So I had an awful nightmare last night. Terrible. Scary, awful stuff. And as I often do in nightmares I changed it. Lucid dreaming. When you are aware that you are dreaming and change the dream. I do it a lot in nightmares. As most of you know I have extremely vivid dreams. Lots of details, very realistic. Which is great when it's a cool dream, awful when it's a nightmare. And I have some doozy nightmares. So years ago I started trying to be aware of dreams when I was in them and change them. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. Depends how deeply I'm asleep, I think. The deeper the better really. If it's a lighter sleep I think I wake up before I can shift the dream, if it's deeper I can have that moment of realization that it's all a dream and start to shift the dream.
What normally happens is like last night, I took an awful dream and made it less awful. I sort of backed up the dream to the spot where it all went terribly bad and started over. It was still a nightmare and it wasn't great, but at least I shifted the worst part away and changed that outcome. I haven't quite yet figured out how to take a nightmare and just make it a good dream. It's like the bad part leaves a shadow that doesn't quite go away. But it's better.
So after I woke up from the dream I thought what a great skill that would be in real life. You are having just an awful day and you stop and think, nope, this is not how this is going to go, let's back up and start again. And then you shift a few things. The coffee doesn't spill. The shirt doesn't rip. The accident never happens. The day might still not be great, but at least it wouldn't be awful right?
Except, of course, there are those times where you are having a spectacular day and you run in to someone who is having a terrible day. If they restarted their day would it screw up yours? Would you be in the middle of an excellent day and have it start again and have things subtly shift so it wasn't nearly as great? Still a good day, but the ripple of change would make it less than excellent.
And would we ever get out of a day? I mean there is always someone who would want to shift and restart just to make it better, or perfect, or just to fuck with someone else. What would the rules be? Or would it be like lucid dreaming? Some people can do it and some people can't. And some people are like me and can change certain things but not others while other people could create something entirely new out of whole cloth?
How many times in one day could you back up and start again? And would you need permission from everyone involved? Like in my dream I just backed up the dream. The people in the dream had no say because they weren't real. But if you could actually do it? The people would have their own days going as well and might not take too kindly to you backing it up while they were trying to move forward. And if you had to have everyone in the area agree to back up and start again how long would it take to reach the agreement?
And as I thought about all of these things I realized...this is why I have insomnia.
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