zzz
it shocks me when people say they hardly ever dream. i've been having them much more than normal recently - almost every night, almost always as vivid and as crisp as reality. they often wake me hours before my alarm gets the chance: early enough to be comforted with a handful of hours before needing to get up to be a real human, but late enough for the world to feel eery and still. when i retell the events of my mind's creation to my close friend, i find myself always telling him first that i've had a nightmare. but, aside from the one's where he's breaking my heart, they rarely are filled with tragedy or horror. they're actually quite fucking cool, i have some of the most spectacular adventures while my earthly being rests. i still clearly remember this one mission impossible-esque dream i used to have when i was younger where i was in some crazy busy asian city ziplining from one building to another. the thing that i love the most about my dreams are that i'm always so aware of the events taking place - decisions i make in-the-moment are often paired with long conversations within my thoughts. sometimes i realize that the world i'm dreaming of isn't real - this helps a lot when i get sleep paralysis and feel like my body is stuck while my mind is screaming into the void. i used to get this so often that i eventually learnt to just stay super calm and just tell myself that it was this annoying thing that i just constantly had to wait out. sometimes i have fun with it and see if i can push through by yelling at myself to wake up and force my lifeless body to move. --- okay, i get soooo off topic --- i also find that even if i'm watching what's occurring in my dreams like a scene in a movie, my mind is always narrating or thinking out loud, commentating on what is going on and telling myself what i should do next. they're just so real sometimes that i honestly believe that i could live the rest of my human life in a virtual reality and be completely satisfied. i've recently started watching the stephen king + hulu series that stars james franco: 11.22.63. it's had me thinking a lot about how he travels back in time and how he seems really content with the idea of never returning to the era he had been born into. he's built somewhat of a solid life in the 60s, he came there with a mission so he feels like he currently has purpose, he's met people he truly cares for and won't want to abandon once he's done what is needed. but, is it really real? he's from our modern era, so time-travel is essentially going somewhere that isn't his reality. if for him, he could theoretically live out the rest of his life there and it really wouldn't make a difference for him in terms of happiness or experience, what really is so wrong about him staying? if there were no noticeable differences - if you had the option of living out the rest of your life in a fantasy world where you still felt every sensation, physical/visual abilities were indistinguishable from your 'earth' life, you could still make memories and connections with others, etc. why would that be frowned upon? because you aren't living your earth life? because you aren't participating in the real world? who is to say that's not already where we are, that this life on earth is no more real than the universes humans have created within tv shows and video games? if you could replicate every aspect of human existence, our lives on earth and all they entail, obviously have a system set up to care for those bodies living in virtual realities (i mean, at least until we can download our consciousnesses into machines, ya know), and give people the option of which existence they want to experience - i personally think that would be fucking cool. but, anyways, i don't know how i got to this point, so let me back track to dreams. i don't have an actual official dream journal, but, if the dream i had just awoken from was gnarly and i immediately know i'll want to lock it down then i'll scribble it into my notes app or in one of the hundreds of notebooks i have lying around. i'm sure if i put in the effort, i could easily retrieve 50 different dreams i've had just in the past couple of years. for fun, i'll throw one of my notes here: (fyi - jojo is my little brother and there are probably 0 complete sentences in this)