mymachinedream
I have been spending the last few days trying to figure out what is going on. I can’t tell if this is a prison, or if the whole thing is just a dream that I can’t wake up from. I noticed that the dreams i do have never seem to show my face. Never seem to show a reflection in anything that you would normally expect. I know that I should see my face back in a reflection in a window or a car, or something, but there isn’t anything there at all.
My mind keeps going into itself. I keep returning to these same thoughts over and over. Like a note that keeps playing in my mind. Everything i do to distract myself from this thought seems to end up pulling me back. So maybe that is something. Is this what i am supposed to think about? Will it stay in my mind until i have looked at it from every angle? Smoothed out the rough edges and sanded it down to a sphere?
I was breeding beetles last night. I had buckets of them. Buckets of larva, crawling and seeking food. Buckets of pupae, turning into something new. Buckets of beetles, scratching and scritching looking for mates.
It is fading. Already it is fading and falling away. So strange how the moments like this fall away. The sounds and the smells seem like the would never leave my mind. Like I would spend the rest of my time on earth thinking of this one thing. Over and over, and repeating in my mind that moment. But it washes away. Sooner than I think it would go. Where does it go, when it falls away from my mind. What falls away first.
I keep wondering what i lose first. What part of the dream, what part of the memory fades first. It seems the first thing i lose is the sound. I remember so many memories, and find myself filling in the sounds around what I know the sound must have been. I remember what rain sounds like, and my brain just puts the sound of rain into my dreams. But this, the first thing going is the feeling. The touch and the sense of pressure. I remember from just a moment back that I could feel the pressure of my stomach and the feeling of tightness and skin. Now though, i can’t remember the exact feeling.
The smell though, i remember the smell. It was coming from this white spread across his skin. He smelled like new bread. Yeasty and fresh. The smell of all growing things, of a health i can’t remember anything in the world smelling like. If this was a smell of the beginning and the smell of all wholesome thing. It is so hard to explain. So hard to put some basic things into words. How to explain something so pure and unique. It wasn’t like yeast and bread, but my brain thought that was the smell. It reminded me of earth, but that wasn’t the smell. It smelled clean, but also not clean. How can one thing have so many different descriptors.
This memory like everything else is receding. Falling away and slowly becoming background. Memory that will still be tucked away, but like a silent movie. No sound or feeling or connection, just this thing there sitting in my mind. I remember reading a book somewhere that tells that the more that you think about something, the more it isn’t real. Your mind can’t remember all the details and starts to replace things. The sounds weren’t right. Then your mind goes about convincing you that they were that way the whole time. Then you can’t remember anything but what you inserted into the memory.
I know this is what is happening to me. As i speak, my mind is filing away all these moments, and is replacing them with things that are false. And then my brain can’t remember that they are false, and goes about rebuilding them and convincing itself it is true.
Will i forget my son? Will i forget the smell of new bread that came off his skin so clearly? What happens to this, and was this real in the first place? Can someone bring this back to me to remember.
This was a dream that stood up on it’s own. Like something out of someone’s life that wasn’t mine. It must have been someone else, but It is harder and harder to tell the difference. I saw it all so clearly, so perfect. I almost felt the emotions, but there was this wall of glass between what was happening and what I was feeling. Like looking in on something in a fishtank. Swimming and living, and distinct. I remember the feelings though, and the smell. Like a list of characters, and words. Symbols of what I was seeing and what was attached to each event.
I have to remember this, and start to put it into some form that stays in my mind. Things seem to slip away sometimes, and they should be there, but they aren’t. I know that I need to remember this, but at the same time if it fades like the other memories, i feel like i will still have it with me. It needs to remain, it has to feel burnt into place.
I remember the feeling of the birth, the body and the pain. I remember the feelings of my stomach pulling itself inward. Pain was so sharp, but after so long, it was like the pain was who i was. I couldn’t remember a time when i didn’t hurt, and it was now just a core part of me. I remember also this sense of peace. Like this was right and this was human. Something that was beyond my understanding and also so pure that it didn’t even need to be understood.
