Coffee while Sleeping
Was this a lucid dream? Isn’t a lucid dream one where one is self-aware one is dreaming while dreaming? And unlike an out-of-body experience one can control the dream, or at least direct some degree of actions as a writer writes, a gamer games, or a movie director directs? Well, a big “yes” to all of those questions. This event happened sometime across late Saturday night to Sunday morning of the 4th-5th of November 2023. It wasn’t the first time experiencing a lucid dream either, and it was the first remembered in a very long time.
In the dream I was in the kitchen where I live with my wife in an apartment complex in Shoreline. This is the small city immediately north and northwest of Seattle, south of Edmonds, and west of Lake Forest Park. There was, however, only one person in the dream, me. And the dream rendered apart reality to expose its holographic frailty.
Picked up my big, green 20-fluid ounce Yeti mug, turned and stepped over to the refrigerator, stuck it beneath the ice maker chute, and filled it partway with crushed ice. Then turned back to the coffee pot on the counter. Faithlyn and I have a black and silver Cuisinart coffee brewer sitting on a counter against the wall. It hulked there guarding our kitchen counters like some kind of steampunk-goth sentinel. Moments earlier I had, within the dream, ground up organic whole coffee beans for the brewer.
Usually in “real life” I drink my coffee black with on ice cubes as I dislike hot drinks. Am quite temperature sensitive. Lips, tongue, and inside of my mouth burn easily. Warm’s ok, yes, and I prefer my drinks either room temperature or ice cold. True cold brew is preferred, and making it takes too long when on the go. Yes, am aware pouring brewed coffee over ice does water down the coffee and interferes with the aromatic complexity arising in the heated air above fresh, hot coffee. Can still taste the gold, however, but unable to tolerate the blistering heat of a cup of joe. So I drink a lot of coffee, maybe half the pot or more.
In the dream I felt dread traveling to Europe as Europeans have the reputation for constantly complaining and whining about Americans and their damn ice cubes, LOL. Some waiters “over there” may bring out a small sot of two or three, maybe four teeny tiny ice cubes, I’ve been told by bemused Americans. Regardless of cultural differences over ice cubes, however, I would still love to visit Europa and explore the many countries and regions over there. Not ever been yet. All this ran thru my sleeping mind while dreaming about putting ice in my Yeti mug.
But today I dreamed something different from everyday real life, and was aware of this as I dreamed… I went back to the fridge and returned with a red squeeze bottle of Ghirardelli’s Premium Sauce dark chocolate syrup and glooped globs of chocolate syrup all over those ice cubes. Wasn’t a drizzle but gloopy globs. No hot coffee from the pot yet, just wanted to gaze down into this deep mug to watch chocolate syrup ooze down into shadows between the ice cubes.
Gravity was a palpable force in the dream as it pulled bent, dark chocolate syrup down into the spaces within the jumble of ice cubes. Yes, in the general relativity of “real life” gravity does not actually pull and definitely doesn’t push, those are lay terms led astray by rocks tossed into a bedsheet somewhere, but in this dream gravity was felt and appeared as a ghostly glow falling below the ice into the darkness at the bottom of the Yeti tumbler.
In the dream I looked down into the cup again, nodded my head, and declared, “Yeah, I’m gonna do that when I wake up!”
That’s all I remembered from the dream after I awoke. Yes, woke up before I dreamed of pouring in the hot coffee. Then of course in “real life” I forgot to squirt in the chocolate syrup. Too much sugar anyway. Immediately poured hot black coffee in among the ice. Force of habit. And then remembered I was to squirt chocolate syrup in first, have the syrup hit the ice before pouring in hot coffee. Doing so affects taste differently than merely squeezing it directly into the coffee, or so I remembered thinking was true back inside the dream. And gravity was back to being how it’s normally perceived as out of site, out of mind, and yet everywhere.
Finally did so several days later on the following Wednesday. And was reminded while chocolate syrup over ice then with added hot black coffee was indeed tasty, it’s just too much sugar for a pre-diabetic. Most of the syrup pooled below the ice upon the bottom of the cup and had to be stirred back up into the coffee. Besides, really prefer black coffee anyway. Light roasted organic whole beans freshly ground. My wife is partial to Stumptown’s Holler Mountain organic light roast blend. Love the taste of it myself.
So this was my lucid dream. It’s the first time in many ages I was self-aware of dreaming and spoke to myself within such a dream. Wonder what it all means, this particular lucid dream? Freud and Young would have argued over the lack of cigarettes with my morning coffee, but, hey, I quit smokes eons ago.
What I really want to know, tho, is what is consciousness, really, and what happens to it before birth and after death and during dreams? What is reality beyond what is currently measurable, holographic, created, and simulated? Where does everything go? At the end of this biological awareness, where do we all go? And go? And to what degree can lucid dreams create egregores? If such is possible, then what are we collectively co-creating with our unconscious minds when we gaze up into the skies or peer into dark forests? What wakes up to become lucid and watchful?
William Dudley Bass
Wednesday 8 November 2023
Sunday 26 November 2023
Shoreline/Seattle, WA
P.S.: The rough draft was composed in Notes and then emailed to myself. Had what Apple likes to think is its own commentarium finale, “Sent from my iPhone,” LOL…
Copyright © 2023 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.