Joe, a loyal disciple

This is the final piece of a 4 part series on dreaming. The first two parts are of dreams I’ve recently had, parts 3 and 4 are reflections and examinations.

What do I think makes me dream? I think it’s my mind trying to communicate with me, whether it be my unconscious self, my memory, or my thoughts. In essence, anything my mind wishes it could communicate to me, but can’t, it does so in dreams.

Before I continue I want to make something clear: I hate to dream. I am actually scared of what my mind needs to tell me. To know that some of my dreams are as fucked up as they are, many hundreds of which I don’t even have written down here, and that my mind is the one creating them, it seriously scares me.

Why are most of my dreams about anxiety?
Dreams about anxiety are very strange for me. The reason they’re so strange is that when I wake up after having a dream related to anxiety, I become severely severely depressed. I hate myself every morning I wake up from an anxiety dream. This is because I wasn’t in control of myself or the situation, but I wish that I had done something different to make the outcome more favorable. Drowning, punching my sister, destroying a man’s house, or even being trapped in a dark void/basement thing, all those I wish i did something different to fix it.

However, soon after giving myself more time to wake up and reflect on the dream, I realize that my dream was giving me a warning. It was telling me I need to stand up and take action in situations and stop letting the situation control me. Too many times in my life I could have done things differently if I only had the balls enough to do it. Whether it be something small like deciding whether or not I want junk food or as major as what am I going to do for the rest of my life. My anxiety is related to my indecisiveness and my dreams is my mind communicating to me that I need to take action.

Why do I dream about being alone?
I have separation issues. In all honesty, I like the status quo and I do not like to change. I do not want to move out of my house, I don’t want my own apartment, I don’t want to find a new job, I will not pass go, I will not collect 200 dollars.

My dream on being alone, trapped in the dark. It was my mind telling me to be okay with myself, to take comfort in being alone. That dream felt like it lasted forever, I was hanging on for my own life and even had to deal with those fucking spiders. Those are in line with my mind telling me to become comfortable with myself. My mind wants me to learn to settle on my own and not rely on others so much. My mind wants me to overcome my fears and not have such a large separation issue.

What do recurring dreams mean?
Running the catwalks in the Post Office, every time I have that dream the scenery changes a bit, however the dream always remains the same. It’s me in the Post Office, starting at point A and trying to move my way to point B. I can do anything, I can climb, run, jump, probably fly if I needed, I’m invincible.

This dream is my mind giving me confidence. I can make the trip from point A to B as long as I set a steady pace to get there and try not to go overboard with it. My work at Photogenic or even Macy’s is a perfect example of this. When I first started to work at each place, it was a rocky start and I wasn’t sure how things would work out, but I stuck the course and at Macy’s I quickly became a Sales Specialist and at Photogenic, I’m god, (or Supervisor, same thing).

What about those people in your dreams? The ones you never met?
That goes in my “unknown” category. I feel that in the course of nature there’s an answer for everything, but it’s impossible for one to comprehend every answer to everything. I don’t know why my mind makes images of people I’ve never seen, objects I don’t know, or places I haven’t seen.

The answer I theorize is this: I have seen them before. Whether it be a picture, a quick glimpse or even obscuring reality, I have to have seen them before. Is it possible for a mind to create an object it hasn’t seen before with no prior knowledge to understanding it’s existence? Can your mind picture a circle if it as only seen squares? Can your mind see colors if you cannot yourself? That I don’t have the answer for, but I believe we cannot imagine things we haven’t seen before and therefor, I have to have seen them before in order for my mind to have created them.

Dreams that you feel?
It’s entirely hard to describe this unless you’ve had the dreams before yourself. They’re like a gut decision where you feel it inside you rather than what your mind is telling you. In dreams that I can feel the people or objects around me, it’s similar to when you think someone is behind you, you have that feeling. Except in reality we can turn around to see if something’s there, we’re in control, but in dreams I can only take what is given. These dreams didn’t allow me to turn around to see anyone, rather the only reason I knew why people were around me was that I could feel they were there.

Is it mind tricks that causes this? Is there a message trying to be sent out here like “don’t look back,” or other things? I’m not sure yet. Over time I’ll learn from it and try to figure it out, but right now I’m not sure.