I remember the feeling that somehow I was a string, and i was in the process of tying another piece of string to mine. Like I needed to badly tie a knot between us, and let this string start to unwind from me. But at the same time, it was connected to me. It threw my mind back, and I realized that I was connected to a thread, and so was that thread. We were the warp, the woof was everyone passing along the thread to hold it in place. The warp was unending and timeless.
But then the pain, the feeling of being too tight. My whole body felt too tight. Like the skin couldn’t hold what I was doing in any longer. Something was bursting out, and needing to be freed or I would rip apart. Come apart at the seams and fall to pieces. This feeling was something so new, and so primal. I couldn’t tell you how long each burst last. It seemed timeless and too short at the same moment. Something so much a part of me that I knew i couldn’t forget. At the same time though I knew that my brain was washing itself in a way to make this pain fall away. Something to keep the moment at bay.
My son was being born. I remember that moment. The moment it came back to me what was happening. What was being done. What was going on, and what it meant for me and every thread going back down the line above me. Every line that would be held in place by his. Something was happening, and I could feel it so clearly.
This memory seems so real. I just need a moment to think, a moment to reflect. Maybe if I close my eyes for a minute, the details will be clear. The moment will seem real, or i will know if that was me. Did I have this memory?
It is here again. I heard it. Farther away this time. Down the hall? Why do i feel like the sound is in a hallway. I was laying here on my back. Always on my back. I heard a knock. Again a single knock. It echoed down a long room, or a hallway of some kind. The sound was bouncing in the quiet, and something like that seems so much deeper and significant when it is the only sound you hear. I remember exactly what i was doing. Normally this would have taken all my concentration.
I was noticing my fingers. I could feel the edge of a nail catching on the sheets over my hands. I had never noticed something like this before. It seemed rough, like a nail was cut wrong, and the edge was sharp. This gentle tugging of fabric against my nail. Just enough of an annoyance that I can’t get it out of my mind. Like a tiny splinter in your finger that keeps snagging against your pocket. But this one was in my nail. The thing that I can’t figure out is how the pressure against the sheets changed if my hands never move. Did my hand move while i slept? And how did my nail get a rough edge. Were did that come from? How did it get cut.
Then that knock. That sound. It sounded like a hand on wood, but my door doesn’t look like wood. Are there more doors of materials that are different than mine. Maybe mine is wood too and I just am not seeing it correctly. It would be so much easier if i could stand and open the door. See what lies beyond this place, see what is in the hallway at least. See something beyond the walls and the ceiling. To escape dreaming for a moment of movement and freedom. Can a sound really die down. Is the sound moved from the source into the objects it touches. Slight vibrations shifting the outer layers of atoms, moving them slightly faster as they absorb the kinetic energy of the sound.
If the atoms of my walls speed up enough, maybe they will shatter away, or slowly dissolve into gas, or vibrate into nothingness. I don’t know what would happen. How many knocks would that take, how many hands on doors would it take till the walls themselves have enough energy to open up.
That nail though. Is that something i can keep track of. If i remember it today, but after waking don’t feel the pull of the sheet, does that mean my hand moved? Does that mean someone moved the sheet? Cleaned and trimmed my nails? Removed the nails all together. Would it be a sign that I am changing in this place, or that the place around me is changing and I can change with it. The nail might be everything I need to change where I am, or at least move my hands. I know that or the nail will pick at me, and i will feel the sheet pulling against me forever.
Something occurred to me this morning. At least i think it is morning. I can’t really tell anymore. I don’t have any windows, and the lights never change. Well I should say the brightness never changes, since I can’t see any lights. Everything just is this even whiteness that says florescent lights are somewhere here. However, from what I can see, I don’t see any bulbs. Or fixtures. It is like everything just is bright. Like the objects themselves emit light. Wait, this isn’t what occurred to me. I can’t remember if I have already talked about the light. Regardless, it isn’t what I was thinking about while i lay here this morning. Who is keeping me clean? I realized that my skin for what I can feel of it, seems smooth and polished. No rough edges, no dryness or cracked fingers. Nothing seems out of place. I don’t think i can smell myself, but I don’t have a good point of reference for what I would smell like. So it seems that someone must be cleaning me in some way. Someone must be here while I am dreaming and washing me right?
