Dream Journal
March 3, 2002
I had finished the adventure game (a realtime first person game with others, of course) in the treasure chest and was now back out on the desert sands. I had three objects with me. Two were long like swords (but I forget what exactly) and the third was a round fuzzy thing like my stuffed owl J’buzhibu. I gathered together some dried leaves I had, set the fuzzy thing upon them, and prepared to set it on fire.
Then there’s an interruption from the waking side — my guess is that it was Isobel, our dog, because when I returned to the dream moments later it is no longer a fuzzy thing but Isobel’s head! I set about putting my lighter to it, but the thought of the loss of my dog, of burning her head, of Rebecca’s sadness, all this overcame me and I became sad and tried desperately to remember how she had died. It was so sad that I woke up.
Waking Insertions: Sounds, sensations, lights, and anything else coming from the waking world while dreaming can find its way into a dream. The stimulus needs to be integrated into the dream in order to prevent it from interrupting the dream. However, as we see here, it doesn’t always work out, and the insertion itself can prove to be so shocking as to jar one out of the dream.
Tragedy: The waking interruption pulls attention to my waking self. When I return to the dream, it’s there watching as I continue the earlier dream action. Thinking this is physical life, I respond with strong emotion.