For some reason, during the winter of 2001 I could never get to sleep at night. I would get in bed around eleven or twelve o'clock, but I wouldn't be asleep until three or four in the morning. I tossed and turned and thought about a million things: What did Ryan think about me? What did I get on my math test? Should I have worn a green shirt instead of a blue shirt to school today? I tried everything to try and ease me into sleeping. I read books and drank warm milk and listened to soothing music and classical music and even tapes with "sleep sounds" like crickets chirping and the wind blowing through the trees. I turned over every few minutes, thinking that the next position would be the most comfortable, but nothing ever worked.
I never had trouble sleeping before, so I couldn't understand what was going on. I hadn't done anything to get me out of the sleep pattern that had been working for me all fall, no traveling to different time zones or staying up all night or going to bed later than usual. During the day I didn't feel unusually stressed out, and even in my tossing and turning it wasn't worrying that was keeping me up. The thinking I did was just a result of being awake without anything to do; I just had to fill those hours in my bed with something. I hadn't gotten a new mattress or pillow or blanket and my room looked the same as it always had. One of my friends mentioned that when you don't exercise sometimes it's harder to get to sleep, but I had played soccer all fall and now I was playing hockey, so even that didn't make sense.
After a month of sleepless nights and days of going to school with dark circles under my eyes, I got sick. I had a terrible cold and a sore throat. I felt like shit. My mom gave me some Benadryl before I got into bed one night, and I was asleep ten minutes later. I took the Benadryl for the next four or five nights until my cold went away, but when I felt better I didn't think I would need it. I was excited to go to bed early without taking and wake up the next morning feeling back to normal.
That night I was awake until four in the morning, so I gave up all hope of falling asleep on my own and went into my parent's bathroom to find the pills. Sure enough, as soon as my head hit the pillow after I took them I was asleep. For the next year I couldn't sleep without Benadryl. It became a mind game for me. I would try to go to sleep, but convinced myself that I couldn't sleep unless I had taken that stupid drowsy medication. I'm sure that if someone had replaced the Benadryl with sugar pills I would have fallen asleep just as fast as any of the nights I had taken the drug. Somehow my parents didn't figure out what was going on until I asked my mom to buy more Benadryl for the third time in a month.
"You're not even sick," she said.
"Yes I am." I replied.
"Sick how? You look fine, you haven't been sneezing."
"I know but I can't sleep without it."
I finally confessed. I was addicted to a drug supposed to help an itchy throat. I couldn't sleep without it. My mom got upset and told me that this could be a serious problem, that people aren't supposed to have the drug in their system all the time, that after someone uses it for even a little while their body becomes immune to it. She explained to me that the drowsy factor had stopped working a long time ago, reemphasizing the fact that this whole thing was in my head. In an attempt to solve the problem, my mom bought me one of those little rock waterfalls that's supposed to make a soothing noise of running water. In reality it sounded like someone was peeing all over the floor next to my bed where I set it up.
The waterfall had a miniature bonsai tree growing on top of the rocks and I really liked that, so I kept it and eventually got used to the sound of trickling water coming from the pile of small rocks in a pot on the floor. When I focused all my attention on that soothing sound instead of millions of trivial thoughts, I was able to fall asleep in minutes. For a little while I loved and tended to the tree all the time, but eventually got busy, or maybe just bored, and groomed the tree less and less, forgetting to water it for days at a time.
One day I came home from a weekend away with a friend and my poor bonsai tree was brown and many of its needles had fallen off into the dried up rocks of the waterfall. I was furious at myself for having been so careless, and soaked the whole tree with water for the next three days, hoping to bring it back to life. The tree was dead, though, and it was my fault. I hated myself for killing the plant I loved so much, and told myself that one day I would have a whole garden full of unique plants that would flourish and grow so that none of them would ever have the fate of my poor tree on top of the waterfall.
In retrospect, I look back and see how my indifference and lack of motivation were what killed the poor bonsai tree. I only cared for it when I needed it to solve my problem, and soon stopped appreciating it and giving the attention it needed and deserved. My laziness had taken control of my life; I just couldn't bring myself to walk twenty feet to the bathroom, fill a cup with water, walk twenty feet back, and pour it on the little tree. I was selfish and stupid and lost all interest in something I was once infatuated with.
Then, last year, I saw the movie Waking Life. I normally don't like animated movies, but my friend Cooper gave it to me as a gift and assured me that I would love it, so I gave it a shot. It turned out to be a combination of a number of different types of animation which created one of the most visually stimulating experiences I've ever had. The movie was basically one conversation after another about all these philosophical concepts I had been studying and thinking about, and it introduced me to a myriad of questions and ideas. Most of all I was fascinated by the theme of lucid dreams the movie centered around. I had never heard of a lucid dream, so to hear that it is possible to realize you are in a dream while you're dreaming baffled me at first. I couldn't grasp the idea that humans can control their dream worlds, but the characters enthralled me. They spoke of all the amazing things they could do in their dreams; they could fly, have 360 vision, and travel the world in a setting that seemed just as real as our reality because they were completely aware and in charge of what they were doing. I had to learn more about this amazing second life, so I did some research.
I was delighted to learn that anybody could become lucid. Although to some people it comes without any effort, it's possible for anyone to teach themselves how to be awake in their dream state. It requires a complicated process and a great amount of self-discipline, but I was determined to do it. I thought it would be the greatest thing to be able to fall asleep into a whole different life that could be led without boundaries or consequences. I thought of all the things I would want to do and couldn't wait for the day I would be lucid.
For the next few weeks, I followed through with the first steps of the process. I trained my mind to wake up after every sleep cycle to write down its dreams because my research told me remembering your dreams is the most important step. I woke up every morning and read what I had written during the night about my dreams and they would come back and play like a movie in my mind. I was amazed at the detail of each replay because I had never been good at remembering my dreams the next day. Another part of the process was constantly asking myself ‘Am I dreaming?' during my waking life. Becoming accustomed to asking myself this question while I was awake would lead to asking myself the same thing in my dreaming state, and eventually the answer would be as clear in my dreams as it was in waking life. The goal was to come up with the answer ‘I'm not awake; I'm in a dream world and I can control this world.'
After about a month of my friends making fun of me for talking to myself about whether or not I was dreaming, I finally had a lucid dream! It wasn't quite as extravagant and amazing as expected because it was my first one and I hadn't gained the control that experts have. I definitely knew that I was dreaming though, and that knowledge alone was fulfilling enough for me to be proud and excited about my progress.
I was, in fact, so pleased with my new ability that I stopped writing my dreams down during the night and asking myself if I was awake during the day. I slowly lost my enthusiasm about lucid dreaming, and eventually forgot about the great interest it had once ignited in me. It was just like what happened with my bonsai tree; I became despondent and lazy so my dream of being a dreamer failed. Once again, my original goal drifted out of sight because of my apathy. My new goal is to one day have two houses full of healthy bonsai trees; one in my waking world and one in my dream world.
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