April 27, 2022
Last night I had a bunch of dreams but one in particular woke me up. I remember lots of bits before I awoke but I’m not sure I remember the order.
I think the family was getting ready to go to an event. Sorta like how we used to all get in the van and head over to Lee and Lisa’s but along the way we’d pick up Nana and buy a bottle of wine or stuff like that.
I remember that as this was happening I was trying to explain to Dad that death wasn’t real. He thought I was being kinda wacky and sorta poking fun at me. I was telling him that he’ll find out for himself when he gets there.
Later on I remember being in a mall. I was with Dad and Nada, and I don’t know if Papee was there. I felt he might’ve been there, but I don’t remember seeing him. I know Nana was talking about him, saying that when he was alive he used to like to come inside this mall if they were driving by. He liked to come inside and just check out the second floor. From the second floor you could see the first floor of the mall. It was like a balcony.
I remember going to a similar mall with him and nana when I was really little. It had a ferris wheel inside the mall and we used to like going on it. I don’t remember a ferris wheel in the dream.
I remember being at the event we were going to. I remember being at the front door and saying hi to people. A couple showed up and instead of shaking hands, you had to hold out your hands to them for them to kiss your fingers, like royalty, except in reverse, because they were kissing everyone else’s hands. I remember being a bit anxious because before they kissed me. I looked at my fingers and saw that I had some dirt under my fingernails and I didn’t want them to see that. I held out my left hand which had less dirt, but the woman didn’t notice the dirt. She was very kind, shorter than me. I don’t remember what she looked like but I remember it made me feel like she was a fun person. I don’t really remember what happened inside the house, although I sorta have this memory of a big tall rectangular window. I don’t know if it was a window in the wall, or a skylight in the ceiling, but I feel like there was a green forest on the other side.
Later on I was at a table with Nana and Dad. Maybe this was inside the house, but I remember that it looked and felt very much like the inside of the mall from earlier. Our table was pretty big and round. I think there were other people sitting there, but I only remember dad and Nana specifically. The weird thing about Nana is that she looked nothing like Nana, but I don’t think that occurred to me until I’d woken up. She looked like that creepy girl from the ‘The Ring’. She was wearing all white and her head was hanging down so that she was staring at the floor. Her hair was wet and seemed to hang very heavy, so that you couldn’t see her face at all. I wasn’t disturbed in the dream. I kinda got the feeling that she was mourning Papee actually. So anyways, I was sitting next to dad and again explaining to him that death isn’t real. I was really frustrated, because he wasn’t taking me seriously, and every time I’d start a sentence he would kinda cut me off to poke fun at me. I remember also being annoyed at myself for having even brought this up with him. I was thinking that I should have known better to talk about this kinda thing with him.
I remember telling him the things people see when they have and NDE. Right when I said that he said something like ‘when does that ever happen?’ And I said ‘like a coma? You ever heard of a coma?’ I remember this good feeling of being able to kinda mock him in that moment, the way he’d been mocking me. I remember asking if he knew what a coma was, obviously poking fun at him, and as I was saying this I had that good feeling, sorta a feeling of revenge, and I remember seeing a green field with a curved path cutting through it. Actually, now that I think of it, it was curvy in the way the road was from this really old memory I have of him and I. It was when we were driving across Canada moving to Salt Spring. I have this one very distinct memory of being in the back seat while he was driving. I think there’d just been an argument and I remember feeling that awkward silence. For some reason the curve of the road from that moment has always stayed with me. We were driving slightly uphill and there was a gentle curving of the road. It was raining slightly, I think. I remember that the road was wet.
In the dream last night it looked more like a path than a road, or at least it felt more like a path. And I think it was sunny. But that’s what I was seeing as I was enjoying mocking him.
After that I told him the woman’s description of death, and how we get whatever we imagine death to be. So if you imagine death being dark and cold, that’s what you’re gonna get. I was telling him the woman said that she was still aware, but that it was very very dark and very cold and empty and she felt very alone. I remember thinking that my dad would be more inclined to believe a scary story than a happy one. (That’s sorta interesting. I wonder if that’s a clue to the fact that my dream was a scary one.)
That’s when I felt there was something bad behind us. I turned around and saw a man wearing a hoodie that covered his face. His head was hanging down a bit. He was coming towards me. He had a little wooden mask in his left hand and he was holding it out towards me. It sorta reminded me of the wooden masks that Mami has on her walls. I remember the mask was wooden and that you could see white teeth. In his right hand he had a little knife. It reminded me of the letter opener Nana had. It was like this beautiful sword that had been shrunken way down, and she used it to open letters. The knife in the dream didn’t seem to have a hilt, though.
As the man came towards me he was holding out the mask in front of him and holding the knife down by his side. He was walking quickly towards me. It really scared me. I fell out of my chair trying to escape. I was tripping and falling backwards away from him. Then he quickly raised his right hand with the knife and tried stabbing me. I knew that he wanted to stab me over and over again. I was so scared. That’s when I woke up in bed. I calmed down pretty quick. I got up to use the bathroom. It was 6 am and the sun was just rising.
