascinates me,though 'In Life' is hardly something we should classify them under.I think 'Death' and 'Dreams' fascinates me the most,because nobody really knows what happens after death,like some ancient legend of a haunted cave or sea,where people venture and never comes back.You know,death is such a cave in people's lives,just sucking people in and never spitting them out as a whole again.You cant ask around what comes after death,read the Tibetian Book of Life and Death for references,because they are merely theories and more theories,things came up by people like you and me,humans.People want to live forever,and wants to know tha the ultimate destination - death - is not the end of the road after all.Who knows?Perhaps those Tibetian monks might be right,or even the life after death deplicted in different religions.All i am saying is,nobody can be sure.

In contrast,i think dreams are more tangible,and easier to understand in a very...difficult way.Sure,they call it activities of your brain while you are asleep,while others think that they are manifestations of your head,the result of some chemicals released while you are sleeping.Whatever it is,the fact that any scientific explanations were planted to these theories,it automatically makes them very technical,and less poetic and beautiful.It's not that i dont trust the words of the psychologists or the scientists,but it's just that if we left our curiosities aside,to embrace dreams as what they are,as a pattern or system of sorts of wonderous nature,then we might view life,the same way we view or dreams,differently.

I dont think we can ever compare dreams with one another,simply because humans tend to forget 60% of a dream the moment they wake up,80% five minutes later and almost completely ten minutes later.But i have a rather high recall rate of my own dreams,and thus the amount of dreams i am able to reproduce on my blog as you are reading now.But if we can rate our dreams,like the way vidoes are rated on Youtube to five stars,i think the diversity of my dreams would gain it a five star rating definitely.Let's face it,when it comes to dreams nobody can beat me to it.I have the most fascinating ones,and the best part is that it doesnt involve nudity.

I have killed my whole family a couple of times before.But they were totally out of self-defence,i must say.I remember my dad trying to kill me with tennis balls,and for some reason he was tossing them off a balcony about a storey or two up,at the rest of the family.And we were highly irritated by it,because for some reason they felt like burning meteors.So i went up there and killed him with a jack knife of sorts.

My mother tried to kill me in the corridor of my house with a giant syringe once.I dont know where the syringe came from,or what the hell was in it,but i still remember the prickly feeling the needle had in my skin as it plunged into my arm.I think i escaped into the kitchen and killed my mother with a kitchen knife.But wait,i dont think she died in that one.She turned into a zombie afterwards and became a living dead.

I dont,however,remember how i killed my sister.There was a typewriter in my sister's room that came to life once,and it started talking to my sister.She was scared out of her wits,and i helped her kill that talking typewriter by jumping on it.But of course,after it died my sister didnt thank me at all and just walked off.I was rather pissed off at that,and i think i killed her afterwards.Weapon of choice,i dont even remember.

Okay,now you can turn off this window and start running away from me.

But the truth is,like all dreams,we are never really in control of the situations.And i truly believe that parts of our dreams are merely the reflection of reality,and the reflections are often in the opposite.I think i have mentioned this before,but i will say it again.If a person decides to like or love you in your dreams,he or she probably hates you in real life.In contrast,if a person decides to kill you in his or her dreams,him or her probably loves you to death in real life.So you see,i love my family.I love my family a lot.Or maybe,it is the only way to justify myself.I remember telling my parents about me killing them in my dreams,and my father went,"MA!LOOK AT YOUR MURDEROUS SON!" She laughed it off,but i am sure the both of them look at me differently from that day on,if my sleepy eyes are conjuring a real life reenactment of those horrid dreams.

But it wasnt my fault,if the dream wasnt lucid.You know,lucid dreams,the dreams where you have total consciousness,and you act rationally about the situation.I'd like to have that ability,to have control in my dreams.I mean,think about it.Given the infinite possibilities of dreams,if we have absolute control over our surroundings,then isnt it also true that we are capable of everything?That literally makes us Superman in our dreams!Who wouldnt want that?Like,we can rob a bank in our dreams,steal a car,watch movies for free,and if you have the time,read all the books in Kinokuniya.

