dreams...

i have been having an odd relationship of late with sleep, and i do not mean the normal (for me, that is) sense in which it seems to elude me most days. to the contrary, i have spent more time asleep than awake over the past few days, and that in itself is already strange.

the most bizarre part of the experience, however, is the intensely-vivid dreams i have been experiencing in said state. like last night, for example.

i found myself, near the end of that dream, laying on the roof of a building. it was a broad, mostly-flat surface, and i kept going back and forth between imagining the terrace garden that could be created in that space... and wondering what the heck i was doing up there in the first place.

that is when vertigo got a hold of me, and i could not convince a single muscle to move enough to try to find a door or a set of stairs that would lead me down from there. i finally managed to crawl a few feet. not so much that i was at the edge of the roof, but just far enough that i could get a glimpse of the landscape beyond the building.

what i saw was equal parts breathtaking and frightening.

i was high up enough to be well above the top of the surrounding trees. but they were not any trees i had expected to find. the whole world, as far as the eye could see, was surrounded by a sprawling expanse of lush green coconut trees, like something out of a tropical fantasy.

i could also make out a field of vegetables growing a short distance from the building, and i instantly recognized the large leaves of dasheen and other plants that one or the other of my grandmothers wold have grown in their gardens back in the day.

it was familiar... but frightening all the same.

i was definitely no longer in Montreal, or even back in Brooklyn. where was i... and how did i manage to find myself in such an awkward position?

this is when i heard the faint sound of a woman's voice coming from somewhere near the building. she was welcoming someone, and explaining that the resort they were standing in was once a working estate that belonged to her family. she went on to note that all the food they would be eating during their stay had been sourced from the property, and i got a sudden mental image of a figure walking through the picturesque field, filling a basket with items that would later become a colorful meal.

i realized at this point that all i had to do was to make enough noise for them to know that i was up there. but doing so would have meant crawling closer to the edge of the building, or even just opening my mouth to scream. however, the panic was so great at this point, that i was struggling to even breathe.

so i just laid there... paralyzed by fear.
___________

i awoke a short while later to find myself alone in the bed at almost one in the morning, still surrounded by that feeling of dread. i wanted to get out of the bed just long enough to walk to the studio next door where my favorite animator was working late into the night, or to even tap on the wall just loud enough to let him know that i was awake. but i could not shake that horrible feeling.

so i just laid there for the longest time... still paralyzed by fear.

Jultember: nerd two ways...

i have met a few people over the years who claim that they almost never dream. my mind boggles at the possibility of such a thing. there is a virtual circus of activity inside my head every time i close my eyes for longer than a blink.

some of those dreams play out like a movie with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and i occasionally find myself struggling to stay asleep because i do not want to wake up before it is done.

some of those dreams help me sort out the confusing details of things: like that time back when i was having trouble remembering the ascending sensory pathways and descending motor pathways in cross-sections of the spinal cord... until i fell asleep one night and dreamed that i was a pulse of energy traveling from one part of the body to another, up and down those pathways. it all made perfect sense when i awoke. everyone has dreams like that, no?

there are also those dreams that rip me violently from my sleep and leave me almost afraid to ever close my eyes again.

then there are the dreams that serve as a magic window into the ludicrous corners of one's personality. i begin a lot of days with a good laugh when recounting the absurdity that was rolling around inside my head while i slept.

i had a dream recently in which i was walking outside of a building, and there were two men engaged in a heated conversation about something. one of them had a look that screamed "professor of some super-smart subject", and he was arguing with a younger man who i presumed to be either a colleague or maybe a protégé.

as i got closer, i could hear what they were saying. they were arguing about someone's theorem about something or another, which made no sense to me at the time. then i noticed that there was a wall of formulas projected onto the very air behind them (like something out of an Iron Man movie). and every time one of them spoke, the arrangement of formulas would change to reflect whatever they were talking about.

then one of them said something about "Oppenheimer's theory...", and the image on the invisible wall of formulas switched to a black-and-white photograph of a man.

i was instantly captivated.

i started walking forward with my eyes fully fixated on the image, and i passed right between the two men who took no notice of my presence. they went on arguing, but the picture of the man on the screen remained the same. and i just stood in front of it with my mouth agape.

it was as if life finally made sense.

i woke up a short while later, and just laid there in a complete mental fog, trying to figure out where i had heard the name Oppenheimer. it was then that i heard the faint sound of my favorite animator at his computer, so i got out of bed and the very first thing is said to him was...

me: sweetie... who is Oppenheiner?

after a few taps at his keyboard, he began to read...

him: Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of Ca...

i raised a hand at this point to call for a halt to the reading. it was coming back to me.

him: why are you waking up and asking me about Oppenheimer?

so i told him about my dream. then i got to the good bit... the thing that had absolutely captivated me.

me: it was the sweater he was wearing!
him: of course. 
me: i had moved closer so i could examine it up close. and while the two of them were still throwing theorems around behind me, there was only one thing running through my mind.
him: which was?
me: i can make that!

then he just shook his head at me with a look of amused-pity on his face. i get that look a lot around here.

