Monday, August 07, 2006

Passing Thoughts

Often I start dreaming before I fall asleep. Pictures form in my head while I’m on the edge of wakefulness. I don’t realize it’s happening. I think I’m still reading the book in my hands. It’s like jet lag without the jet travel, weird loss of brain control. Suddenly my thoughts and pictures are about things that aren’t happening inside the book, or even on my mind as far as I know.

I have no idea where they come from and once I sense them off they go.

These thoughts are mystical, magical, even physical. Often I can feel their touch, hear words being said. Rarely are they about my day, my life, my family, my friends. They’re hardly ever about anything that ever happened to me. They’re intense bits and pieces, disconnected shards of being. Some folks would say they're another reality. Some would call them chemistry. Since I was small I've called them my pre-sleeping dreams.

These days I like to think of them as thoughts escaping from my brain . . . finding their way back into the universe. Maybe my head is too noisy for them, too.

A jailbreak at dawn, we're getting out the thought level, making room for other thoughts in this crowded place. Taking this energy to the universe.

Somehow it all seems possible.

If you catch one of my passing thoughts, don't hold it too long. Send one of yours along with it instead.

−me strauss Letting me be

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have those Dream Bursts myself, usually when I am falling asleep and reading. then I wake up suddenly and can't sleep

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Hi janus!
That's it exactly! I have to start reading and get ready to go back to sleep all over again. I almost forgot all about that part. :)

Anonymous said...

maybe we do catch some other person's thoughts, decode it and see what the message is! the mind is a powerful and complex structure and we have not fully understand all its functions and capabilities. that's what i think. :)

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Dsnake,
It is an idea and sometimes I think those feelings are so electric and physically strange that they can't possibly be my own. I'm right there with you.

Anonymous said...

sometimes I think I can make that happen by meditating on that speck of stillness between breaths - you're so right about that feeling of image release

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

I know what you're talking about, Bradford. If I can get myself to see pictures in my head when I close my eyes in the afternoon, it's a refreshing as taking a nap. I think of it as downloading extraneous thoughts out of my head.

Anonymous said...

The crap part is either when these thoughts keep you up all night, but they're so "brilliant" you swear you'll remember the next morning; but of course they're lost forever

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Yes, they are wonderful invaders that don't seem to want to stick around for very long. They seem to have minds of their own.

Anonymous said...

Thoughts are very mercurial creatures, indeed.

I think the movie Empire Records summed it up best--"No one knows where thoughts come from; they just appear."

"ME" Liz Strauss said...

Hey Patrick,
Nice to see you at a time that we're both awake. No one knows where they come from indeed. And no one knows where they go when they slip our minds. , . .