Despite getting plenty of sleep, I’m tired and only halfway through my morning coffee.
For a few moments, I close my eyes. In a near-dreamlike state, I pay attention to the scenes that flash across my mind. I’m standing in a darkened hallway near a set of steps – a woman is with me, we’re heading out to dinner, I reach back to hold her hand. The image feels familiar and disappears. A yellow dog, a golden retriever, is standing in front of me. The sun shines. With my thumbs, I’m rubbing the space between and around his eyes. My fingers rub behind his ears. The image disappears. I’m leaving an apartment where I once lived. I walk the sidewalk to the parking lot.
I close my eyes again. The wind blows on a wispy curtain that I’m trying to color with a pencil. The wind knocks over an empty card board box stacked on the floor next to me. The space is gray and bare like a photographer’s studio. The scene changes. Another dog appears, a Burmese chasing a Frisbee on a green lawn.
I close my eyes again. A young, black woman sits on a gray porch. She’s getting her hair pulled back and combed by her sister. They wear denim overalls. They’re going to be backup singers in a band called “Match Paradise.” The image shifts. A red sheet of fabric spreads across a beige carpeted hallway that leads into my home office where the sunlight pours blindingly through the window.
I’m not sure where these images come from. I don’t usually practice this type of “dreaming” – or perhaps more accurately, when I experience this mental floating, I either fall asleep or snap out of it. There are terms for this (though I’m not sure that’s what was going on). Hypnagogia is a transitional state from wakefulness to sleep. Hypnopompia is the transitional state from sleep to wakefulness.
I’m more awake now. I’ve poured a second cup of coffee. I’m tempted to try this sort of meditation again, though I’m afraid the moment has passed. Not sure how to proceed, I resist reaching for my phone – my mental “ummm” – my crutch when I feel stuck or bored or disengaged. It, the phone, the news, the apps feels like the opposite of paying attention. Today, a little inspired by tapping into the nonsensical, I’d like to pay better attention – to everything.