him: so all your dream proves is that you are a nerd two ways.

he can mock me all he wants, but i guarantee you there will come a day when he is walking around looking flustered, and i will ask him what he is looking for, and he will say the words that will make me smile... have you seen my Oppenheimer sweater?

want to know how seriously i take my absurdity? well...

for the past couple-few weeks, there has been a Google search for "oppenheimer" among the like five billion tabs that open automatically when i start my browser. its sole purpose for being there was to make sure that i did not forget about the thing. most of all, it was a reminder to find a pattern for something similar.

yes, i could make up a pattern of my own at this point, but that would send my OCD tendencies into overdrive, so it is far less stressful to find a pattern and start from there. besides, it was not a complicated garment. it was a raglan-style sweater with sleeves that were much darker in color than the body section. kind of like the long-sleeve baseball shirts he is so fond of wearing.

his current favorite one features Skeletor's face on the the front, so i am already aware that there will be an inevitable request for something equally absurd when i eventually get around to making the Oppenheimer sweater.

see??? it is already a thing!

after much searching, i finally settled on a sweater that bears the inspiring name of CB29-09. [i agree... the model is adorable.] i am going to offer the making of this sweater in exchange for a drawing that i have been begging him to do for almost a year now. [if you have been here before, you may recall a similar scene regarding my gnus.]

yes... my life really is steeped in absurdity. that is the point of the thing.

i bet she is dreaming about that sweater too.

 

25: absurdity seems to be contagious...

i had a firm plan in place to take care of a couple-few things today that i had been neglecting for the longest while. said plan was grounded in the strong hope/expectation that i would get a solid night of sleep. needless to say, i have been up since like two in the morning. 

i finally gave up trying at 3:43, which is when i climbed out of bed, and made myself a large cup of very strong coffee. that is where you find me. sipping cold coffee. weighing the items on that short list of "things to do". hoping that i can possibly get a single one done today. 

while i would love to say that sleeplessness is a once-in-a-while occurrence, if you have been here before, you will probably know that it is my default setting most days. and it began about five seconds after i was born... in the wee hours of the morning, i would add. clearly they should have known what they were in for from day one. 

my family's oral history—that being, the stories we tell each other at clan gatherings—includes accounts of me keeping everyone within hearing range up until almost dawn. my grandfather used to wrap me up in the middle of the night, and take me for long walks in the dark, if only to give the rest of the household a chance at some sleep. so... you know... this is pretty much all his fault. 

worse than not being able to sleep, i came to realize that i actually liked being awake in the middle of the night, when there was no one else around to get in the way of the nonsense that tends to cloud my mind. 

i once set out—somewhere back in my high school years—to make every single bread recipe in one of mom's old cookbooks. as a result, she would occasionally wake up to find a loaf of bread sitting on the counter, a testament to my having been awake all night. seriously... do you not take great pleasure in hand-kneading dough at like three in the morning? exactly.

to this day, i always know when i am in an especially pensive mood, as it tends to involve a sudden, overwhelming need to make bread. hey... i have never suggested that anything i do makes any sense.

it is later in the day, and i am pleased to announce that i just woke up from a (very out of character) nap. this likely means that i will not be able to sleep for the next two days, but it is better than no sleep at all... i guess. 

while napping, i had a a dream in which we were walking around a supermarket, looking for ingredients to make an orzo and  vegetable salad with a vinaigrette dressing... which brings me to the next part of the topic for today.

i love hearing people talk about their dreams—by which i (naturally) mean the ones they have while sleeping, and not their deluded aspirations while awake. it is such insight into what runs through their minds when you take away all of the distractions of waking life.

his dreams, for example, are disjointed and make little-to-no logical sense most days, while my dreams usually read like a scripted movie with a beginning, middle, and end. this seems to be an apt description of how we both approach life. he crafts a story out of absurdity, while i am stuck trying to find logic in everything. apparently i was a Vulcan in every single one of my previous lifetimes. 

then there are those occasional dreams that serve to prove that i am spending far too much time around him, as the absurdity seems to be contagious. 

in one recent dream, a young boy was in his room in the attic of an old house. they had been having some problems with mice, so mousetraps (the old-school snapping type) had been placed throughout the home, including one in his room.

he sat on his bed, studying a small hole in the baseboard, when a small head appeared and quickly disappeared inside said space. there it was again. and again. and again.

rather than being frightened, the boy was fascinated by the creature, and when it finally emerged from the hole, he was surprised to see that it was a girl. she panickeded when she saw the boy, and she ran back into the hole, but he assured her that it was okay to come back out.

which she did, and she proceeded to explore the room, while the boy watched and cheered as she gasped in excitement at each new discovery. then she started running back and forth, which amused him even more.

then, as she was turning the corner to run in a new direction, the boy remembered the mousetrap. he would have to act fast if he was to save his new friend's life. 

then it cut to a scene of him holding up one hand that was wrapped in a bandage, while using the other hand to scratch the head of the little girl mouse who was standing up in the pocket of his shirt.

then i woke up.