Dream Within A Dream

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Dear blog.

I've ALMOST managed to control myself having a dream within a dream. This time I went four levels deep and I failed to wake up in time.

Not joking.

Thanks to the movie Inception some people might have tried this dream within a dream concept. In the movie we have a gang of dream infiltrators who "went deeper" into someone's dream by putting him or her to sleep to think it's just a dream if things get messed up. Then they infiltrate that dream and ask another subject to sleep again to access into another dream to be infiltrated. It sounds so complicated it's cool.

What happened?

It was very blue, could be early morning. I was standing amongst the ruins of an apartment complex with a few other armed people scouring the place. Something was really wrong here and I was on a mission to do something important. As I walked along the ledge I stopped and everyone started shouting or shooting. Then came plant/alien/tentacles hybrid creatures terrorizing the place. Phuck this I'm waking up. So much for playing Aliens vs Predator and watching Species.

I was at work and realized I was needed at another location at 3:30pm. I was dead late because it was already 3:30pm when I started driving my car. I was driving was ridiculously fast. By the time I was 80% near my destination, my tachymeter watch showed that it was already 3:50pm (it's a 3 km drive). I was going to be late. Then I got the kick. Today is June 2nd, still Gawai holiday. And why did it take me 20 minutes to drive 3 km?! This must be a dream. Then I woke up.

When I woke up I was still late. I looked at my watch and I was late for another task somewhere else. As I rushed (again) to the destination I looked at my watch. HANG ON. I don't own a tachymeter wristwatch! And my generic wristwatch was permanently dead last Monday. Today is June 2nd, Thursday. This must be a dream. So I woke up.

A sigh of relief. I woke up and I was still on my bed. Logic, compared to waking up and suddenly finding yourself with important tasks you didn't remember accepting. So I updated my Facebook status saying:

Had 4 levels of dream today.
1st Post apocalyptic aliens/plants/tentacles invasion.
2nd Late going to somewhere and woke up when I remembered it's Gawai holidays.
3rd Late again and woke up when I realized I don't own a tachymeter watch that told me I'm late.
4th

WAIT. I can't remember the 4th one. Why is my memory a blur? How did I end up typing with my laptop's keyboard when I was typing the status on my iPhone a few seconds ago? Oh look my dream is collapsing. Then I woke up.

This time for real. I woke up at 9:22AM. I was not late for anything because it was still the holidays. No alien tentacles thingy. No tachymeter watch. And my old watch is still dead. My Facebook too remained unchanged. This is the world as how I remembered when I left it.

How to Enter Multilevel Dreams?

It's rare but feasible. Work hard the whole day. Either you sweat it out or you squeeze your brains out. Drink warm water before you sleep. Non-alcohol or non-caffeinated. A mug would do. Then when you sleep, you'll face three possibilities:

1. You go into deep sleep. All you remember is just blackness.
2. You go into minimum 2 levels. What happens after that is purely your will to wake up.
3. I'm no neurologist but you might:

• Feel a 'tug' on you feet, forcing you to wake up. Your body's natural 'kick' alarm.
• You feel like falling, or dream about doing work. You'll wake up tired.
• Isn't that DiCaprio? And why is Ken Watanabe shuffling in my dream?
• You wake up late and miss your ride to work/campus.

On a side note you'll switch dreams when you are almost killed, when something decisive is about to happen, or when you realized it's a dream. Having "totems" or things to help you check if it's a dream is impossible. You'll only have logic to beat or get out of a dream. And time doesn't slow down in dreams. What felt like an hour of dreams, you'll wake up realizing it's been 2 hours. That's why "Mmmm just one more minute" ends up "Holy shrimp! It's 12pm!".

DISCLAIMER: I'm not responsible if you get killed and ends up in a limbo or unconstructed dreamspace.

More about dreams here.