One day, when I’m old and have all the answers I am looking for, I’ll become a happy person. That day may also be the day I die, I can’t tell you for sure, but I can tell you to listen to what your mind is telling you. That bitch is holding back some serious info.

Thank You
-Joe

This is a 4 part series on dreaming. The first two parts are of dreams I’ve recently had, parts 3 and 4 are reflections and examinations.

What creates a dream? Where are they from? There’s no definitive answer to this question, but there are plenty of links and commonalities among dreams.

Several thousand test patients have performed in studies and within these studies it has been found that anxiety is the most common emotion shared amongst people that dream. Anxiety is a psychological state of fear, worry, and/or uneasiness. In my first and third dream, (Part 2, Dream 2), there was anxiety. The first one was littered with anxiety, whether it not being able to keep up with my sister and the guy, the fear of drowning alive in a sunken house or trying to run for my life and not being able to. In my third dream I was left alone in the dark surrounded in bugs, I don’t believe I need to go into detail about the amount of anxiety there.

Sharing the topic of anxiety is another common theme in dreaming: Being alone. The entirety of the third dream I was stranded and alone, but in my second dream, running the catwalks of the Post Office, there were people, sort of. In the second dream people were with me to start, there’s no way for me to describe it other than that I felt they were there, at the beginning I caught a minor glimpse of them, but never really had a good look at who they were. I knew they were good people and I was showing them the way to get from here to there, but I never acknowledged it, I just felt it. Soon after my journey began, however, those people that were right behind me had disappeared and weren’t even a second thought.

One final common theme: recurring dreams. Recurring dreams are like that of my second dream more than the third. I have dreams of being alone, but they’re always so different it’s hard to qualify them as recurring but rather “common in theme.” The second dream of mine, the running of the catwalks, is a recurring dream; every time I dream that dream it’s always the same plot with only minor changes in the surroundings.

Moving along, there’s plenty of theories into why we dream. There is no universally agreed biological definition of dreaming, but here are a few theories about why we dream.

Activation Synthesis Theory
J. Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley: Asserts that the sensory experiences are fabricated by the cortex as a means of interpreting chaotic signals from the pons. They propose that in REM sleep, the ascending cholinergic PGO (ponto-geniculo-occipital) waves stimulate higher midbrain and forebrain cortical structures, producing rapid eye movements. The activated fore brain then synthesizes the dream out of this internally generated information. They assume that the same structures that induce REM sleep also generate sensory information.

Continual-Activation Theory
Jie Zhang: Proposes that dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis; at the same time, dreaming and REM sleep are controlled by different brain mechanisms. He also Hypothesizes that the function of sleep is to process, encode and transfer the data from the temporary memory to the long-term memory.

Dreams as Expectations of Long-Term Memory
Eugen Tarnow suggests that dreams are ever-present excitations of long-term memory, even during waking life.

Dreams for Strengthening of Semantic Memories
A 2001 study showed evidence that illogical locations, characters, and dream flow may help the brain strengthen the linking and consolidation of semantic memories. One stage of memory consolidation is the linking of distant but related memories. Payne and Nadal hypothesize that these memories are then consolidated into a smooth narrative, similar to a process that happens when memories are created under stress.

Dreams for Removing Junk
Hughlings Jackson viewed that sleep serves to sweep away unnecessary memories and connections from the day. This was revised in 1983 by Crick and Mitchison’s ‘reverse learning’ theory, which states that dreams are like the cleaning-up operations of computers when they are off-line, removing parasitic nodes and other “junk” from the mind during sleep.

Dreams as Resonance in Neural Circuts
A well-known phenomenon in dynamical physical systems where the level of input and output from the system is low is that oscillation makes spontaneous resonance patterns to occur. Hence, dreams may be the simple consequence of neural oscillation.

There’s also plenty of theories into answering why we dream. Freud and Jung believed dreams are the unconscious and the conscious interacting together, with the unconscious being the dominant. Perls believed that dreams were the projections of ourself that have been ignored rejected or suppressed. The Native Americans believed dreams were part of a vision quest to obtain a right of passage in their culture, (although it could be hallucinogenic. Their dreams were caused after periods of fasting, however, hallucinosis is still technically dreaming, but in an alert stimuli rather than unconsciousness).

