Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Somebody pinch me....

There's an old cliche: "Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming." The underlying idea is that if you are asleep, and someone pinches you, you will wake up, and end the dream. But is it that easy?

I have just awoken from a bizarre, multi-level dream, where I repeatedly decided that I must be dreaming. Weird stuff was happening. I had a new job. My brother and father were alive. I had different kids than the little Joggers. So I would recognize that this could not be real, and I would try to escape the dream. And it would work. But I would escape into a new dream, which may or may not have had bizarre details of its own. I would wander around for a while, convincing myself that this, at last was real. But wait, what's this? We now live in Midland, Texas? Is this still a dream? Every once in a while, I would emerge to actual reality, my own bed in what I believe is "real life," and I'd think, thank goodness that's over. And I'd sink back into dreamland.

When the alarm finally went off, my first thought was, "Thank God." I oozed out of bed and literally, seriously wandered around, making sure that this time, I really was awake, and everything is real.

I've had this type of dream before. (Mrs. Jogger, who claims never to have a dream-within-a-dream, thinks its weird.) But this one was so...I don't know, compelling...that it really shook me up.

Sorry for such a bizarre post. I just had to write about it while the feeling was still fresh in my mind. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Jogger.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nephew:
You have a Step-great grandfather and his family that were from Midland, Texas so the dream is even weirder than you thought.
Love
Uncle Not A.

Anonymous said...

MAYBE IT'S GENETIC. I TOO HAVE THESE LAYERED DREAMS. MOST OFTEN THE CHARACTERS ARE REAL BUT THE SETTING IS OFF, OR LIKE YOUR BROTHER AND FATHER THE CHARACTERS ARE NO LONGER WITH US. TRYING TO DESCRIBE THESE DREAMS TO SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T HAVE THEM IS FRUSTRATING. COUSIN JOGGER IN LAW LOOKS AT ME LIKE I SHOULD BE ON PHSYC. MEDS.

Jason @ PSB said...

I love dreams. Dreams within dreams are few and far between for me, but I do have a lot of dreams where I am sleeping or sleepy in the dreams.

USJogger said...

Uncle: I knew we had a Texas branch, although I don't know if I knew it reached to Midland in particular. There's probably another reason why that town was buried in my sub-conscious, because of the name of my former employer.

Cousin: Tell me about it. Mrs. J never has dreams within dreams, and she thinks that I'm a total weirdo. I've given up talking to her about it. Now I just blog it.