To Jump or Not to Jump

I had very lucid dreams last night (but not really last night because I already have a post up today; will have to post this tomorrow).

In the dream.... I'm on a high floor of a building. I realize it's a dream, and I'm excited about that. I think I know that I'm in Australia, and that makes me even more excited and eager to go out and explore. I decide I'll just jump out from the window.

(Side note here. I've had this whole thing about jumping out of high places in my dreams. I used to do it a lot. I'd say it's just a dream, and then jump into the empty space and fly. But then in my WAKING life, I became a bit paranoid about the whole thing. I started thinking what if one day I make a HUGE mistake. What if I think I'm dreaming, but I'm not? What if I perform some kind of accidental and foolish suicide? Those fears have creeped back into my lucid dreams. I now usually try to leave from a ground floor door or window, rather than jumping from a high place.)

Okay, back to the dream.

I decide I can jump this time. There can't be any doubt that it's dream. We're not in Australia in real life, so this can't be real. I go to the window and get ready to jump. But when I look out, it is way too high. I think who cares if this is a dream or not, I'm too scared. I'm not jumping. As I step away from the window, I realize it's less scary if I look out in the distance instead of looking straight down. I have this whole discussion in my head about all of this. I think of movies where people are in a predicament high up, and how people always say, "Don't look down." I start thinking, what if it was Jack up high, and I had to coax him across to survive. I consider how in movies, and stuff, it seems the people in danger always survive. I stand there wondering if that would give me hope for Jack.
Anyway, I don't stand around thinking too long. I go to another window which has a giant slide to take you down to the ground. I go on that.

I walk around Australia...Sydney, I assume.

(I don't remember much about that, and there's some stuff I'd rather not mention)

Then I come to a beach. I'm so excited about this. It's like I hit the Australia-dream jackpot. A beach! I worry about waking up before getting to the water. 


As I walk to the water, I talk to myself....I think maybe outloud. I know that I'm dreaming, but I ask if perhaps maybe I'm REALLY in Australia somehow. It's kind of like wishful thinking, because in the dream it doesn't seem extremely plausible to me.

I get to the water's edge. It's crowded though, and hard to get into the ocean. People lay in the sand right next to the water. There's a piece of water I can easily get to, but it's a tide pool. I worry it may have blue ring octopuses. I finally manage to get over to a tiny area of water to the right of that. I walk in, and the water is perfect. It's warm. 

Warm water....  I guess that should have been firm evidence that I wasn't truly in Australia.

Then suddenly I'm no longer in the ocean. It all switches, and I'm in an indoor pool complex. I'm on the stairs to a water slide. I'm disappointed that I lost the ocean, but I have an attitude of "oh, well. That's the way it goes".



11 comments:

  1. They only survive if they're main characters, the film is American, and if they are a protagonist. ;)


    A big slide? That's cool (nice of your subconscious to make a compromise, there. get to go out the window, but safely)

    So what's the part(s) you'd rather not mention?! (jk)

    I dreamt last night that (I wish I could remember more of it more clearly. All I know is it was interesting to me and I thought - wow this would be a fun one to describe and write about).. anyway - some lady walked by (and it was the second time she saw me at this place I was at the time) and she, I guess, was tickled to see me and she said she loved me (this was totally normal and fine, not weird). But I thought that was interesting.
    This was no one I know - just entirely fictitious.
    Still, kind of funny.

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  2. [Sorry my grammar is poor. I should really be better about it. I start a sentence and just stop w/o finishing it.] ;/

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  3. Alright, the funny part, is I happened to be hanging off a cliff at that time (that's kind of what makes it interesting). But I can't remember all the particulars.. just that I was hiding from someone else and using someone else's name (as per that person's request, for some reason). And I decided, at long last, that I didn't want to lie and pretend to be that other person any more (it was getting to be way too much work and deceitful.. not cool).

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  4. Happy Organist,

    I never care about spelling or grammar mistakes. I rarely even notice them! I saw nothing wrong with what you said until you pointed it out. Actually, I still don't know what you're talking about. I read your comment fast though. Let me go read it slowly and see if I can spot the BIG mistake.

    No. I see no problems with what you wrote. Does that mean there's something wrong with me????

    Cool about the woman. I often dream of people I don't know. I'm not sure why. I also dream of places I don't know. I rarely dream of real places. And even when I dream of real places (like Sydney or NYC) they don't really look like themselves.


    Your second dream seems meaningful. Have any ideas? Do you feel pressure to not be yourself?

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  5. I don't think that means there's something wrong with you.

