Dreaming is Believing

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I mentioned in a recent post that my internal clock had acquired a glitch. I am confident that it has nothing to do with the current coronavirus. I say that because first, we don’t really seem to have a clear notion of when and where the virus started and second, my clock has been wacky for at least months, if not longer.  And yes, wacky is an official diagnostic term, check your list of Social Security Disabilities - OK, maybe I saw it somewhere else.

Anyhow, the symptoms are these: the darkening of the sky is no indication that sweet sleep is tiptoeing over the doorstep.  This, rather, is the calling card of the “relentless wakefulness” phenomenon I mentioned in an earlier post.  I have a previously effective nighttime ritual. About a half hour prior to the moment of desired unconsciousness I do a Reike meditation - noise cancelling headphones, mellow music of some type. Thereafter I switch to calming natural sounds curtesy of the Naturespace app, and I fall asleep.  At least that is how it is supposed to work. Nowadays it is most often a prelude to a few hours of tossing and turning, interspersed with grabbing my iPad and retreating to the arcane twists and turns of my current mystery. Eventually my body gives up and somewhere around 3 or 4, I fall asleep. Those of you who have been following the Wall through any part of its two decade or so history know that posts from the tiny hours of the morning are no rarity.

The second wacky symptom is the one I referred to as “daylight’s somnolent assassin” in the futile hope that giving it a fancy name would blunt unconsciousness’s attack on my afternoons. It has yet to work - and, at 2:00 PM, I see it lurking a mere hour or so away. This symptom is characterized by much of my body mass becoming concentrated in my eyelids. "Close your eyes, you are getting sleepy, very, very, sleepy.” You know  what I mean. We have all had the experience, and in the workaday world we have found processes or products that allow us to carry on, or sneak a nap behind closed doors. Being mostly retired these days I find my couch or guest bed and check out for 90 minutes or so.

OK, here is the weird thing.  The “wake-sleep” part of my brain is so scrambled that I sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between waking-world and sleeping-world.  A very Carlos Castaneda, mystical, shamanesque space. No doubt I am obsessing over the whole issue. But I have, I think, come to a partial solution: I only dream when I am asleep. So when I find myself staring around, supine, - having just been deeply involved, usually as a younger version of myself, in intricate scenarios with either total strangers, or people who no longer inhabit my active reality, and who have just vanished - I soon realize, “Whoa, that was a weird dream!” I had been dreaming, hence, I had been asleep, and I am now awake. 

I am not really sure why I find being able to make that distinction comforting. But I do. 

Well, I can see by the clock at the top of the screen nudging up towards 3:00 pm, that it is getting close to time for me to check out of this world for awhile and see what is waiting for me on the other side of consciousness.  

Be safe. Practice social distancing. Wash your hands.  Remember, red and raw is the new beautiful.

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