Dream Architecture

15/07/2015: 12 hours later...
IMAGE: Pbario

The following is a dream I had last night that was quite unlike any other I have in memory. It combines many aspects of previous dreams, several of which I have catalogued and discussed on this very blog, but in its entirety it was something completely new. The dream itself combined all of the following themes: Self-generating architecture, underwater exploration, hidden structures, and even sexual extinction... though I will not discuss that last aspect in this entry. It was perhaps the most vivid dream I have had in months, which is a little sad as I could usually rely upon them whether I wanted them or not. More on that later. For now, I will just try to recreate the memory as I type.

The dream started off a little strange, I was on a boat with a few friends and it cold and it was rough and windy. We pressed along on our unexplained journey and later found ourselves on a sparkling bay, littered with beautiful islands. Some unspoken reality told me that we were in Israel, and we made our way to one of the islands to pass through immigration. I remember at this point inserting an electronic identity card into a reader and pulling it out,  having done so incorrectly. I attempted it again but got it wrong a second, and again a third time. The terminal flashed a warning and displayed an electronic code frame which meant that I had drawn attention to myself; my visa was now declined and some unspoken intelligence service was on its way to apprehend me. Fear and paranoia might have overtaken me at this point, but I diverted the dream narrative by approaching a female authority figure with red hair, and insisting she advocate for me against her own ridiculous system. She begun heatedly negotiating with immigration officials and while this transpires I wandered off and decided to go swiming in the bay.

This is where the dream became amazing. The entire bay was surrounded with mountains, and the water was little more than shoulder deep like a swimming pool. The ground was paved with exquisite engraved and painted tiles, and I remember a vividness and clarity in the dream that was very close to waking life. My friends and I begun to dive under the water and explore the beautiful surrounds. It was not long before we discovered flooded buildings with exposed sides; truly 3 dimensional structures that at once begged exploration and screamed hazard. As an experienced free-diver I that it is generally quite safe to dive for extended periods under the water, even at great depth... as the process of returning to surface is remarkably simple. In fact when the drowning reflex takes over, paddling to the surface is probably about the single application of self-directed agency that comes to mind, and I quite enjoy having my body take over on such occasions and simply relaxing and waiting for the surface to arrive. I cannot however, imagine anything worse than having to actually use my brain during a mad break for the surface, let alone having to navigate a complex three dimensional structure. So as I swum past these drowned architectural forms, I was constantly reminded that they were for me to safely observe from the outside and that entry would not go very well for me.

Of course, I went inside thought. A voice in my head started playing that essentially said "you will be fine" and that was that. With the benefit of hindsight; I can attribute such voices of agency to those aspects of my frontal cortex that were unable to entirely accept the dreaming process as it came, but at the time it was just mixed voice of intelligence, confidence and recklessness. I started to explore, and before I knew it I was having so much fun that I did not even need to breath anymore... it was as if I somehow had an innate appreciation for the fact that simply having enough fun was sufficient to change the dream rules on the run, and after that the idea of reassembling the fourth wall and suspending disbelief was quaintly unattractive, and I just wanted to explore.

Did I know that I was dreaming? Not precisely and not exactly. As is often the case with my dream lucidly these days: its not very cerebral and virtually all behavioural/functional. After some time my functional lucidity reached a zenith and I was simply swimming around in circles seeking sexual encounters, like some horny psychedelic fish. The last of these was actually an extinction experience which was quite interesting, as it is only the third time I have had one of these. I have no idea why my dreaming brain suddenly decided to sneak one in at the very end of this dream but for whatever reason it seems thats just what happened.

So why do I report all this? It's curious, but its starting to make a lot more sense. I have always had vivid dreams like these, but I have also always had insomnia and restless sleep, night sweats and bizarre nocturnal ideation that saw me pull all nighters for no apparent reason and microsleep through important events later in the follow day. Recently I have been a good boy; sleeping regularly and waking up comparatively early. I have also been meditating for 10-15 minutes every night before bed, which I have found to be an integral part in maintaining these healthier life habits.  It seems that my vivid dreams have been one of the first pieces of collateral damage in such healthy ways, but I am thankful that the skill is not lost completely. I hope that in time, I can train myself to sleep both healthily and dream creatively. Whatever I did last night, it seemed to strike the right balance.