Soundbyte Psychology

On nights when I sleep six hours instead of three, I almost always spend the time in lucid. It’s a practice I’ve lived for almost a decade. At this point, it is somewhat rare to run into anything “new” in the Dreaming. Because it’s stuck like a thorn in my mind, I have to get it out. This morning, in my main study in the Dreaming, a clock showed up where a book should be on a stand. This isn’t odd, in fact it’s normal. What was not normal was that the clock actually had a time on it that stood still and could be read. It read “11:15″. I had to know, was it the correct time? A clock had never shown the time before. So I woke up, turned on my computer and looked at the time. 11:18. It was a minute or two off. I looked around for a clock, anything I could have picked up the time from, and came away empty. It seems such a small thing, but it is a real anomaly to me as the world of dreams works rather predictably and being able to actually tell time in the Dreaming is not one of those things. Any other walkers reading this, I’d love to hear your experiences with clocks. Do they work for anyone else? I mean, hell, can you even read them?

You’ve been at the fair for some time now. You’ve ridden the rides, laughed with your friends and had more than a bit too much funnel cake. In fact, you likely shouldn’t have shared that cotton candy with your friends. You can feel it. The heat of the day and the rides has worn on you. You’re ready to leave. . except there is that one friend who wants to stay (isn’t there always). Your desire to leave is less than their desire to stay, so you stay. Day drags towards night. You feel you could almost pass out, or throw up, or whichever comes first. Then it happens. The sun begins to set. The sky colors and it seems the sound of those throughout the fair quiets ever so slightly as if you are not the only one to notice the sunset. Finally, as the light has fled almost entirely, lights begin to turn on in explosions as the rides, booths and games of the fair are all lit in explosions. They color the air itself in this moment between day and night, so that it is almost surreal. It is still the same fair that you couldn’t stand for the past few hours, but it isn’t. It’s transformed. You feel energized, charged – dare I say ‘enchanted’? You can’t believe that just minutes ago you felt like dying. You feel like you could stay up all night in this new wonderland all around you. Your own laughter grows louder, more energetic, joining the raised volume of those around you as nightfall is assured. This is the moment that changes everything. The moment in between one world and next. The moment in mixing when one song becomes another.

You didn’t think I was really talking about the fair, did you?