30 January 2007 Tuesday

This is the life that I choose

I’ve not really been remembering my dreams when I wake, but I’ve been having pretty realistic dreams, in line with —but not equal to— my current reality.

I remember them only at various points in the day when something reminds me that there was an alternate reality in my dream that would have made a current real scene different/untrue. And then, I can’t be sure the dream was from the immediately preceding night; it could well be from a night over the weekend or last week.

I think this dream is from last night, though:

Someone called to tell me his dream. After he told me his dream, I told him I’d had a dream about a family member of his, who was missing, but not really and not entirely..but not metaphorically either.. Anyway, his dream, as he told it to me, involved running away from something (I think bees, but I don’t remember..it might have been bears..or undefined) and running til he faced a little pier/dock that opened out into a body of salt water. Dunno if it was an ocean, a sea, or a lake or little pond. Just know that it was salt water and that it was about two to four feet between the surface of the pier/dock and the surface of the water. And that whatever he was running from/being chased from, it was scared of salt water or deathly allergic to salt or something, and he’d be safe as soon as he hit that water. But when he got to it, he stopped running, and looked at the water, and wasn’t sure if he should jump. And then I’m not sure if anything was chasing him anymore but he was still going to/supposed to jump into the water, but he stood on the dock instead.
I think he told me a bit more, but I don’t remember it.

I talked with Dad this morning about the theme — the hesitations, the theoretical timings.. A kid taking 5 seconds or 20 minutes to steel themselves up before leaping off a rock into a lake where friends are waiting for her, having already taken the leap before. Or someone running from pirates and meeting a cliff, and knowing they’ll be safe if they just leap off… And in the case of being chased by pirates, the decision’s much easier. Dad’s right — it’s free will that confuses us, makes things difficult for us, causes stress and fear, hesitation and regret. We get choices. We are (supposed to be) responsible for our decisions. It’s much easier to be told what to do, much easier to have our options narrowed down for us; let others decide what the molds are, what the truths are, what the choices are, and we can still feign choice by picking multiple choice out of what’s presented to us.

I’m scared of heights. I realize it’s a mental thing, though it feels very physical when I experience it. Nothing happened to me in my childhood to cause it. Some people are just..as they are. (I think at some point I might try to actively address it, but I’m not convinced it’s entirely unhealthy and I don’t like dropping from deep heights anyway.) I’m not categorically afraid of much else…or at least I’d (hopefully) do my darnedest to pretend I’m not.

I did leap off that rock. It did take me more than 5 seconds to do it, but less than 30 (felt like a long time…most of all I think I was trying to sort out my head with my body to be sure I would clear the cliff and rocks below, and survive the jump altogether) — much more than that and I would surely have psyched myself out of doing it, and that would have been pretty disappointing because I trekked up that rock with the agreement that I would do it; I would jump.

From here, I can take that analogy all over the place. But I’m feeling a little sad, so that’s where this ends.