XPost: alt.dreams.lucid, alt.out-of-body   
   From: TheGremlin.NoSpam@gmail.com   
      
   ..:: The Art of Dying ..::   
      
   2004 by Gremlin   
   -   
      
   A Dream Within a Dream   
   (1827)   
   by Edgar Allan Poe   
   (1809-1849)   
      
   Take this kiss upon the brow!   
   And, in parting from you now,   
   Thus much let me avow-   
   You are not wrong, who deem   
   That my days have been a dream;   
   Yet if hope has flown away   
   In a night, or in a day,   
   In a vision, or in none,   
   Is it therefore the less gone?   
   All that we see or seem   
   Is but a dream within a dream.   
      
   I stand amid the roar   
   Of a surf-tormented shore,   
   And I hold within my hand   
   Grains of the golden sand-   
   How few! yet how they creep   
   Through my fingers to the deep,   
   While I weep-while I weep!   
   O God! can I not grasp   
   Them with a tighter clasp?   
   O God! can I not save   
   One from the pitiless wave?   
   Is all that we see or seem   
   But a dream within a dream?   
   ###   
      
      
   Something changes inside a man, when death looks into his soul and he is   
   forced as well to take a look at himself for the first time.  It is a   
   reality everyone gets the chance to experience, but not many get to tell   
   the tale to their children.  I have stepped close to that brink many times.   
   I had the chance to contemplate death before in the end it came for me.   
      
   I didn't see any white lights, or here any Angels beckoning me.  In reality   
   I was catatonic in a hospital bed.  Could have been the traumatic life I   
   had led that got me there, or some chemical that entered my body.  The   
   doctors haven't told me what led up to my hospital stay and I can't   
   remember. At the time no one expected me to ever recover... and there is   
   only so long they will feed you through a tube.   
      
   I was unconscious, and at times I was dreaming dreams.  I remember them   
   too.  I remember dreaming that I was in school again.  I remember going on   
   vacation. I even remember the false awakenings.  That is where it all   
   started.   
      
   The first one wasn't in the hospital bed.  It was in my bedroom where I'm   
   still living now.  I woke up, or I thought I did, and I walked out to the   
   bathroom in the dark. When I looked into the moonlit mirror I could see   
   myself standing there without my shirt on.  My body started changing in the   
   mirror.  It was growing hair, and fangs.. I was turning into an animal and   
   it frightened me.  Then I realized that I couldn't be awake and this had to   
   be a dream I was having.   
      
   In the outside world they knew I was probably never to awaken.  I thought   
   perhaps that I would wake up soon... Instead though I forgot it was a   
   dream, and rose into a non dreaming but still unconscious state.   
      
   These false awakenings would happen again, or I would realize I was   
   dreaming some other way.  When I had these moments of lucidity the reality   
   began to creep up on me that I couldn't remember when I had last woken up.   
      
   At some point I began wondering, and to some degree believing.. That the   
   dream world I was living in was the only one there was.  The crucial change   
   came when I had a false awakening and I turned back over and went back to   
   sleep, inside of my dream... And that is when it happened.  That is when I   
   had a dream within a dream.  In that hour, I wasn't really dreaming anymore   
   than you are dreaming now.  The dream I was having perfectly reflected the   
   reality I was actually in.  I was in a REM state, and in that state I was   
   dreaming through the mental process of entering another REM state within   
   the reality of the dream.   
      
   When I entered that dream.  I was lying in a hospital bed.  Not floating   
   outside of my body, but unplugging myself from the machines.  I was alone   
   in the room, but a nurse rushed in and called for the doctor.  She said the   
   patient was speaking.  When the doctor came into the room he spoke to me,   
   said my name.  I responded, but he couldn't seem to hear me and they both   
   left the room.   
      
   This seemed to be a dream to me, and I didn't like it much.  I imagined a   
   more peaceful place, but it didn't come.  So I walked out of the hospital   
   and no one seemed to notice me.  I traveled outside, and tried to look at   
   my watch but it wasn't on my wrist.  It was night out though and there   
   wasn't much traffic on the street.   
      
   Someone noticed me then, once I was outside the hospital.  He was sitting   
   in a tree, and I could only make out his silhouette in the darkness and the   
   moonlight reflecting off his eyes.   
      
   "Not many people come out of there, you know."   
   I suspected he meant the hospital, but then he spoke again.   
   "No, not the hospital.  You are still in there, at least in a way."   
   This was the first dream I had that made any sense.   
   "I want to go home."   
   The figure in the tree jumped down from the branches, and I could see him   
   in the street light.  He was dark skinned and wearing a dark wardrobe, but   
   barefoot.   
   "Then go back inside, and lie back down on your bed until someone notices   
   you."   
      
   I did exactly as the man instructed me to..  After I had rested there for a   
   few minuets, I began feeling like I was in two places at once.. I started   
   seeing I had two arms.. Then I started feeling like I was seeing through   
   two sets of eyes.  I yelled for help.......   
      
   I woke up that night... And life goes on.  The lesson I learned I suppose   
   can't be taught...  You have to live them for yourself...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)