Had an annoying ‘waking dream’ last night.
Waking dreams are dreams where you dream that you wake up. Then they continue.
It’s almost as if your subconscious is battling your conscious. Internally the mind goes, “No, this is a dream… this can’t be real” so the subconscious goes, “Oh, he thinks this is a dream. I’ll let him think he woke up and then continue the dream.”
And so it goes.
Only problem was the initial dream was a resolution of something I’ve tried to put out of my mind and release. There are certain things in my life I’m not going to accomplish. Some at my current stage in life, some ever. I’ll use “graduating from college” for an example.
Having a detailed dream about walking down the aisle at my university in robust full colour with all the pomp and circumstance is in my deepest conscience damned unlikely. No matter how many people are cheering me on and how I can feel the diploma and handshake; deep in my head is a choir of angels saying, “This ain’t happening.”
But then to ‘wake up’ and have the acting dean explain that it actually did happen. Steps were taken to permit it. The person makes it sound incredibly rational that the impossible happened in your sleep.
Dreams are supposed to divert, change, swim like a thread in a braid or a helix. It moves from unrelated idea to unrelated idea only faintly linked by your own imagination. They’re supposed to. Last night was my subconscious gleefully trying to convince me that my resolution had occurred. Right down to showing it to me in writing. (I’m one of those people who can not read in their sleep. Words and letters jumble.) But the documentation was in front of me. And I could clearly read that it’d happened.
Satisfied that my slumbering body was convinced my subconscious had one last laugh at my expense. It let me actually wake up and realize that it was, “just a dream.”
—
There are many things I want to accomplish in life. Many are out of my direct control. For example: I’ve been seeking a promotion in my career for close to 5 years but things just haven’t worked out that way. Our industry is funny, the longer I continue the more road-blocks they put in and the higher the bar is lifted. The career often feels like the ultimate trip through Zeno’s paradox.
On top of that is the fact that I have a baby now. A lot of my personal goals and plans have been put on hold or dispensed. Where my stubbornness has blocked my ability to see how he’s upset my already shaky system of time management.
Personally, I am fully aware how much I’ve been dropping the ball for friends, loved ones, and people I interact with. I’m pretty sure I’ve caused most of the people around me more pain, annoyance, and inconvenience than I have added. And this is difficult for me. More than I can find words for.
I’ve spent the last 8 years on a spiritual journey to fix myself and feel like much of the work has sort of untied itself over the last year. I’m not sure how to retie it and even if anyone will care if I do. I’ve dropped some pretty big balls in the past 8 months and really don’t expect anyone to give me a second chance. Personally, I believe some doors in my life have now been personally closed. One of which relates directly to my dream.
Some of this I can try to blame on being a first time father with a six month old.
Mind you I have no resentment towards my family at all. I love them absolutely and completely and will continue to put them first in my life. Except maybe over my own sanity 😉
But I honestly know that the blame is wholly on me. I am nowhere near as organised as I should be. I’m great with ideas and horrible at follow-thru. I work best ‘in the now’ and am at my worst ‘over time.’ And the world doesn’t work that way. And I am damned useless at communicating that or at most times admitting to it.
Right now in life I feel much like Dilbert. Average.. in the middle. Going as far as you will and there’s not a whole lot of promise for advancement. Many big dreams and projects loom ahead unfulfilled. And if there were time and growth…maybe someday… they might occur.
Maybe that’s the real reason I don’t/can’t read Dilbert. It’s not that the situations are to real. It’s that the person is too real.
So… I had a dream last night. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. It made me very happy. The dream went out of its way to convince me, “It was a done deal.” But it wasn’t… isn’t….probably won’t for a very long time.
Symbolically, I have no idea what to get out of that. Because it’s the one thing in my life I’m certain hasn’t happened. And there’s nothing I can really tie it to to make any sense.
Just sorta makes me feel deflated and feeling distant.
Such is my description of that which I can’t describe.
