ee. The Train of Thought.

                Still sleepy but wide awake. What just happened? I looked at my notes that I’d just written. I don’t remember writing it; the last part of the Dear Diary epilogue. The poetic ascent. “Hearing the roar, feeling the vibrations, fast reflections across the nations. “

                The next line after that was… Was just letters. No words. It made no sense. The poem? Hearing the roar? Where did those thoughts come from? They weren’t mine. Yet it’s so strange. I can see those thoughts vividly in my mind. How? The roar. The words of a dream I never had. A poem I never wrote. It was just too symbolic. It was too relevant to be just random sleep-written notes.

                A vision flashed through my mind. I run as fast as I can go toward some dense foliage along the cliff. Several spear men discover me and splinter off from fighting the giant to chase me. I just keep running.  

                Rubbing my eyes and gazing at the bulkhead of the sleeper cabin, I noticed a crack in the surface. How old is this train? A bug. I focused on a bug. There’s a bug crawling up there. Not a spider. More like a beetle. A creepy beetle. “If that beetle drops from up there, loses its grip or something and falls down, it’ll land right on my face. Creepy. I wonder if they fumigate this train. Ever? This sleeper cabin is creepy.”

                Stay in the present. The images of that poem linger in my thoughts. Go to sleep. Stay in the present. Fast reflections across the nations. Stay in the present. Tomorrow is a long train ride day. Plenty of time to enjoy life. Tomorrow.

                I closed the lid of the laptop and made myself comfortable on the bed again. Settling on the pillow. That beetle. That beetle is looking at me. That beetle… it’s… (…this guy has issues.)

1^st person dream.

Dreaming thought transitions. The beetle. Should I open my eyes? Fast reflections across the nations? My eyes open not. Sleep idiot. Not my eyes. They open not. My thoughts. The problem is, I sense something drastic has changed. Should open my eyes? No, count sheep. I no longer hear the click-click clack of the train wheels gliding down the tracks. Am I still awake? A loss of hearing. An indication the astral projection is forming. Or, is this a dream? I feel that familiar gentle rocking motion of the cabin from the uneven tracks, …or do I? Open not the eyes.

I hear a breeze rustling through dry leaves. Suddenly uncomfortable. I hear nothing. Itchy all over. I hear rustling leaves. Like an October wind on dry ground. I am afraid to open my eyes. That beetle. Not yet. I should feel immune to the environment. Because it is astral projection. But I don’t feel immune. This is different. Fear should not be here. However, fight or flight is best with eyes open so, … I open my eyes. No walls, no bulkhead, no sleeper cabin. No beetle. No train. Only open air and sky. In a tree. A tree? Fear of falling; don’t move. It’s windy. How secure is this tree? Rock-a-bye baby… Carefully peering downward, I see familiar dry brush. Sage brush. That familiar field. I am looking at literally what I thought I was only dreaming about earlier. Was I dreaming? Or am I dreaming now? Is the tree real or was the train real? At this point I’m uncertain what to do. Just what is real and what is dream? Check my clothes. No pajamas. No train ticket. No laptop. No luggage. No hat. No pajamas? Wearing, animal skins. Rough. Not even comfortable. Raw animal hide. Not leather. Not even comfortable. This is not normal. No wonder I am itchy.

The dream ends.

My eyes open not. Then they do. Open. How could I possible dream of something that has never been invented? If I were to tell this dream to others, they would not understand. How could they?

                Of course my curiosity is active. I no longer sense the traveling train in my conscious state. Sometimes I practice remaining completely still. Never moving a muscle. I focus my mind on not moving. That’s it. Not a tiny bit do I move. This can send me to a state of astral projection. Where it takes me is the fun part. I never know. Thankfully I am awake.

                It’s getting dark. The evening song of crickets begin. First one lone chirp, then gradually three responding chirps. As the night lingers deeper, an entire chorus of steady rolling chirps. The field below is full of them. It’s windy. Although hungry, I stay in the tree. If I climb down, where can I go? I can’t fly. Normally I can fly during astral projection. While looking up through the leaves of the branches’ canopy, I see millions of stars. More than I’d ever seen before in my life. The sky… So rich with stars. The night sky lights the earth beneath me. I look for the moon yet there is no moon to be found. I look across the meadow for that tent-like structure. Perhaps those aliens are still here, or perhaps those visitors from other space left it behind. I could look for what’s inside it. I could use it for shelter or something. I see an empty field where the aliens had been. I don’t see any structures or tents over there. The aliens are gone.

                I realize I am living in the dream I had earlier. The dream of an open field. While I slept on the train. The beetle above my head. The dream while traveling. I have arrived in my dream. Time travel?

                I lay back on this huge branch in the tallest of trees around me. Feeling something digging at my side. I reach and grab the annoying thing from under the animal hide that I’m wearing. It’s a stretched piece of dried papyrus. Scratchy. Where did this come from? There’s writing on it. Primitive letters. It reads, “You were taken from amongst the children of men, and conducted to the Garden of Eden. Write down the condemnation and judgment of the world, and all the wickedness of the children of men.” [1]

                Write down condemnations? How? With what? On what? And who wrote this letter? Who was it written to? How did I get up here? I was conducted here? This letter is written for me? What does that mean? What’s even more strange? I was reading the letter from bottom to top and right to left. That’s not normal but I just did it naturally. It wasn’t until after I read it that I realized “how” I read it. And the letters. They’re not letters at all. They’re some form of hieroglyphs.

                I will remain in this tree all night. The eerie sounds are more than just crickets. They’re growls. I don’t like growls. Growls are bad. Especially at night when I am stuck outside. There are no fences and I have no weapons for protection against… whatever is growling down there. This branch is uncomfortable, but at least it’s safe. Maybe the growls will all go away.

                What happened to the train I was riding? Maybe this is just a dream again. Where’s my cell phone? I just got bit by an ant. It doesn’t matter. I’m not climbing down. Not until I can see the ground by day.