    "I dreamt last night that (I wish I could remember more of it more clearly." This is what I was noticing. I started a sentence and never really finished it, properly, in the same sentence.

    ok. So in these dreams where you meet/interact with people you don't know in real life - do you ever think when you wake up that maybe you really do know them from somewhere?
    (like from before you were born or something like that. I'm really not trying to cram religion here - I imagine it must sound that way. But I just wonder).
    I think that sometimes, when I imagine faces (they're real faces in my head).. And I think "there are so many millions of people living on the planet or who have lived on the planet, and if I do know many of them (as I believe I do), then are the people/faces I see when I'm daydreaming actually people I know but I haven't met? (or haven't met yet? or won't meet in this life, but are still connected to me somehow?)

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  6. re: dream: - No, I don't think that dream meant anything about me feeling pressure to be somebody else. It could be, but I don't think it does.

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  7. Happy Organist,

    Maybe your grammar looks fine to me, because it's the way I think. I probably think in half sentences like that. It all seemed perfectly natural to me ; )

    I don't think your cramming religion at all.

    I believe in reincarnation, so I do think MAYBE I'm dreaming about people I've known before. Or maybe I'm dreaming about people I know in an alternate reality.

    It's weird when I dream about these people because it's NOT like they're strangers I'm meeting for the first time. Well, I mean with some people, it is that way. But with other people, there's this sense of long-time connection.

    Another possibility is I'm dreaming about a friend from a long time ago that I've forgotten.

    I moved around a lot, so I've had a lot of people coming in and out of my life. I remember a lot of people, but other people have faded a bit from my memory. Maybe my subconscious remembers them?

    BUT I like the spiritual explanation better.

    I sometimes see faces of people when I daydream too...and I wonder WHO is that?

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  8. ah, we are kindred after all ;)
    re: "WHO is that?"

    You may be right about the subconscious remembering people you've met that you don't consciously think of/remember. How many people do we meet or see in our lifetime? Plenty.

    That's interesting that you believe in reincarnation. I wouldn't have guessed that ('course I'm not always a good guesser..).

    I kind of wonder about what's going on with the stories of people who are able to remember pieces of other people's (dead person's) lives.
    Is that part of what leads you to believe in that? (those stories?)
    That is a fascinating phenomena..

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  9. Maybe this (life) is all a dream, and you'll wake up if you jump out a window....

    Nevermind, don't try that. I could be wrong :).

    I've had dreams where I'm rock climbing and I get to the top and just let go and fall. I always wake up just before I hit the ground. There have been times when I've been rock climbing in real life and thought about those dreams, and I have to remind myself not to let go because this isn't a dream. Always freaks me out a little bit when I'm hanging off the side of a cliff 200 feet off the ground thinking these thoughts....

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  10. Happy Organist: I do think there are interesting reincarnation stories out there. I can't credit that completely for my beliefs. There are also lots of interesting stories about Jesus, Hindu Gods, Allah, etc... And I don't have much belief in any of that. I think to accept a religious/spiritual story, you first have to believe in it.


    I think for me it is just a personal gut instinct. I remember sitting in the back of the car as a child and thinking "I remember when the world began". It was just this sense that we've always been around.

    At some point I saw that reincarnation movie Audrey Rose. In that movie, the date of birth is the same as the date of death. So I thought reincarnation was immediate. That movie threw me off a bit. I felt reincarnation was the answer, but I also believed in ghosts and stuff like that. I thought if I believed in reincarnation, then I'd have to give up a belief in any type of spiritual world. But much later, I did some reading and learned that the general belief is most spirits have a break before they get humanized again.

    How about you? Do you believe in reincarnation at all? You're Mormon, right? Is reincarnation accepted at all in the Mormon church?

    Jeff: I'm glad someone can relate! I think you're the first person I've "met" who has had a similar feeling/situation. Maybe for people like us, there should be signs posted in high areas. "You are NOT in a dream. Please do not jump, fall, or try to fly"

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  11. Dina, I like this "I remember sitting in the back of the car as a child and thinking "I remember when the world began". It was just this sense that we've always been around."
    That's really fun.
    I am big into sticking with gut feelings, of course. (it gets me into trouble occasionally).

    That is cool, though.

    We are LDS (royal we). And we (not the royal we) don't believe in reincarnation.

    But if reincarnation is the answer, I am definitely going to talk to someone* and get my $ back ;)

    now.. Jeff's experience sounds scary. I think I would freak out if I were climbing a cliff and had repeatedly had dreams about letting go. Yikes!!

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