it seems that the only time i get a chance to write nowadays is late at night. when the rest of the world is sleeping. i usually don't write about what i did that day, rather whatever just happened while i was brushing my teeth and thinking about what would be interesting to write about. often, by the time i do sleep it's already 3am-ish. most of the time, i'm the last in the household to go to sleep. it's so interesting to live in a house that breathes, that takes life even during the times that i'm out or asleep. by the time my bedside light goes out, m'kai has already been asleep for six hours into his bedtime of 5-year-olds, and mai-lei usually follows soon after. it is the presence of bodies, the comfort of soft exhale behind walls and wrinkling sheets that keeps me company. i don't know if i could live in a house where i could trace all detectable life back to me.

sleeping people detect that waking world. they furl their eyebrows to lights being turned on, rustle in their covers to loud unexpected noises. i personally do not have the gift of confusing the dream and waking lives. i watch myself in dreams from the comfort of my bed, behind closed eyelids, and sometimes even take control. i criticize myself, i have regrets. when people talk about dreams, they're always doing things. going places, seeing crazy shit, i wonder if everyone has thoughts in their dreams. what does it mean to be thinking in place of a character that you've thought up? is it much different from writing soliloquies in fiction? (sorry, i just watched being john malcovich again)

sarwat says she used to meet her brother in dreams and have conversations about it the next morning. they experienced it, lived, breathed it all together. the same thing in the end? mutually agreed-upon fantasies that are validated by consensus?

earlier tonight, m'kai woke up screaming. twisted on his mattress, eyes and fingers clenched. i held his handsome head in my arms while he fought residues of his subconscious. he doesn't do it often, but still often enough for me to notice. at times he'll cross back over to the world of the rest of us, still wearing the costume of his dream life. during those times, it's still real. things exist that still require the urgency to shout, resist, shed tears and make lungs sore, until his mother coos him back to sleep.

what would ever happen if you got stuck in a dream? frozen in vegetated state but supplanting physicality for the infinite space of dream and its possibilities. would you still hear your chest heave or the echoes of your snore behind the sky? would you just adapt, explain it as a way of the world, that the tides yawn and mountains turn onto their backs at times? or if you realized it all, found the point of awareness to be able to identify that you have been banished...would you be able to dream yourself out of your dream? or would you continue crawling into the portals of deeper dream-yous?

i heard somewhere that the way to get lost in dreams is to keep dreaming that you're dreaming, until you can't figure out how awake or asleep you actually are. whoaaa... i (unfortunately) can boast quite the opposite, i recognize dreams immediately. i call out inconsistencies like 80's b-movie mistakes, quick to criticize carpets for changing colors or new acquaintances for being celebrities. once i figure it out, it's difficult for me to continue the dream, regardless of if it was good or not. when i am able to continue the dream, it's the greatest, even as seldom as it happens. i'll humor myself, allow my slumbering body to be too aware of itself while i live out alternate possibilities and defy physics. probably the biggest giveaway, however, is that, as far as i can recall, i dream in third person. that is undoubtedly the biggest indication when i'm dreaming--when i can actually see myself doing what i'm doing. with something as obvious as that, it's a wonder that sometimes i take so long to realize myself.

but i guess ultimately it's a stretch, to think that being a writer, or a creator, or a narrator gives me more clout in dictating dreams. i don't know...does everyone else also see lucid dreaming as a desirable talent? maybe it's not as coveted a feat as i would assume for it to be. in my opinion, having full control over your dreams would be hotttt. i think with practice i can get back into the mode like i once was. anyway, it's not as hard as it seams. pssh...dreaming is easy--i can do it with my eyes closed.