They’re Watching

When I first began documenting my dreams, I did so in great detail for a year and posted them online. I included names of people I knew and highlights personal to me. The vulnerability of exposing such an intimate part of myself online terrified me. I deleted the posts and eventually burnt the journal in a symbolic fire to “let go” of the nightmares. I avoided my dreams and fell back into unhealthy sleep habits again. Soon, my imagination began to dry up.

After a couple of years of running away from my greatest gift, I eventually surrendered myself to deep sleep and began to journal again. I allowed myself to become vulnerable to the world again. And it is beautiful. Like a rose of Jericho, my imagination was resurrected by this ongoing rain of dreams and nightmares.

In this particular dream, I can only interpret it as my “homecoming” to being vulnerable again to this modern world of hidden, online critics. My dreams no longer shame me nor am I frightened of offending someone with these messages and inspiration. Even posting these entries here, on my website, is just another “pin hole camera” in the wall of society, ready to deal me their judgement and opinion. To that, I say, “bring it.”

Don’t Sleep

One of my most memorable episodes of sleep paralysis was also the one which liberated me from my fear of falling asleep and dreaming. For anyone not familiar with sleep paralysis, you can read up on it by researching “hypnagogic hallucinations.”

During this episode, I woke up paralyzed in the dark. Breathing is slow, you can’t blink nor fall back asleep. Like a finger-trap toy, fear pulls you in harder and makes it difficult to break free. Stuck between the physical and the metaphysical world, I felt a presence enter my room. I felt it grab my legs and pull me off my bed and onto my floor, where it proceeded to pull me under my bed. Inch by inch, I watched my room move past me. Still petrified from fear, I surrendered; I made peace with the situation and my perceived death.

Then… I woke up. I no longer fear sleep.