This makes me stop and think that there must be a crew in this place. I have never seen a cobweb in my view. I haven’t seen dust floating in the air. I never smell any food or anything living. Other than the single knock, I don’t feel like I have heard any sounds. No clocks, no feet in the hall, nothing human or even machine. Why can’t i hear the walls creaking, or the sounds of water flushing somewhere, or anything that would go with the sounds of a living building. It seems that there would be some sound or smell that would give away something. Could it be that all the maintenance happens while I am asleep? Maybe that is the answer.
Could it be that while I am dreaming a whole cast of people come out and take care of the conditioning of the building and my body. Maintain the building and dust and wash. I haven’t really thought about that, but maybe that explains the quiet. Maybe this isn’t the morning. Maybe I wake up at night, when the quiet of the place jarred me awake and makes me try to figure things out. Maybe my dreams are the lulling sleep of the movement of all the life in the building and when everyone is here, i am gone.
Back to my hands, that is what makes me feel like there is something to this, my hands are too smooth. The skin feels flawless. No roughness and no issues with my nails. Nothing to make me think that they aren’t well cared for and clean. But I know that I am not cleaning them, and I don’t remember the feeling of anyone washing my hands, or trimming my nails. Wouldn’t that wake me up from my sleep? Wouldn’t someone holding my hand while they cleaned it move me? Maybe the movement is so gentle that i don’t notice it as I dream my dreams.
I was so cold last night. Beyond what I think cold can be. A frozen feeling so deep, i could feel my marrow turn to crystal. Some lattice formed in my veins, and moved through my blood. a form of ice that moved into all parts of me. I don’t know how to describe the feeling. Knowing that each cell the lattice touched was a part of a chain, linking from cell to cell. Everything becoming frozen. What does that mean in a dream. I know what the feeling of the crystal was. What the feeling of resonance was, and in each cell the slow thrum. Thrum is the word that comes to mind but it isn’t right. It was something between a wave of a thrumming string, and a whirling motion of a whirlpool.
It started enough like everything else to seem so normal. Normal i guess must be relative to me, since as long as i can remember I have been here in this room and this bed. For me though, it started as most of my dreams do. Just things happening like watching a movie. Knowing that you are in a movie, but not able to stop the frames, or move the point of view. Then something reached out from the dream and touched my hand. Right behind the middle knuckle of my right hand. That is when it happened. The point of contact, i could feel it down to the atom. The movement was like two spinning spheres going in opposite directions coming in contact. The speed was the same, and they seemed to cancel themselves out. It felt like a bike wheel stopping in space, and all the momentum moving back to the frame and throwing me forward. Every bit of the energy from that stopped the next cell.
I remember gasping, pulling my breath in like it was the last thing that I would ever do. Knowing that this can’t be happening. Feeling this frozen cold spreading like sparks of electricity up from my hand. I remember I looked down at my hand, and didn’t know what it was. Looking at it, i could almost see the change happening. Knowing that the spread was starting. I could feel each piece of matter stop. It felt like a clockwork gear that was only held together by the force of motion. Then, the smallest gear stopped moving and fell out of place. The next stopped because the first wasn’t there to push it. It felt like a cascade of pieces moving out of place.
I felt this unknowing terror at this, and remember my left hand grabbing my right wrist and knowing that this was pointless. Like a person bitten by a snake as they reached under a log. You pull back and grab your hand, but there isn’t a way to stop what has started. The poison was inside of me then, and would follow it’s course. The body wasn’t meant to have parts stop. The system had no way to deal with this, or a way to partition the frozen portions before the hazard spread and moved beyond the point of collision. I can’t even remember who touched my hand, or what they were doing in my dreams. Everything focused on the point and the feeling of danger. Now I am awake again, and can’t look down to see what my body is doing.
