usually I choose a featured image first. then write. or have some idea of what I want to write about, and then choose a featured image. and then write. but I’m having some struggles lately. a friend who has his own blog, has the approach of not editing his posts “unless the spellcheck underlines a word. Everything is a first draft. It will be what it is.” I admire this approach. and certainly, it’s an approach I’m comfortable using when writing a letter or messaging back and forth with him or another friend. but unlike his blog–which is invite only–my blog is public. still, I’m going to try, just for today, to use my friend’s approach. also really want to add that the quality of his writing is remarkable (to me), but especially considering the fact that he just writes without editing. lots of praises for my anonymous friend.

so I keep going back to this dream I had last night/this morning (*resists urge to go into tangent on “last night/this morning” as a concept). this will sound disturbing, but in part of the dream–the part that kept resurfacing today–I was…well, it appeared that I was sort of…eating my own guts…in miniature. like, with a fork and knife. for obvious reasons, I was trying to do so secretly, though I was in some sort of public place. a deserted warehouse/convenience store-type place. and later, I was in an SUV, and I was in love with someone? it was dubious, anyway. (shit, I just deleted a sentence…not editing is hard. so I’ll keep trying not to, and keep telling on myself when I do, k?)

anyway, there was something about chewing gum…must’ve been the convenience store-feature. was there a chess board set up somewhere? see, this is the problem with trying to communicate dreams. the shit makes no sense. I mean, certainly I’ve had dreams that were more straightforward than this…or, portions of dreams, anyway. but it’s like trying to do math without having a firm grasp on what numbers are–explaining dreams, that is. it just doesn’t work. like how you’ll have a dream, and when you wake up, you realize that the guy who was your dad in your dream isn’t your actual dad. even if your mom was your actual mom. I am fascinated by this realm, where the rules are different.

(20-minute timer goes off. I set it for another 20.)

I have had only one lucid dream. or nearly lucid. or I became lucid at some point in the dream. or a dream was so upsetting that I managed to wake myself up. but what I want to get at is that, in spite of having a very vivid dream life my entire life, I almost never seem to make the connection that I’m dreaming. even if I’m treading water in the air, which is something I do often in dreams. I get as far as “hmm, I forgot that I could do this. why don’t I do this more often?” or it’ll be like, “huh. this is weird.” but I never ask myself if it’s possible that I’m dreaming. nope. there was that one pretty recently that may have been lucid, or lucid-ish, but I can’t remember it now. may’ve involved my best friend’s mom, who died last year.

this is the point at which I would go back to the beginning of the blog and read what I’ve written so far. then determine where to go next. but I’m gonna not do that today. oh yeah, my guts. I’m sure on some level there’s a profound message there–seems counterproductive at the very least to eat your own body (self-sabotage? myopia? always, always. with me, always those two. well maybe not always, but…)–I think the fact that there are crows who bring dead mice and rats (mainly rats) with guts spilling out to the bird bath in the side yard…that may actually have more to do with the appearance of the tiny guts. but I could’ve dreamt that I was eating the tiny rat guts (may have lost all but the iron-stomached readers at this point, but) rather than my own tiny guts. hmm. strange.

which brings me to the ridiculous statement “I had the weirdest dream last night.” and I have made this ridiculous statement countless times myself. and nearly always remark afterward about how it’s far rarer that dreams are not weird. so. dreams are weird. they make sense at the time, when you’re in them. and there’s usually a huge amount of backstory that’s just built into them. things that are understood. this guy is my dad. humans can give birth to animals. I’m in a warehouse/convenience store eating my own guts. sure. and speaking of my dad, he will remark that I get my vivid dreams from him. I mean, in waking life he says this. not the guy who is my dad in my dream. my actual dad. and while I suspect that “vivid dream life” is not encoded on a particular chromosome to be passed on (or not) to one’s offspring, I think there’s something to this.

(20 min timer; repeat)

what it is, I couldn’t tell you. I exist inside of this human body. it contains my essence. the me-ness. whatever that is. but I am not this body. at night, I think sometimes my essence leaves this body. some refer to it as an astral body. could be. in dreams I…I…I have no idea what happens. and I don’t care to go any further down this train of thought, frankly. this is where I would just delete the paragraph. you’d be none the wiser. but not today. what else do I want to say about dreams?

well, it’s hard to describe them, even if you can still see them in your mind’s eye. often, whenever I try, it’ll come out sounding really stupid and meaningless, like listening to the very basic thoughts of a very stoned person. it goes something like, “so I was in this…place and there were these…people. and we were doing…something. and then I was in this other place…and I was with this guy…and something scary was happening…” just like a high-on. in my mind, I’m seeing what I mean, and trying to translate it into words…but it sounds pretty damn basic.

there’s a movie that came out a long time ago (depending on your idea of “a long time ago,” of course) called…um…well, it’ll come to me hopefully. at any rate, it was an animate movie with the same name as a video game. set in a dystopian future, where basically the whole planet is dead…none of this is relevant…the relevant part is that the main character is able to record her dreams. THIS, you guys. omfg, THIS. imagine arriving to work early to show your best work buddy the crazy dream you had last night. certainly there would be the dreams we would want to delete upon waking because someone could use them against us–to prove we’re perverts, disturbed, or dangerous somehow. of course you’d want to review the dream before showing it to anyone, lest they see something you wouldn’t have them see.

oh, and weird sex dreams could be used to blackmail people…people’s dream logs could totally get hacked. it’s probably best this isn’t a thing yet. maybe it never will be. uch, still can’t remember the name of that movie. meh. and speaking of sex dreams…kidding. not today, reader. also, I have been doing some sneaky editing. I just deleted a sentence. ok, y’all are either going to love or hate (or I suppose neither love nor hate) this post. the important thing is the experiment. I think. if you love it or hate it, you can thank ____.