I had a strange experience during my sleep last night.
Let me set a bit of context: Firstly, for those few dreams that I remember when I awake, I am somewhat of a lucid dreamer. While dreaming, I am fully aware that I am dreaming, that the events I experience have no reality. Secondly, I sleep rather raggedly; periodically awakening to change my position in the bed, varying from on my right side, on my front, to on my left side (on my back is an alert position for me on which I do not sleep). Since, when I sleep on one side or another, I keep a pillow between my knees and another held to my chest, I need to be awake enough to rearrange those cushions as I change position.
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Spotted Lake with the peak of Mount Kobau behind it, centre right.
"TV Mountain" is well out of the photo on the right. |
With last night's dream, I found we were at
Spotted Lake. Who, "we," were remained a bit dream vague but Adam, Angela's dog, was with us. I decided that we should hike the trail from Spotted Lake to the top of the spur off Mount Kobau that I grew up calling TV Mountain because of the television repeater at its peak. As can happen in a dream, the context can change. Instead of following the trail to the top of the spur, we were following a trail to the top of
Mount Kobau. Adam and I were enjoying the hike with one other person, sometimes in the dream my brother John and at other times an unidentified companion. It seems our plan was to hike to the top then down above Testalinda Canyon to meet Tina with the car where Testalinda Creek breaks out of the canyon onto its alluvial fan. It must have been early summer as, at one point during our hike, we came across a family hiking down the trail with a small dog that had cherries dangling off its ears. We soon found a wild cherry tree on the right side of the trail with beautiful big ripe cherries, the size of Lapin cherries. Further up the trail, we found another wild cherry tree but its cherries were the size of normal wild cherries. These, of course, are completely out of context on Mount Kobau. We hiked on but the dream eventually petered out as we got to a place where we could view down the other side across the Similkameen Valley but before we reached the top of the mountain.
The really strange bit occurred while I was still dreaming. At some point between the cherries and seeing across the Similkameen, I awoke with an urge to change my sleeping position. I was fully aware of my presence in our bedroom and position on the bed, yet the dream continued to play even as, fully awake, I changed my sleeping position and rearranged my pillows. At the same time, I was aware of myself as both in my bed and on the trail up Mount Kobau.
