Every Day Is Like Bloomsday

Notes from May 29, 2008:

I am walking toward a man-made lake near my house when I notice that everything is tinted with an unnatural shade of gray. Looking up, I see that there is no sun in the sky. Two ducks fly away as I approach the lake, moving in perfect synchronicity. I wonder if I am dreaming, as I am prone to having lucid or half-lucid dreams.

There are the tricks I use to find out if I am dreaming:
1. Do I remember waking up? Yes, I do. The shower head was broken this morning, and instead of spraying it only drooled water onto my head. I remember hitting it, turning it around, wanting more pressure.

2. How did I get where I am now? I think that I got off the bus from Portland two minutes ago, but sometimes I remember things in dreams that never happened, like being diagnosed with cancer.

3. Can I turn on a light switch? Maybe. There isn't one nearby.

4. Can I read? We'll see. I have been walking towards a comic book store (and do not know why I have been walking towards a comic book store).

There is one other trick, which I always forget when I dream: staring at the back of my hand. A book I read says that we have low attention spans in our dreams. I did not remember this one.

I walk past an old man taking on a cell phone, laughing. Why am I not walking home? I must not be dreaming because I can remember what happened earlier that day. The only thing from the past 24 hours that I do not remember is my dream last night. I see light shining from behind the cloudy sky and think that I must be awake.

When I enter the comic book store, there are several people grouped around two tables playing some sort of game. The bald man behind the counter is staring at a computer screen. As I walk towards one of the display racks, a man in a baseball cap turns to me and asks what's up. He acts like he knows me, but I do not recognize him.

I look at the comics on the rack against the wall and find that I can read the titles. This proves nothing, since I have had dreams where I can read before. In those dreams, I find books and movies that never existed, that I wish really existed. One such book, The Guide to African Bug-Magic, spoke of how to turn into a fiery cockroach in order to survive the coming Christian apocalypse. I remember, as a child, wanting to sleep in one morning so that I could watch the Ninja Turtles in Space movie on VHS. In waking life, there was no such thing.

As I leave the store, the bald man behind the counter ominously says that he will see me later. That place was one of the nine pits of Hell. I have decided that some people become victims to their own imagination. It was Six O'clock on a Thursday and they were role playing, just as they did yesterday and will do tomorrow.

Nietzsche's idea of the Eternal Recurrence: every action is redone throughout eternity and we are forced to live our lives again in the exact same way after every time we die. We have no free will. We only think that we are making the same decisions that we have always been making.

I still cannot tell if this is a dream or not. I will go to sleep and dream about waking up or wake up and think about dreaming or dream about thinking about going to sleep. Some dreams have the same mundanity, the same lack of clarity, and the same small moments of beauty as everyday life.