Tomorrow I’ll be taking these concepts and placing them along side the reasons I believe I dream and why they’re the dreams that they are.

To learn plenty more on this read the wiki page and bounce around the links: Wikipedia – Dream

This is a 4 part series on dreaming. The first two parts are of dreams I’ve recently had, parts 3 and 4 are reflections and examinations.

I’m standing in front of the Fort Point post office and I need to get to the other side. I’m with some people, the feeling is that they are friends or family, they’re good people, not anyone that intends or means to hurt me. We start running move quickly down the dark pathways, up long metal catwalks with their cobalt railings and yellow caution tape wrapped in a swirl around them. It’s such a long run, up one long catwalk and down another until I reach a small transfer area. It’s a cement area with the floor marked off with caution tape showing the closest the machines can get to the wall without striking them.

There’s a dark hallway to my left that I can’t head down and a wall to the right with a door leading to an office or closet. I ignore these and continue to run straight ahead where I can still see the path. I run up another catwalk, but this time this ramp heads off to the left, to a dark area where I can’t go. There’s a ramp heading straight ahead to where I want to go, but it’s hanging above me. I jump forward off the catwalk and grab the railings of the catwalk overhead and start to monkey-hang and shimmy my way down the ramp. With a quarter of the way left to go, I find a point where I can swing my legs up and not have to monkey my way down anymore. I throw my legs up onto the floor and stand myself up, but I stay on the outside of the railing for the rest of the way down rather than climb over and continue walking.

Once I reach the cement floor on the other side, there’s a darkness covering the hallway ahead of me and to the hallway to the left is also shrouded in darkness. An identical wall with a door to the office I saw before is on the right. With the darkness covering my path I can’t go forward anymore, I’ve reached my destination, this dream ends.

Dream 2.

I climb down a yellow ladder from a manhole like cylinder that leads to a huge dark empty void of an area. There is no floor, just a long dark fall. There’s some more yellow pipes to the right of the ladder close to the ceiling, and to the right of that is a small ledge only a foot in width and a foot from the ceiling. I swing over to climb up the yellow piping, but I can’t quite get my legs to reach up high enough to latch onto it. I look back and not only is the ladder shorter so that I can’t climb back on it, but I can’t see the hole above the ladder where I came from anymore, It’s just black. I’m stuck and there’s no way to get out of here.

I swing my body onto the ledge and there’s just barely enough space from me to squeeze onto the ledge and only half my body manages to fit on it. I have to prop myself up using the yellow piping to my left and holding onto a small bar coming out of the wall on my right. I think to myself that I’m stuck here forever, but I’m not ready to die, I cannot afford to fall down this void, but if I fall asleep while trying to keep myself propped up, I certainly will fall into the darkness.

I see spiders down by my feet, I hate spiders. I have to deal with these though, because if I freak out, I might fall to my death. I have my left arm laying across my body and I’m on the ledge well enough that I don’t have to prop myself up anymore, and then on my left arm I see this giant bug crawling across it. I try to swipe it away with my right hand, but it wont move. My arm is completely asleep and it wont move to swipe the bug away. My left arm is in the same state of not being able to move and soon I realize my whole body is limp and I can’t move. This bug is creeping me out and feels strange crawling on my arm, but I can’t swipe it away.

Eventually my right arm gains enough feeling that I can finally swipe this damn bug away. The instant after the bug is swiped off my body, I wake up.

This is a 4 part series on dreaming. The first two parts are of dreams I’ve recently had, parts 3 and 4 are reflections and examinations.

My sister and I are in the middle of the woods, more than likely in New Hampshire, and there’s a large brown house standing in front of us. It’s a family friend’s house, this is the feeling I have and the situation given, I do not know this guy and I’ve never seen him, but he’s a family friend. As he starts to show us around, my sister and him are going up the stairs, but I can’t keep up. I try as hard as I can to follow my way up the stairs, I do the jaguar crawl on the stairs, pull on the railings, everything I can, but I just can’t keep up with them.

