Thursday, November 20, 2008

how to tell if you're dreaming

If you're flying above a beautiful coastline on a white melamine piece of furniture which is not readily identifiable as table, chest of drawers or bookcase, which keeps bucking and threatening to throw you off.

This may be a dream. However convinced you are that it's white melamine, furniture in the real world tends to have an identifiable form and to stay in one place.

If you're in a aeroplane on the edge of space with hundreds of other people and are being shown a system of intelligent radio stations which can play you just what you want to hear and are labelled with words like 'amazing', 'mellow' and 'super'. And then you notice that each one also has a shape label of 'rectangle' or 'diamond' or 'oval'. And you naturally wonder if this is for synaesthetes, to identify the music by its visual shape, but the manual reveals that this is merely the name of the server the radio station is using at the time.

This may be a dream. The radio stations are all in overhead boxes with speakers that play outloud simultaneously and that would be of no practical use to anyone.

If you're in a therapy session, but you're not exactly sure how long it's been going on and the clock is moving faster than usual and outside the world seems to be spinning round and you decide this must be a dream and start screaming to make yourself wake up and the other people are looking at you like you're mad and eventually, they change places or names or haircuts and even though you're still shouting, you haven't woken up yet, so you just give up and go with it.

This may be a dream. No-one would actually bat an eyelid if you did start shouting in therapy.

If you've got up and out of bed, but five minutes later find yourself still in bed, so get up and out of bed, but five minutes later find yourself still in bed, so get up and out of bed, but five minutes later find yourself still in bed, so get up and out of bed, but five minutes later find yourself still in bed, so get up and out of bed, but five minutes later find yourself still in bed, tired and confused and feeling like you've been wrestling a bear.

This may be a dream. There are no bears in Cambridge.

I think I'm awake now. The furniture's not moving, the room isn't spinning and there aren't any unexpected people or bears about.

Still, you can never be too sure. What will happen if I start screaming to wake up now?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This actually made me laugh although it doesn't sound fun to be in. I am impressed that you can remember so much. Hugs.

Pig wot flies said...

They're very vivid. I'm glad it made you laugh. :o)

Anonymous said...

That last one is one of my dreams, apart obviously from the bear-wrestling, that's all your own weirdness!! But in my version, each time, I go through all the pain and agony of having to get up when I really don't want to just as if it's for real, and then still have to go through the pain and agony for real when I really do get up.

Pig wot flies said...

Poor bfc! We all know how much you hate getting up. :-p

Debs said...

I hate that last one. And the ones where you're desperately trying to wake up for real, and it all just gets really surreal.