Most likely because it isn't real. And if it is real, then I'm tuning into some seriously weird shit when I sleep.
For years, there's this place that I return to when I sleep. Not just a building, but I have a basic knowledge of direction, freeways (and associated exits), neighborhoods, smaller ethnic neighborhoods with fantastic eclectic hispanic shops and old, narrow streets. The coffee shop is attached to a gas station... a Shell, I believe. There is only a half counter but I can go there for coffee, even late at night at the edge of this one hispanic neighborhood.
It would seem that I enjoy this particular neighborhood. Being a tall redhead, I'd imagine I'd stick out like a sore thumb, yet I always find myself browsing the little shops there, happy as can be, barely able to contain my desire to go to the next block, then the next. There are people, but I interact with few. Most of them are unremarkable and I couldn't tell you anything about them. Just walking around there makes me feel happy, comfortable and completely at ease. Other than the one sunny day that I was getting off of a bus at the main intersection. And there on the corner was a shop with a full glass storefront. Shelf after shelf of very colorful dildos were on display in the entire window - had to have been at least two hundred. Heh, I remember thinking, 'wow, well that's new!' No one seemed to even give it a second thought. (Kind of like the chocolate boobs/penises displayed in Belgian chocolate shop windows.)
I find it odd that I keep going back to this place; especially lately. It's nowhere I've been yet I seem to know it intimately. I've done this before, going to different places where I keep building on it until it's akin to vacationing in the same place. Things are familiar yet you don't have full details. But you always seem to know the proper direction to go. This last time I missed an exit and knew precisely where to turn around to get back to where I needed to be.
When I wake up often depleted of energy it would not be hard for me to entertain the idea that I actually had been somewhere. To this place where I seem to be drawn repeatedly.
Perhaps when we are so disillusioned with our own world, we create another. Some do it with gaming, some with dissociative behavior; apparently I keep a very detailed travel guide in my head.
7 comments:
:-) I rather like this world of yours. When I was a child I would always daydream before sleep (actually, I still do). It was always the same place, a grassy field surrounded by stone walls and covered with tents in primary colours. It was a safe place. The places I go before sleep now are not quite so reassuring.
Do you ever find yourself lucid dreaming in this place?
GD
GD - It's nice to have a place like this, is it not? Unfortunately there is a bit of disappointment when you have to face the concept that it isn't real. But it does serve its purpose. To answer your question, no. But I do have a sleep disorder that blends sleeping/waking (it has to do with a combination of brainwave states that actually causes something similar to hallucinations) so I often wonder if that's why some memories of this place seems so real - I may very well be blending being awake and being asleep.
Wishing you better places to find yourself before you drift off, my dear. xoxo
I've done it with books since i was a little girl. Everytime my world went out of control, i'd slip into the world in one of my books. It was safe. And it was a way to escape. And most of all cope.
I still do it sometimes.
Kate - I did that with CS Lewis' Narnia books as a kid, particularly the Magician's Nephew. There was something totally reassuring about those books despite them being fantasy worlds with witches.
LW - trying to re-programme, I really am. At one stage when I was having repeated nightmares I had CBT which did the trick.
Our brains are strange creatures sometimes.
Kate - I employ that method frequently. Reading is an amazing tool and I can always tell when my life is in a slump... I don't read and barely listen to music. If you found solace there before, see what happens now... go find a book. ;)
GD - Oh, nightmares... blech. On the positive side, the CBT helped, which is a bonus. When you don't sleep well, it just ruins everything. Through the CBT did you find the source of the nightmares? Just curious.
Yes, I did find the source though I found getting to that point very distressing. I was lucky in that I was in very safe hands when I had it done, but it really did help them stop.
GD - In that environment it is imperative that you have someone you can trust b/c it often involves some very uncomfortable times. Glad you toughed it out.
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