I was walking this morning. Walking around on the sidewalk. So normal, just walking along. It was cold out, and misty. Not raining exactly, but not dry either. Like tiny droplets that you can feel on your skin. Not enough to feel like you are getting wet, but wet enough to know it isn’t dry. The ground was foggy, and the air was so crisp. So much sensory input. How can someone process through all of this at the same time. How many filters do we put into what we see. How much into what we feel. I know I was walking because my field of view was changing. I know that much at least.
The thing I don’t understand is that I don’t seem to remember that my feet were on the ground. I know they must have been, but I seemed to move with this steady force. A gate that wasn’t a gate. Like i had motion stabilization turned onto a video. Everything seemed smooth in a way that seemed more and more normal to me, but I knew was wrong. I can’t seem to understand why. And why could i feel each bit of moisture touching my skin. But only on my face. The rest of my body was covered. Everything was covered. Just my face exposed to the air.
I know that I was moving, but my body seems to have forgotten what movement is. What the feel of my feet on the ground is. I don’t remember looking down while i walked, so how did i know i was on the sidewalk. I guess i could see it in the distance and know as it disappeared before me, that I must have been moving towards it.
The trees, i wish i could put these into words. Cold, and tired and sleeping trees. No leaves really, or few left. Framed by the light, and the fog. The mist around them, and yet i can see them so clearly in my mind. How is it that I can see them so clearly. They don’t seem three dimensional, they seem to be some sort of cutout. I remember looking at them, and walking, and looking again. I almost thought I was trying to catch them turning on their access. Like i would see these two dimensional frames pivoting on an center access. Like a rendering of what trees were supposed to look like. If i just turned my head quick enough I would see them. Catch the edge of movement and know they weren’t really there. I know i should have walked down and touched them. Walked around them and seen.
Maybe i like this, this feeling of unreality. Is that why I don’t make a move to prove this is a real image? Or are these things stuck on a track, where I have these visions and they don’t let me move past them. Where I am on as much of a track as a pre-recorded video. And move along and view the scene as it passes. I don’t know if that is even possible.
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I had a dream. Another dream and another dream. Who is this for. Who are those folks seeing these dreams. I was driving. Everything seemed real and normal. How can something so boring as driving be so captivating that it is what i remember. I Remember looking to my right. I remember the feeling of my head moving and pivoting on my neck. I can’t remember what that feels like now, but it seemed so fluid and normal and basic when i dreamed it. Like nothing happened and my head looked right.
I was moving so fast when i looked. I saw this soft yellow glow. It was glowing in these squares. Huge squares of light, only lite around the edges. In the center were seats. Folks were sitting in the seats, and all facing the same direction. A lot of the seats were empty and the whole thing was like a row of these large windows, all lite up with this soft yellow light. Nothing odd about that, except I was moving forward, and the windows were even with me and not moving forward or backwards. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t moving away from these windows. The people looked so calm. Faces slack and neutral, and not even thinking that anything odd was happening. They were just sitting there.
I had to look away, and I remember my brain couldn’t understand what I was seeing. I didn’t get the point of what i was seeing. Why were these windows moving along with my car. I was so confused. I knew I had to look back, but I was so scared. What if this wasn’t real. What if I wasn’t seeing anything really happening, and this was the first break where my brain couldn’t accept what was happening. At the same time, i couldn’t not look. It was like something was controlling the muscles in my neck. I hoped that when I looked back, the windows would be gone. Or maybe still there. What happened to all the folks sitting in the windows?
I looked back, and then the motion was slightly off, and the windows were falling behind where i was. Suddenly, the lights made sense, I understood what I was seeing. It was like a card stock fell into place, and overlaid on top of my reality. It was such a mental change. Like everything fell into a different frame rate, or a different place was put on top of my base reality. The windows were on a train. In the dark, I couldn’t see the train, and only saw the windows outlined by the light from inside the train. I was keeping perfect pace with it, and it was moving like a solid object directly next to where I was driving.
All those people though, those faces. The slack look as they moved. I wondered about all of those faces. They seemed so unreal. I knew i couldn’t look back. I had to drive away and not think any more about those people on the train. The faces watching themselves move forward into somewhere down a track.