Soon I reach the top of the stairs and there’s a bunch of men doing work around the area, there’s a light being worked on and open walls that look like the half finished skeleton of a house. I squeeze by them up the next set of stairs, however, I can’t fit through the hole between the stairs and the ceiling without getting stuck. I squeeze my way back out and down the stairs back to where the men are doing work. I look down the hallway and see a different set of stairs heading upstairs. I take that set of stairs up and when I reach the next floor I see my sister and the guy coming down from the next floor up about to head back down the stairs I couldn’t make it up. I yell over to them, they see me and make their way over to me.

They tell me they’ve been looking for me and we walk back across the hallway and up the stairs they just came down where we are on a balcony. On this balcony we can see the ground right next to us, we jump off onto the ground and look back to the house to see that this man’s house is a giant house that’s sunk into a pool just big enough for the house to fit in with about a foot of clearance all the way around. The pool is not a standard pool with the white lining, fancy bricks and all the accessories, but rather a giant dug out section of earth filled with water in the middle of the woods.

He tells us the entire house is water proof and no water can get in. I decide that because the roof is so close to the ground I’ll just jump on it and walk across to the other side to see what’s there. I run and jump onto the roof and I hear crinkling, like a soda can being crushed. I make it halfway over before I hear my sister yelling at me and I jump off immediately off to the side, and I hear the sound of water rushing in.

At this point I picture everything in the house being destroyed by this flood of water, as well as drowning and killing the guy’s wife ans kids trapped inside. I even imagine myself being stuck in the basement of this house and trying to figure an escape route out, but within this illusion inside of a dream, I realize I’m trapped and there’s no way to get out of the sinking house. I will drown and die.

Just after the illusion of me about to die from drowning, I see I’m back outside where I was and I realize that this guy’s house is a giant aluminum sunken trailer in a pool in the middle of the woods, and I just broke it and it’s flooding with water. Everyone is looking at me with a horrid, “DEAR GOD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” look on their face. I’m scared to death and before anyone starts to approach me I punch my own sister in the face and try to run. Everyone, all random people I’ve never met before, walk slowly towards me as I try to run. I’m running as hard as I can, but no matter how fast I try to run, I can’t run faster than these people can walk. Since I tried running from them their faces have changed from the look of horror, to a blank emotionless expression, but even with the change of expression, all I want to do is run from them. I’m extremely scared and I try throwing punches at these people to get them away from me. I turn around to run some more, clawing at the ground, doing anything in my power to run but I still can’t run faster than they can walk and I can’t escape from this horror. Immediately after this realization I can’t escape, I scare myself awake.

Dream. Part 2: Tomorrow.

I hear it all the time, “I wish I could start over,” “I wish I could go back in time,” “If you could take one thing back, would you?” Well, here’s my answer: Amnesia. It’s perfect, none of the basic senses are effected, however, you don’t remember anything about anyone. You can start over, rebuild lost friendships, etc etc, right?

WRONG

Just like the movie “13 Going on 30,” just because you can’t remember anything YOU have done, doesn’t mean everyone else doesn’t. Everyone that’s ever been hurt still remembers you, and they will continue to hold that grudge. So what’s the point I’m getting at? Amnesia. Give it to everyone else.

Say you want to get back with an ex-girlfriend, but she hates you because you’re a gigantic fucking douchebag. If she can’t remember you’re a douchebag, how will she know? Well, of course, if you turn into a douche again she’ll notice. Outside of that, her friends will tell her, so you’d have to give them amnesia too. Her family would know too, some acquaintances that heard it from a friend, and those random people that overheard anything, all of them: Amnesia. On top of that, your own family, friends, acquaintances, and random over-hearers would need to be hit with amnesia too. The internet would need to be completely re-written, anyone who read anything about you on the internet: Amnesia.

Now seeing as about a quarter of the country has their memory wiped, most of which for seemingly no reason, no one goes to work because they can’t remember anything. Companies all over the place start to fail, the economy goes to crap, power grids go out and everyone hunts for food just to survive. The world slowly collapses and it slowly turns into Armageddon.

All this happened just to get a girl back. Destroyed half the world to get a girl back. Wow, what a selfish, needy, giant goddamn douchebag you are. Maybe if you weren’t a douche, she wouldn’t have left you.

Here’s the deal. There’s no way to go back, there’s only going forward. So stop being a douche and maybe people will start to like you.

-Joe
A writing on the topic of Girlfriends, more specifically ex-girlfriends, and the lessons they’ve taught me

What inspires you to write? It’s a great question if you’re into reasoning, it lets you know more about who you’re talking to, something about information or whatever.