Random vaguely related lyrics…
“Dreaming Again” – Jim Croce
Don’t you know I had a dream last night
That you were here with me
Lyin’ by my side so soft and warm
And we talked a while
And shared a smile
And then we shared the dawn
But when I woke up
Oh my dream it was gone
Don’t you know I had a dream last night
And you were here with me
Lyin’ by my side so soft and warm
And you said you’d thought it over
You said you were coming home
But when I woke up
Oh my dream it was gone
I’m not the same
Can you blame me
Is it hard to understand
I can’t forget
You can’t change me
I am not that kind of man
Don’t you know I had a dream last night
And ev’rything was still
And you were by my side so soft and warm
And I dreamed that we were lovers
In the lemon scented rain
But when I woke up
Oh I found that again, I had been
Dreamin’, dreamin’ again
I had been dreamin’, dreamin’ again
I love you.
You have come rather a long way over the last 18-19 years that I’ve known you, and you continue to grow.
Your live changed drastically in the last six months, and that is not to be ignored, but it shouldn’t be overstated either.
My biggest recommendation for you would be the following: finish your degree. I recommend doing an online IT degree. There are a number of programs with known universities, including U. Mass and CMU, that offer IT degrees. It doesn’t matter what your experience is, it matters what paperwork you hold. You know this, I know this. It’s hard as hell, but in the long run, I think that you would find yourself able to move forward with a bit more ease if you completed your bachelors. You have a number of credits and you can test out of a lot of things because of your knowledge. A friend of mine is doing just this, and he’s actually in management because of a lucky break. It was suggested to him that he seek out his Bachelor’s in order to not then be trapped in Middle IT Mangement for the remainder of his career.
Obviously, this is entirely my take. You know what is best for your life and I trust you to do whatever is best for you.
If you want to talk, you know how to find me.
I used to frequently have lucid dreams and/or dreams in which I would have certain “powers”. Just about any ability from science fiction (that I’ve seen or read) I’ve had including multiple forms of teleportation, materialization, voice control (a la “holodeck”), the ability to rewind time, shielding and mental force fields, invisibility and mind control.
As I’ve grown older I’ve discovered that the “lucidity” component of my dreams has been less frequent. The dreams where I’ll say “hey, I’m dreaming” are less frequent, although I still will have some unusual ability which lately have been along the lines of being able to pass through solid objects or travel great distances by stepping into a building and back out. When I do realize I’m dreaming its more in the back of my head and my response has been more experimental: for instance, why can I put my hand through one solid material but not another?
Then there are the dreams where I actively think I’m *not* dreaming. There used to be rare; a couple times in my life when I was younger I had a dream of some impending doom and was contemplating how much I wished it was all a dream but that I should just face reality, only to wake up surprised or even shocked that it had been a dream. However more lately it seems like any time I dream about getting on an elevator everything is so vividly normal I find myself saying to myself or others in the elevator things like “Now if I was dreaming this elevator would be malfunctioning about now!”
And yeah, the dreams where something really great happens that your brain convinces you is real, those are really a bummer when you wake up… my brain like to trick me with money. It used to be that I would dream that I would spot money on the ground, and then when I picked it up I would see another piece next to it, and then another and another. This is not entirely unrealistic as this happened to me on a few occasions when I was growing up. But finally in one dream I suddenly realized, “Hey, I’m dreaming. There is no point in picking up this money!” and then every time after that it would be an obvious sign that I was dreaming. Then this dream kinda just went away. I think the last dream I had about it I didn’t actually realize I was dreaming. But there was somebody else nearby and I said to them, “Hey look at all this money just waiting for you to pick it up” and then while they excitedly started picking it up I went off to do something else. Still though I occasionally have dreams that I am winning at gambling (despite not having been to a casino in over five years) or that a stock I own just went through the roof.
i know how you feel. self transcendence is where its at though. imho.
i hate the dreams where the alarm goes off and instead of waking up I dream that I wake up, turn the alarm off and get ready…. and then wake up very confused that i am still in bed
You’ll do fine! *hugs* You’re an amazing guy with an amazing family and the three of you will accomplish anything you will. And the rest is a subset. And that’s ok. As long as you are clear about your primary motivators and priorities, nobody could begrudge you putting them first. Its ok not to get to everything. And its ok to evolve. And for those stubborn goals that just won’t die, make the time. Take them one at a time, make the commitment, and do it. Life is funny in that when you will something, life makes room. Life finds time.
Do what thou wilt, my friend.
So perhaps we’re all living in the dreamtime, and it’s time to wake up again. And then wake up again.
Too bad we can’t all be Grant Morrison.