Tag Archives: dreaming

Kevin Bacon Owes Me a Coffee

8 Dec

No sleep for the Jackie.

I got a lot done last night (still running – 1/2 way through week 2, still alive).  I did not, however get any sleep.  Instead, I was jolting in and out of a dream that included the death of my father, and Kevin Bacon.

The Baconator didn’t do anything to my father.  In fact, it was a friend from my childhood who I haven’t talked to in years.  I have, however, stalked them on Facebook.  Then she killed my father.  Then I checked out Kevin Bacon’s twitter feed, and he got in a hot tub with me after my father died.

It wasn’t, like, romantic.  It was this super awesome hot tub/pool thing that was enormous and had about 20 people there – all folks I only somewhat knew- but the pool wasn’t filled with water.  So the Baconator and I were filling it up for them with the sprayer hose on my kitchen sink.

It took a while.

No one at my workplace will understand this or accept is as a valid reason not to come to work.  I would argue that I’m a better worker when I’m sick than I am when I’ve spent the evening bereaving my father’s passing and filling a giant hot tub with a kitchen sprayer, assisted only by Kevin Bacon.  But unfortunately it’s not socially acceptable for me to skip work because of a taxing dream.

I’ve attempted lucid dreaming before, but haven’t succeeded.  It’s happened a few times on accident and those moments are so super awesome that I would prefer to hang out in dream world than be in reality.  Because naturally, I can fly there.  And breathe underwater.  And play Mario levels in real life.  But the moment I don’t want to be lucid dreaming for is the one where I gain a sense of my own consciousness right beside the Baconator while he’s holding my kitchen hose.

So I’ve resolved to stalk more people online that I actually want to dream about.  Maybe I could focus a lot of it on cartoon characters, because I’m sure that’d be a swell adventure.  I could check out Donald Trump’s twitter feed and see if when I dream about him, he gives me a bunch of money so I can pretend to accomplish fiscal goals and buy schools for third world countries and things.  Or maybe I should just browse a bunch of food blogs and stare at the food porn so that at night I dream of food.  Suddenly kicking in to lucid dreaming when I’m right beside the world’s largest vat of Jell-O sounds pretty splendiferous if you ask me.

Anyway I’m super tired today and the way I see it, Kevin Bacon owes me a coffee.  Perhaps instead of accomplishing real work tasks today, I’ll begin composing documents in support of Paid Time Off following particularly strenuous dreams.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress. 

 

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An Attempt at Lucid Dreaming

8 Nov

I’m not sleeping much lately.  In fact, at all. I’m trying really hard but it’s just not working out.  So this week, it’s only appropriate that I attempted to complete my Lollipop Tuesday in my sleep.  Literally.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, you beautiful ladies and gentlemen.

I’m incredibly intrigued by the idea of lucid dreaming.  For those of you unaware, lucid dreaming is basically the state of being aware you are dreaming, which allows you to take control and manipulate the actions in your dreams.  There are a slew of tips and tricks for how to accomplish this, though on occasion it will happen independent of effort.  It usually sparks when you’re in a dream and realize that something defies reality.  For the most part, we accept anything that happens in our dreams.  For example, I’ve played Monopoly underground with grizzly bears and my grandparents and nothing struck me as odd.  However, when I ended up underwater in a dream and finally couldn’t hold my breath any longer, the realization that I can indeed breathe sparked me into lucid dreaming.

There were mermaids.  It was awesome; thanks for asking.

I’ve been reading up on ways to encourage more lucid dreaming and came across this list.  Most suggestions (keep a dream journal, look at your hands and ask yourself if you’re dreaming) are efforts made over a long period of time and maybe when I tire of this world, I’ll dedicate more time in reality to successfully escaping to fantasy.

After all, flying in a lucid dream is pretty much the best thing ever.  

Ever.

But for now, I was content to attempt a short term goal and initiate my own lucid dreaming experience by taking tip numbers 5 and 6 in this WikiHow: How to Lucid Dream.  Basically, it required me to set my alarm for 5 hours into my sleep cycle, wake up, and dedicate time to focusing on my dream, what happened, and the desire to remain in it.  The idea is that when I fall back asleep, I actively attempt to ease back into the dream but with the knowledge now that I am in it.

Doesn’t that sound awesome?  Doesn’t it sound totally killer to be able to wake up in the middle of the night, lasso control of your dream, and lie back down for the remainder of your sleep session flying over walls, talking to animals, and saying and doing anything you want? You can bend spoons with your mind or buy a circus elephant for your backyard.  All your deepest desires can be indulged.

Except last night I didn’t dream.

Or at least if I did, it was nowhere near the 5-hour mark.  All I did was wake up 5 hours into my dream, recognize the fact that I did not, in fact have anything to focus on or remember because my mind was a vapid, white space.  So I fell back asleep unaccomplished.

It’s unfortunate, really.  Perhaps this takes training or time or something special that just didn’t work out for me last night.  I’m not even really upset that I woke myself up in the middle of the night for no good reason.  I’m upset that I’m not writing a post about becoming a mermaid queen or discovering time travel or turning into a three-toed sloth and telling of my lazy adventures in the forest.

Don’t judge me.  There’s no judging on The Jackie Blog.  I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this.

I might try again tonight.  And maybe the following night.  After all, if I’m not sleeping well I might as well use that time to do something productive, like cure cancer or transform into a wallaby.

Plus, ever since I first failed at Lollipop Tuesday (Geocaching, followed by apple pie, followed by lack of lucid dreaming), I’ve been harboring a sort of resentment toward myself that might not be reconciled until I right my wrongs.   Maybe I can use my next lucid dream to successfully geocache and then celebrate with a well done apple pie.

Who knew that sleep could be so very productive and delicious? 

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