The Two Contenders

Well, I've been up since around 4 a.m.

I'm an extremely active dreamer.  Almost every night I have some sort of epic dream and, quite frankly, it's exhausting.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love them, but at times I get so into remembering them and writing them down and analyzing them that I can't find any time for actual rest and rejuvenation.  In the past, to better remember my dreams, I've kept a blank sheet of paper and a sharpie by my bed.  When I wake up from a dream, I clumsily lean over and jot down, in the dark of my apartment (which isn't really that dark what with the fire escape lights and all), a few key words to help me better remember my dreams the next morning.  I tried using a regular pen but found I couldn't see what I was writing, hence the sharpie.

After a night of that, I wake up to find a couple of sheets of paper with such cryptic clues as "old playground, bubble stank, hits with miss, the one that isn't on the right of things but is."

Sometimes I'm able to jump right back into the dream and type it all out in my little computer dream journal, but other times I just stare blankly at it and mutter, "...the hell?"

Last night I tried keeping my phone by the bed with the voice memo app all ready to go.  I would wake up and mumble my dream into the phone and then try to fall back asleep.  After my four o'clock dream, I couldn't go back to sleep.

And then there's sleep paralysis.  Know what this is?  Well, I'll tell you.  When you go to sleep, your body locks up so you don't act out all of those things in your dreams.  People who sleepwalk have a body that won't lock up.  I have the opposite problem.  I'll wake up when my body is still paralyzed.  It can be a very frightening experience.  This phenomenon has been recorded throughout history, but usually thought of as demonic possession or "hag attacks."  It's neither.  It is also not an alien abduction.

You do have, however, weird waking dreams or hallucinations during these moments of paralysis.  At times I'll wake up in this frozen state and be convinced someone is in the room and that I'm vulnerable to whatever perversions the intruder has in mind.  I'll struggle and fight to move, uttering little pathetic noises, sometimes even forming the word "help," until I finally jerk awake.  This jerk is often accompanied by a scream.

But there was one time I was simply too exhausted to jerk out of it.  I fell into the waking dream and it became a fantastic experience.

So it all started the same...I woke up and couldn't move.  I was completely aware that I was in my little studio apartment and in this state of paralysis.  So I started struggling when the hallucination bit started.  It seemed as though the front door of my apartment was opening.  I saw through dreaming eyes what I later described as Satan's bedroom.  There were maroon silk curtains covering the back wall and a bed with silver sheets.  Out of the bed rose a large and extremely fit African-American man in silver silk boxers.  He started to stride towards me.

I noticed that in the bed was an overweight, pony tailed, balding white man curled up and facing away.  I wondered if this was somehow me in the future.  And then I had the following thought:

"Oh shit...is this the dream that tells me I'm gay?"

Suddenly, I found this situation to be extremely funny.  I had never made it this far in a state of paralysis.  Usually I was able to jerk myself awake before the danger got too close.  But here I was suddenly finding it all very amusing.  And then I was able to start lucid dreaming...taking control of the dream.  I conjured up a banana and asked the silver boxered man if he wanted a bite.  Nothing like a nice phallic dream symbol to lighten the mood.

And that's when the magic happened.  Suddenly from my left a man in a full white tux came shuffling over to me and asked me, with a smile, to come with him.  So I followed and found myself in a beautiful sun streaked marble courtyard filled with people.

Then, a woman's voice, in my head, told me that these were the people that I would meet in my life.  I looked around and saw a very tall and lanky red headed young man.  "Who is that guy?" I asked.

"He just had a small part in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  They aren't all going to be stars."

Suddenly there was this very cute blonde girl hugging me and looking up with seductive eyes into mine.  "Who is this?"

"She's a distraction."

And then I was introduced to The Two Contenders.

The first was a young woman to my right.  She was dressed in blue.  She may or may not have had white pants.  She wasn't looking at me but straight ahead.  Her hair was short and curly and a dark brown, almost black.

The second was a young woman further back, behind the crowd.  She was wearing a bright green bikini, not in a sexy way, but just in a girl wearing a bathing suit kind of way.  She, too, had dark brown hair, but hers was straight with bangs.

I woke up firmly believing that I had somehow tapped into something important.  By overcoming fear with humor, I rocketed into some sort of deep journey into my subconscious.  What does it all mean?  I have some theories, but really I have no idea.

If you are, however, one of the Two Contenders or you know where I might find one or the other (or the set), please let me know.

Ok, thanks for reading.  I'll talk to you later.