The World, Dreaming

June 6, 2023

In the real world as in dreams, nothing is quite what it seems. ~~ Dean Koontz

I spent quite a long time after awakening, believing—knowing—the dream was real. I accepted it unquestioningly, for it was as solid as the bed upon which I lay. In fact, it did not occur to me to question. It simply was.

If we are creating our reality, and my reality this morning consisted of what I dreamt, does that mean that physical reality matched my perception? If I looked outside, would our house be atop a hill, and would it be surrounded by the golden summer grass of Lafayette, rather than the flat green dampness of foggy Central Coastal California?

*****

Nothing is quite aligned this morning. I overslept by a solid hour. It rained during the night—nearly unheard of in summertime Santa Barbara. I thought about I Madonnari, and the rain swiftly destroying the laboriously created chalk paintings in front of the Mission, colors blurring and running in rivulets down the slanted asphalt parking lot, the enormous, highly detailed paintings dissolving without a trace.

I’m still in a suspended state, the overcast sky making it seem much earlier than it is. There are other things that feel odd today, illuminating my sense of what is real through a slightly off-kilter lens. 

I wonder if this is what it’s like to experience a tiny dose of a psychedelic drug, LSD perhaps? Not enough to incapacitate, but sufficient to nudge one out of the rut of believed possibility and onto a glowing pathway that sparkles even without the sun shining upon it.

This feeling that my “reality“ is not at all what I’ve perceived could be disturbing. But I wonder, is it a tiny sip from the magical goblet of 5D? I’m sure once I enter into the slipstream of the day, the slightly askew perception will drop away, and what I call normal will slot back into place.

*****

Perhaps the oddest part of this odd experience is that I’m not alarmed by the feeling that my senses have been altered without my intervention. It’s as if the state of dreaming left a door open even though I woke up hours ago. I can reach through the doorway at any time, enter that equally real reality that is not confirmed by physical senses. Explore that alluring sidetrack that runs parallel to the ordinariness of my daily walk through life.

I don’t know where I am, exactly, but I’m not here. I just shifted a chiropractor’s appointment to later this week, for surely in a few days I’ll have returned to my usual mundane, physical self. I’m pretty sure if I went today the experience would be surreal, bones malleable as molten glass, adjustments as ephemeral as the dream in which I’m floating today.