Either way, I’m a simple man. I’m very awkward and not very sociable in the sense of my awkwardness. You might be asking why and I’ll tell you: I write about and talk about whatever is on my mind at the moment. Doesn’t matter the topic we’re on, I just speak. Sometimes I’ll just create awkward situations and scenarios that are very long and elaborate, for no reason. For example:

Kaitlin and I were crossing the street and she said, “You’re gonna get me killed.” I told her she’s fine and she wont be killed in my presence. However, I mentioned it would be kinda funny If she was hit by a car and I’d have to call her mom to tell her, “Lol, sorry bout that.” And she’d respond with something along the line of, “You should come over and sleep with me,” to which I’d say no thank you. She’d ask if I were going to go to the funeral and I’d say “Yeah I’ll be there,” but when I showed there I’d be the only one there and Kaitlin would reach out of the ground with her dead hand and open it to show a note that reads, “You’re a douche.” I’d respond to it with, “My bad,” and hand it back, then she’d crawl out of the ground and eat my brains. Thus the start of the Zombie Apocalypse.

There’s really nothing behind it other than that, I’m not sure if anyone else has reasons to write other than what’s on their mind, but for me it’s all about whatever is on my mind then formulating it into words.

Sounds sad doesn’t it? I don’t write for a reason, I just do. Well I’m not everyone, I’m just me, so calm down and get over yourself.

1. Using ample evidence from the text explain how Dante’s inferno can be read in three different ways.

The three different ways Dante Inferno can be read is as an Epic, a Satire of the times, and a Biography.

The Biography is the simplest form to understand. The writer of the story, Dante, wrote about a man, Dante, in the story, Dante’s Inferno, travelling through the underworld seeing people of his past and present times, which is an analogy of him being in the world he is in today.

Reading the story as an epic makes the most sense. An epic is when it the story is SO MASSIVE and SO AWESOME that hardly anything from it is considered “boring.” Dante’s Inferno is exactly this, it’s so well written, every bit of the story is descriptive and direct and doesn’t keep you guessing, it’s all right there for you to follow alongside with. The other part of this that makes it an epic is the fact that it involves a journey, much like the Odyssey and the Iliad; Dante’s Inferno is about a man’s travels through hell and back.

The final view of Dante’s inferno is seeing it as a Satire of the times, this one makes no sense. Sure the story is obviously written about himself, and that he wishes he could have traveled around the world like Odysseus and had a Woman to come home to, but the fact is Dante was a nobody and had to create his own world, which he stole from Virgil, who stole it from Homer, who probably saw hell, he did fight in Marathon after all… Anyway, Dante was a nobody, he had no reason to live, and was cranky at the world because this girl that he liked apparently died, didn’t talk to him, or he saw once in a magazine and decided she was the love of his life, either way Dante created a world that he could be awesome in and made everyone else suck just to make himself look better, rather than Trimalchio or Jesus, who were thrown IN stories because of how awesome they actually were.

In summary, Dante’s Inferno is an incredible story if you view it as a Biography of him wishing he was cool or even better as an epic, but reading the story as a satire of the times is like listening to a homeless man ramble about Wall Street Billionaires, he just wishes he was one, but can’t be, so he’ll hate them forever instead.

Fred is having trouble writing about the past, in the present tense first person.

Joe:
So we’re sitting here talking shit about people, and man I gotta say this is hilarious. For some reason Joe has this fucking skunk tail of a haircut going on and wearing tights and I gotta say he looks like a pile of fuck. Anyway, I need to get back to triple-five and get some programming done on Naomi, peace.

Is it really that hard?

Fred:
*stabs joe in the face* I am enjoying this, the color of the blood leaking through the newly made hole is reminiscent of a river flowing in the early spring being fed by the rush of melting snow and Ice. “Good bye” I say as I pull out the knife and extend my leg to kick Joe in the chest. Yes Joe, This is SPARTA!

Joe:
“Listen here,” I say to Fred with the canter of a schoolchild finding a quarter on the ground on his way to class, “Fuck your shit you twat.” I claimed that I shall not fall so easily to the bastardized abomination that is Fred, so I countered his kick to my chest by shoving his massive boot off to the side and thrust my dagger into his heart shouting, “TODAY IS A FINE DAY TO DIE.”

