I know it sounds like some newfangled dance style, but I’m referring to the five-thirty-AM-flashbacks and assorted images that are my near-nightly (most certainly, this past nightly) adventure. Accompanied by some of the most vivid recollections of a dream I could possibly retain. Hypnopompic (don’t you love that word?) because it occurred – as they most often and memorably do for me – in that semi-waking state between deep sleep and morning alertness.
Five-thirty because my very first jolt from sleep, at approximately 4 am is typically nudged into ceding gracefully back into sleep – lest I slide into a zombie zone by mid-afternoon. Calming my thoughts back into a peaceful reverie, I last another hour or so, which is apparently when my brain kicks into high gear, indeed, revving up just as I’m slipping out of the night’s final zzzzzz-zone.
This morning’s hypnopompic odyssey, unlike previous episodes, yielded a particularly optimistic aggregation of visual clips: I was riding down a country road on a little Vespa-like motorbike, wearing an oversized helmet – and, quite possibly, the largest, blackest, Jackie-Onassisistic, sunglasses this world has ever seen. I was either sitting or half-standing (Segway-style), but what matters most is this: I was back on a bike…any bike. Whoohoo!
Passing by a sandwich board installed in the middle of the road, I slowed and turned to see what was written on the back as it was blank on the side from which I’d ridden; but I turned forward quickly again to keep my eyes on the road.
Quite suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a large cement truck appeared right in front of me; its massive barrel turning in a hypnotic fashion, spewing lava-like cement out onto the road. Even though I’m not at all sure that it was a cement road – wood or steel perhaps? There was but a single small hole (maybe only a pothole?!) that was in need of repair, so surely the cement truck was unloading far too much guck for that one hole! I was stunned: It was blatant and wasteful overkill – like using a hammer and anvil to straighten a slightly misshapen nail or applying a plaster cast to a finger with a papercut. Then again, perhaps it’s best to do more than less, err on the side of caution, that type of thing.
Stopped in my tracks, leaning heavily to my right side, I merely waited for the path to clear. I think I awoke to the sound of a vehicle buzzing by.
Note to self: Pay close attention to my hypnopomps in the near future…
Healing Pilgrim 