I went back to sleep, but when I woke up again I lay there trying to figure out what it meant. I wondered if the man trying to kill me had something to do with feeling that I can’t talk to anyone about death. He had tried killing while I was talking about death not being real.
I also wondered if it has to do with what I’ve heard a lot of people saying, and the thing that I was telling my dad at that moment, which was that we all create our own reality. In that moment I was describing how death will be a dark lonely and sad reality if that’s what you’re expecting. In that moment that’s what I was imagining, and that’s when this guy showed up to kill me.
This morning I wanted to tell Carter and April about the dream, but then I realized that I can’t because it means revealing to them that I don’t think death is real, and I don’t feel like I can talk about that with them without being laughed at the way Dad laughed in the dream. So that’s interesting to me. In real like I feel like I can’t talk about it, and in the dream I couldn’t talk about it, or else I was killed.
I was thinking about who I could talk about it with and I realized that Nana is the right person. She was in the dream, and her and I have already talked about this kinda stuff. She won’t question me or treat me like I’m weird.
When I first woke up from the dream, at 6 am, I remember thinking that it wasn’t surprising that my dad wouldn’t believe any of that stuff. I remember thinking that if he can’t even realize that he’s a section of the universe that’s become aware of itself, how is he ever gonna entertain the idea that death isn’t real?
I told him that he’s a section of the universe that’s become aware of itself. I told him that back when he was in Toronto, and he was very sceptical, just like in the dream. He seemed weirded out by this idea. I remember being so confused that he couldn’t rap his head around that. It seems so obvious. It revealed to me how separate he must feel from the universe, like he’s somehow not part of it? It’s so obvious to me! We’re in the universe, we’re made up of it! How can we not be the universe? It literally makes no sense! We’re just a section of the universe that notices itself! Although I’m starting to wonder if all sections of the universe are aware of itself, and it’s actuality HUMANS that are the sections that DON’T notice that they’re there, in a funny way. He was a section of the universe that didn’t seem to fully notice that he was there.
I went to an open-mic at Free Times Cafe last night. It was nice. I was the last musician up. After I played they had comedy night for new stand-ups I guess. I watched for a bit. They were’t too good but I really thought it was brave of them. I talked to one of the guys afterwards. He talked about how he sees what I’m doing to be wayyyyy better than what he’s doing, meanwhile while I was telling him that what he’s doing is wayyyyy braver and more intense than what I’m doing. I got the sense that stand-up people sorta have this low opinion of themselves and of stand-ups in general. It’s different than what I’ve felt with the musicians. I don’t feel any sort of hatred or feeling like we’re all kinda disgusting, bottom of the barrel kinda people, but I got the sense that the comedians kinda see themselves and each other in this way.
I’ve been meditating a lot lately and they’ve felt really beautiful. I feel so happy that I started doing this when I was 18. I really understand the value now. It was so good of me to start when I did. It’s not just about feeling the body, it’s about KNOWING that you’re feeling the body. It’s about watching yourself have the thoughts. I sit down to meditate and I feel whatever I feel, but then I step back into like a removed awareness that’s watching myself have those thoughts. That part is important I think.
The plastic rap on the mug was dirty. I tore it and then fucked a bitch nice and slow, just to reveal to her how much of a man I am.
“Let her go! Screamed Borat, from a balcony. “Take your hands off her gown!”
I looked up and crawled out of my skin and got angry. I held an envelope up to the sky and asked God if he would open it for me.
“Know Thy Self!” Answered God like an angry dog.
I thought that was funny and told him I didn’t care. He said neither did he. He said that it was up to me. It was always up to me.
“No one can do this this for you! No one can open the envelope but yourself!”
I grumbled and walked to the Apple Store. I played with the new iPhone and watched some porn on it. I laughed like a donkey and then went upstairs. There was a garden with children and they were building a boat. There was a glow around them. I could see their auras very easily.
“Who’s doing the cooking around here?” I asked, clapping my hands together.
“That one!” Said a young boy, pointing towards a girl from Taiwan. I nodded. I went over to her. “What’s for dinner?” I asked.
The girl held out her hand. I looked into her palm and saw the Well of Creation. I saw all the galaxies swirling and colliding. I saw dogs having sex and bananas falling from trees. I saw the skyscrapers being hit by planes. I saw the war in the woods. I saw men throwing spears. I saw laptops being mass-produced at the speed of light and then flying onto the laps of students. I saw a million fireflies building a web of connections. I saw a third war, and all the days that would never end the way they should have.
I took a deep breath and turned away quickly. I left the store and walked across the street to where there used to be a fast food restaurant but now there was jus a cliff that went down forever and ever. It was sunny down there, and white clouds drifted by.