Things that make you breathe deeper

I hate that feeling of frustration and despair that comes when you wake from a dream where nothing exciting has taken place. Where another night has been wasted filing imaginary papers, or mowing imaginary lawns, or dreaming things that give you no respite from your daily dullness at all. Sometimes it seems like I am trying to wake up from one of those dreams, only I realize that I'm not dreaming. The papers I am filing are real, the hamburger I'm cooking is the same one I ate last week, the routine is making my life fade into overlapping film slides where the images are blurring and mixing into nothing in particular.Do you ever get the feeling where you look around and realize that you life seems hazy? One of those moments where you feel like you are waking out of a dream; where you realize that nothing really seems nitid and the image isn't sharp.

I think we live most of our lives that way without realizing it. The depressing part comes when we arrive at that in between dream and waking state where we realize that we are living murkily, but where we aren't able to shake out of it. While I suppose that the self awareness of the moment is positive, realizing that your life takes place under water doesn't make one feel particularly joyous.
I just had one of those moments, where I looked around and wondered "why?" What was I doing that was making my life worth living? Days of routine, sitting at the computer, working, eating, entertaining myself with forgettable media... Not once had I been hit with one of those Leaves of Grass moments.

You know the ones; those moments where you suddenly sit up, look around and your eyes widen. Suddenly life comes rushing at you. Cold air rushes in your lungs and you feel the oxygen traveling through your bronchioles, getting picked up by blood and flying all the way to your fingertips. You can see the sunlight, you can feel the sunlight through your cotton shirt. Every sound is precise and beautiful and the cacophony becomes a symphony of cars and birds and wind and conversations. At these moments every person around you becomes you and you become them. You can almost see an aura surrounding every person; people wired together by strands of existence. And suddenly you are filled with tremendous Love for everything and everyone around you. You love every bit of life around you. Things that normally irritate you suddenly become lovely idiosyncrasies. You become quite literally in-love with life. And you feel supremely and sublimely aware that life loves you back.

Those are the moments I live for. Sadly they are rare, atrociously outnumbered by life's sleepwalk. But when you do have one of those instants of rapturous clarity, it sticks in your mind. Just knowing that those moments are out there give me the hope to keep living when life feels like it is holding you under water. Maybe soon I'll catch my breath.

Comments

Miriam said…
I just read "The Moviegoer" by Walker Percy which was INCREDIBLE. The narrator is on a search to experience/understand those moments of heightened reality. I loved it. I think you would too. I haven't identified so much with a narrator since...I don't remember, truth be told.

Something else I love - that Sufjan song that goes "I was asleep and he woke me up again." Something about 'again' is encouraging. Makes me feel I'm not the only one halfway asleep.
8/1/08 00:48
Jenn said…
I wonder if you lived in that ultra-aware state all the time if it would begin to feel dull as well or if it would constantly be new and you would be like Buddha or something. It is a wonderful feeling when it comes along, but it doesn't come along enough.
8/1/08 11:52
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13/1/08 02:58
A Guided Drift said…
yes to all of it. i hope you have one of those moments today.
13/1/08 11:18
Reesa Wood said…
I had this lucid month last month that was just like you described. I was thinking, "have I been sleeping for my entire life previous to this?"
2/2/08 20:51
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