Sunday 24 October 1999
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Pic of the day: Fall has come to the forest, as seen through my living room window on a rainy day. I did not venture out doors today at all. ... Not the best start of the day: After less than two hours of sleep, I woke up gasping for breath. (Incidentally, this was during a dream. A dream in which horses of various colors were dancing and singing and occasionally rolling around on their backs, kicking their hooves in the air. It all started by someone deciding not to hide in fear but to tell the truth in a public place, despite the bullies. I am no longer sure if the person was man, horse, or something inbetween. I think it was a human, but I won't swear on it.) I think I should go see a doctor who is less interested in psychology and more in allergy. The way my throat and nose go all stuffy in two hours reminds me of the bad old days. And the recent widespread rash on my legs makes me suspect some kind of allergy too. I am scared at the thought that it might be some dust mote allergy or such. While I'm not friendly with dust bunnies and such larger species, I am not at all the type to keep the apartment squaky clean of dust. I prefer to wait until it is clearly visible and easy to collect. I might even have to throw out some of the layers of useless junk that has gathered in my apartment over the years! Aaaiiieee!After sitting up for an hour or so, I ventured to bed again. But again after two hours I woke up when my air passages ran full. And again I woke up from a dream. This was a long dream, in which I first lived in a shoddy cabin made out of planks. Through a thin hole between two planks I could first see in the distance a supposed gay man wandering around. Later a small boy would come and wake me up when I tried to sleep in the hut. He was quite hostile, and finally transformed into a falcon. I transformed into an eagle. I do not remember what happened while I was an eagle, but afterwards I gulped up feathers and stuff. Gaah. The dream brightened, however, as I found myself first on a luxury cruise ship surrounded by friends. And finally, the last minutes before waking, I was sitting in the back seat of a car which Al Schroeder was driving. (Well, it sure looked like him.) There were also two teen girls in the back seat, one of which moved up on my lap and asked me to support her (physically, I assumed, not financially) as we drove along a winding road that was pretty rough by their standard. Obviously the roads in Gjerstad were being repaired and improved at the time we drove through. Al was driving nice enough, but the girls were still restless. At least the blonde on my lap. I was dimly aware through our various clothes of the small movements of her behind against my lap and the soft touch of her left breast against my arm. But my mind was really on the financial news on the car radio, detailing how a local firm had maneuvered itself into a very good strategic position that would allow it to buy back gold at way below market prices.At this point I woke up, and coughed a while. (Needless to say, I take no responsibility for whatever Al and the teenagers did after I left...) Whereas I resent the lack of sleep (and breath), I must admit that this night has given me an unusual opportunity to look into the way dreams regulate mood in normal people. For rather specific values of normal: I'm referring to two minor articles, one of them in Psychology Today latest issue, about how dreams differ between some clinically depressed people and the rest of the world. Most of us have dreams that start out rather unpleasant but improve through the night, leaving us in a better mood next morning. This is more pronounced the darker the mood in the evening. But in these depressed people, the dreams grow worse through the night, and they wake up feeling more depressed than before. Sleep deprivation may actually help them somewhat. (With the rest of us, it is the other way around, though actually I felt pretty good this morning as I wrote down the history of the night.) ... Before noon I was coughing a lot, to no avail. I cooked a lot of water to breathe in the steam, and after quite a while I got better again. This definitely reminds me of bad old days with the asthma, and steels my resolve to see another doctor if possible. I expect this night to be approximately like the last. As long as I wake up in time to breathe, I can live. I slept a few short naps through the day. This seems to be quite an efficient way of sleeping. Too bad I can't do this at the office. People there wake me up pretty fast with their computer problems. I'm sure I could do with significantly less sleep if I were able to nap when tired. All this aside, a nice and peaceful Sunday. Played various computer games, read my mailing lists and Usenet posts. It's been a bit hectic at times and I appreciated the time to look into a few new topics. I have a lot of funny topics in my head: What would the Internet do if it woke up to self awareness? Would it tell anybody? And are parasitism the way to gender equality? (Why bear children when friendly animals can do it for you?) Why is the Near Future always 20 years ahead and why are we not gaining on the flying cars and large flat TV screens and lunar colonies and manned expeditions to Mars? In the 60es it would all happen in the 80es, now it's 2020. And so on and so Forth.But it's not really important. Very few things are. My teacher, 23 years ago, told me that all poetry is about love and death. I can see that now. Love and death (or rather love and life) are important. The rest is optional. |