The Way I See It

The theory goes that when you dream (and most of what we know about dreams is theory, so such conjectures are legitimate), your subconscious goes through your thoughts and tries to sort them out. This means that when you're under a lot of pressure, or big things are happening in your life, you'll tend to dream for longer. Longer periods of REM sleep will eventually translate into more periods of REM during the average sleep period than the usual 4-5, in order to accommodate all the information that needs sorting in a highly complex life. So more sleep is needed. That's the theory. Another consideration is Narcolepsy. Of all the sleep disorders I've looked into, its symptoms most match my own. Another theory is that it's both, they aren't too incompatible after all. Then again, it could just be hypochondriacism (maybe one of the longest words I've ever used legitimately). I always dream.
I had a really good one the other day where I remembered how to fly. Well, it's not really flying, per se, but it's a good feeling of weightlessness, of slowing time while you jump. Try it sometime, take a great big leap (maybe take a run at it) and when you're in the air you simply remember in the back of your mind how to fly, it's either that or forget that you should fall, and just float there for a few seconds, pedaling the intangible aether, until you come back down to rest a few meters on. In my dream I did it for hours. That was my morning.
There are places in my dreams that seem more real than reality. Have I ever told you about the house? It's a great big affair, full of countless passages and ante-rooms. On the side facing the ocean there's a huge sweeping staircase traveling three floors with Victorian glass-doored big balconies on each of the three floors. There's one passage and one room in the house that nobody knows but me, and as many times as I've visited it in my dreams, I have never revealed its location. It's like a sanctuary from any nightmare, protected only by its utmost secrecy.
I still remember the vividness of the palace floating above London. I was only there once, but it was beautiful enough to burn a lasting memory. It was Laputian in style, but once you found your way inside, you were no longer in London, you entered a parallel dimension, one where the palace was much bigger and the towers and smog were replaced by a verdant expanse. It existed briefly near the end of the nineteenth century and from then I suppose it only existed in dreams.
Is there a word for meeting somebody you haven't seen for a while, in a dream, and feeling like you really spent some quality time with them once you woke up? Those don't happen too often, but when they do I wake up with the feeling that I've been missing the part of me that was them for some time and I may have finally got it back. Only to wish they still had it so I'd feel more compelled to search them out. If you're one of those people I apologize and I hope I still have a little part of you.
There's the occasional nightmare, but when you walk the world of the lucid dream long enough, you learn how to embrace them. The dream of pursuit can be turned to adventure. After all, car chases are thrilling and parkour is a sport I've always wanted to take up. The worst is the dream where you, yourself, are the enemy. The dreams where you screw up your own life and you have to explain it to people. And it all seems so real, and there's never any really good explanation. And when you wake up, it's with a sense of relief. After all, it's just a dream.

Will

Choose your own adventure

You stand apprehensively on the university greens, your last final completed. To your East lies the sunny paradise known as the Okanagan and further still, across the great plains, lies the jewel city of Halifax. To your West lies the great metropolis of your birth, struggling under the heavy hand of depression. The paths to the North remain blocked by the winter snows and the impenetrable line of the great mountains. The South is a dead route, a different race of beings to which you do not belong, The emerald key is needed to unlock its gate.

>Survey surroundings
You take in the serene campus that has been your place of learning for the last eight months, it has served you well, but it has not broadened your horizons or opportunities at this stage.

>East
You stand in an expansive field, home to a tame herd of beasts. Beside you stands your faithful blue steed, Mindy.

>Check inventory
In your pockets you find:
5 keys to various doors
1 scribes pen
1 silver harmonica
In your sack you find:
1 pile of books and papers
1 merchants pouch with 0 gold

>Get in the car
Does not compute

>Use Key with Mindy
You mount your noble blue steed, Mindy, you can travel:
East: toward the paradise of the Okanagan
West: toward the great metropolis of your birth

>_

Watching the Watchmen

I'm back from my lengthy hiatus, and while I usually make a policy of not drawing any attention to long periods of time spent without blogging, I enjoy using the word 'hiatus' so much that I'm prepared to make that sacrifice. I wonder why more people don't realize that their ideals are worthless when confronted by reality in all its dirty splendor. Certain ideals, of course, I'm simply not prepared to give up, as Rorschach puts it, "No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.".
I watched the Watchmen movie. I can't say that I was disappointed, but that may be because I set my expectations pretty low. The movie follows the book fairly closely, aside from a few changes to make the story somewhat more believable for a moviegoing audience, but in its closeness to the book, while it was a boon for its many devotees (myself included), it may have constructed its own undoing. I think the best way to explain it is to go with Alan Moore's view, the story was in part designed to demonstrate what a graphic novel could do that neither traditional literature nor film could accomplish. He considered the work unfilmable, and I think he was right. As I watched I was struck by how many times, as a certain scene was happening, I would think to myself, "this is frame by frame the same as the comic, but gee I wish I was reading the comic right now because it did it so much better.". That isn't to say it wasn't a good movie, it wasn't half bad, but I wouldn't recommend ever watching it unless you've given the book a fair shake first. Of course that brings me to the fact that I wouldn't actually recommend it at all. One thing that made the transfer particularly poorly was any of the graphic content. The director, Zack Snyder of 300, unfortunately is of the opinion that the best part of comics is sex and violence. In Watchmen there were some scenes of both graphic violence and some nudity (one of the superheroes, Dr. Manhattan, appears naked in most of his scenes), but while these were treated quite well in the book, taking a back seat to the plot and not at all dealt with provocatively, their transfer to film was heavily accentuated. For that reason alone, especially considering its pervasiveness, I wouldn't recommend the film to anyone. But rest assured, you wont miss anything that the comic doesn't do better anyways (although the soundtrack sounded like somebody raided my music library, which was pretty enjoyable).

Pipe Smoking Professor