Fred:
Oh so Joe thinks he can win that easily, I grab Joe’s dagger from my chest, “You forget I had that useless organ removed years ago, and you are right Today is a fine day to die, let me know how it feels!” As I swing the dagger across Joe’s throat, the blood erupts like Mt. Vesuvius on that faithful day where Pompeii was destroyed. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson Joe. Never Cross me.”

Joe:
Fred’s a foolish man, the blood he sees flying is not that of any mortal, it is the blood of a tyrant of the feast. The shining star of a neon green fountain of Mountain Dew streams out of my flesh and covers Fred’s newly pressed trench coat in the sugary goodness of my sweet blood. Taking a swig of my life-blood I laugh loudly and proclaim, “Best check your shit, My death will never come!”

Fred:
I am filled with Joy, at Joe’s latest divulgement of information, I now know that I can commence an eternity of torture, on this insolent fool. I grab Joe by the flesh of his arm, and fling him into a steel cage like some kind of animal. “Enjoy your new home Joe, you will live there for sometime, and in may places. First stop, the Lava pits” I am filled with glee, finally some real entertainment

Joe:
Watching Fred gloat has me wrapped up in anger and fear for what is to come, but oh, what is this sitting here? Ha! I shout at Fred with the confidence of a man who’s just escaped death for the tenth time

“Filled with glee?
Ha! A fool is thee!
left on the floor
is but the Key!”

I release myself from the wretched cage and walk straight up to Fred’s massive frame watching the smirk wiped from his face, “One day Fred, one day you shall have your wish.”

Fred:
Just one more step Joe…SUCCESS, I quickly reach into my pocket and push the shiny red button. Oh yes THAT BUTTON. All of a sudden the floor drops from below Joe, like a Saturday morning cartoon. The look on Joe’s face was priceless as he realized what was happening. “See you later Joe.” Joe’s body descended rapidly down the seemingly never ending shaft, on his way to Ohio, where he cannot use his debit card, and it will take him days to return. Life is good.

Joe:
Falling down this never ending tunnel towards doom I look to the sky and think to myself, “Those bastards at Staples were right… that WAS easy.” Letting the doom come to me, however, is not an option, I call in a favor to the almighty himself and ask, “God, I need a fucking dew.”

His response is less than favorable, “Dude, just go to the store, it’s not that fucking hard, plus, I’m on my coffee break.”

This is going to be a long day…

It’s tough, life is right now
I’m stuck, trapped and going nowhere.
All I want is something,
I’m sick of this nothing.

No one, no where
I wanna get out,
there’s just a void
boring alone and empty

Getting out, running for it
Seizing this opportunity
I’m leaving this shit
going to a better place

Fuck it all, I wanna party
Music loud, people screaming
Got a drink in my hand
And a girl somewhere waiting for me

Why does it suck like this,
Where did everyone go?
Why am I here,
Where is the end!?

Home alone, it’s not for me
I’m packing up, heading out
All the money in the world
couldn’t stop me

I’m getting the fuck out
I’m done with this
Seizing the opportunity
Going to a better place

Fuck it all, I wanna party
Music loud, people screaming
Got a drink in my hand
And a girl somewhere waiting for me

Just fuck it all, I wanna party
Music loud, people screaming
There’s a drink in my hand
And not a care in the world

Not a care in the world

Not a care in the world.

Sir stove,
Dish kneel,
Roof tone.
With kind regards.

Grudging loan,
Park creeper.
Pass again,
Alone yet grow.

Hot news,
Best regards.
Woman judges wrong,
objection is protection

Special notice,
Have a nice day!
Teleshit,
Public ruination

Keeps coat run,
whose.
With kind regards.
Good evening!

Welfare state,
Fit for anything
Special notice,
Yours truly.

Republican promises change,
War tames
Hot news,
Yours sincerely.

Speak to do so,
Life grows through the marriages of cells
Dear gentlemen,
Enjoy yourself!

Poncy putwork,
Trick down
Shed on shoulders,
Valanced bay

You’re face never,
Argue true.
Boast tops,
Lest roam.

~Renken’s Spam Emails~