Caught within a dream within a dream...

There's a lurking feeling lately of being caught in a dream. Time and space, beginnings and endings, forwards and backwards, inner and outer, seem off. I have sudden feelings of falling that seem to come from elsewhere. There are feelings of remembering that I have to wake up because there's something I must do. I can't remember what it is and then I typically become distracted with the mundane reality trap in front of me. There are too many coincidences and strange and symbolic occurrences to account for. Ignoring this only works for so long. People seem to be slightly altered versions of people I knew before. The reanimation of things. My computer dies and comes back to life. Animals seem strangely sentient: The cat sleeps on me with eyes wide open, staring at me. A brown recluse spider crawls right over me. People seem like shape-shifters. Random, intense conversations with passing acquaintances seemingly about nothing and everything. There's been lots of loose talk of dreams and there being no such thing as reality from all sorts of people (inlcuding the rants and reported obsessions of the Arizona shooter). Then there are movies like Inception and Shutter Island (maybe I am being kept in a deep drug-induced sleep in Leonardo di Caprio's basement?). I've noticed cloning stories everywhere: oranges, bananas, cats, sheep, and people. As I say, too many coincidences, repeating mutations of themes and memes. Paranoid delusions Pablo? Maybe so, but none of this feels like a trick of the mind, simply a deeper awareness of how our the strange fabric of our reality is stitched together. I'm sane. My self is intact. My psyche is functioning as normal. There's just an awareness of a feedback loop where ideas and layers of time are pressing against each other. And as the dreaminess builds, the feeling that Sarah is fully aware of all of this precariousness, these seven veils. The sense that she is a benevolent angel ("parthenogenic"? her random word yesterday), someone who is perhaps slowly guiding me back to wakefulness and a place within earshot of a truer calling. Towards the memory of incredible clarity. Of being awake. And yet here I am and I'm growing tired. I'm getting older. The folds are folding in upon themselves. Blanket caves of soothing, repeating daily routines. This dream is nice. It has a cat! I'll just stay here. I don't want to fight or struggle any more. But then the jolting feeling of falling again. Wake up man! We need you elsewhere. These thoughts all happen in a second or two and it's on with hazy business as usual. Life is strange. Sarah assures me when you feel the strangeness of being alive intensifying and accelerating, it's a sign of things getting better. Which is nice to know.

(Illustration by Christopher Gray)