But i think there is a hidden pattern to our dreams,not everybody else can see.Remember the movie The Truman Show?It is about Truman,Jim Carrey's character,being watched ever since the day he was born,on camera and broadcasted to the viewers all around the world as a sort of real-time reality television show.Of course,Truman is oblivious to the existence of the actors and the cameras in his life,but as the movie progresses he discovers some of the oddities in his life.This particular scene involved him following a friend,i think,into an office building where he supposedly works.Of course,as i have said,everything is a set up and nothing is real.Everything existed in a giant movie studio,and all the buildings,as long as Truman will not enter them,were fake and temporary.So when the man Truman followed entered an elevator,he waited for the next one to arrive.But when the doors opened,instead of the usual three-sided walls that we usually see at the entrance of a lift,he saw actors and actresses inside a big room,like a backstage setting,putting on make up and drinking coffee.The door closest,he was bewildered,and he caught a glimpse of the great scheme of things,though still profoundly confused by it.

I caught a glimpse of the great scheme of dreams a long time ago.That dream remained with me till this day,and i think i blogged about it somewhere.I am at a point whereby i dont even know what i have blogged and what i have not.But anyway,it is a worthy story,no harm repeating,is there?

The following account of the dream is real.But i forgot the date,so bear with me for the mistake.Let's say this is yesterday's(021106,Thursday)dream:

I was in a fantastical land full of fairies,i remember.It was a Tolkien-like land,mountains rising up into the towering clouds,and the lands constantly covered in a mist.There was a great temple at the top of a hill,and a hundred sets of staircases leading up to it.This staircase was wide,that stretched from one end to another for a hundred metres or so.I remember sitting on one of the steps,conversing with one of the fairies,and she was crying.Her wings were folded on her back,and i remember she was wearing a purple robe of sorts,a little transluscent but i couldnt see anything through.She had a luminous quality to her skin,and she had her face buried in her palms,crying.I dont remember her face,nor her reason why she was crying.But i remember the other fairies dancing about above our heads,so careless of our existence,and the fallen fairy from the sky.

Let's say this is today's(031106,Friday)dream:

I was running through a forest,shadows shifted through the woods behind me.Somebody,or a bunch of people,were chasing me,and yelling out my name at the same time.At my heels was an animal of sorts,and i felt it's breath on the back of my leg,as if chased after me,though i've never gotten a good glimpse of it's looks at all.I remember jumping over fallen logs and then climbing under shrubs.Though the animal was constantly on my heels,it never really caught up with me(You know how you always run faster than normal in dreams).

Anyway,so i came to a high wall of grass.It was impenetrable from my side,but the animal was coming.I found a small opening below the fences,and started digging my way through the soil desperately.The ground was soft,and before i dug a hole big enough for my body,i found myself squeezing through the bottom of the grassy fence,and the emerging on the other side.

The ground fell away,and the edge of the ground where i stood was marked by a concrete wall that fell about three metres below my feet.Before me was an overhanging piece of wall,with words in yellow paint written on it.It was yesterday's date,2nd of November.I stared at it,confused,as the animal on the other side of the fence barked,and the pursuing men shouted.

I made my way down the high wall,and the scent was familiar.I sniffed once and twice,where have i smelled something like that?There was something familiar with the landscape before my feet.The birds,the mountains,the lingering mist,and the...The Great Temple on the hills.I found myself in YESTERDAY'S dream,and against the wall,was the same weeping fairy i met in yesterday's dream,while the animal from the other side of the wall continued to bark away.

I wonder if i kept on running in the opposite direction,would i be able to see my dreams in the next couple of days?Wouldnt that be,in a way,catching a glimpse of my future?That's be interesting,wouldnt it?I think there is a pattern to all our dreams,that in a way they are all pre-planned for us,like a roll of film rolling on the projector,and the audience is viewing the film from below.We are merely audiences of our dreams,but if it is possible,just for once,to have absolute control over our dreams,just imagine the infinite possibilities!