Usually when I’m dead sober for a few days straight, I have extremely vivid dreams. It all happened while transitioning from graduating with a Bachelor of Humanities to beginning a Master of Fine Arts. It took me about a month to decide that I couldn’t get a job anywhere for just the summer, prior to moving, and decided to live off the rest of my savings and scholarship money, only spending it on rent, bills, and ramen-Jello-miso. Needless to say, I developed C.Diff and a focus on lucid dreaming that still remains strong when my mind is completely clear.
The only thing I focused on was staying alive until the fall semester, so I slept when I wanted, woke up when I wanted, ate when I wanted, and dangled whenever I wanted. Thus, not having a controllable 9-to-5 jorb was a blessing because my dream cycle was by choice, rather than an initiative or demand of my time. Every night, I had the realest, most controllable dreams that took me places I can only achieve in a dream state of mind. So much so that remembering would require falling back asleep, recalling these situations, and “reliving” them to an extent of non-reality.
Cut to last night, I’ve been up for a weird amount of hours, and just finally DECIDE (as my vacation days run thin) to fall asleep. Once I do, my sober mind takes me into the fifth dimension of housing that I’ve slept within the past five days, and I’m terrified. I can only see the road ahead and behind me. My eyes are blinded when looking at what’s along the road. I’m completely lost and have no idea where I am or going. And these shadowy figures are moving a few feet ahead of and behind me. I know they can hear me, but they don’t respond.
I wake up and fall asleep, and I’m in the room I’m asleep within and these figures still don’t respond. I probably yell my wife’s name a lot, or maybe not, and just stay awake until I’m in Penn Station answering e-mails, knocking on holes in the walls asking for Andrew, but always receive the answer, “Andrew is gone,” followed up with, “Your Drama!” I dunno if it’s just a blend of stress, dream, and lack of wifi, but my phone ain’t cutting it. So I flick on the new AyGeeTee album via Seagrave Records entitled Ask Not Why, my wife asks what that sound is, but I realize I’m still in a dream, so I’ll hear it in the morning.