As i started doing these reality checks, I realized something:

I've been, somewhat subconciously performing reality checks for years of my life.

My dream-life is such a strange place. I have many dream signs, so much so that in many ways, i have a whole separate dream-life universe. It's a strange place. Like the "real" world (What is real?) sometimes that dream-verse is comforting, sometimes that universe is out to get me. As in the real world, it is part of me and affected by me. The key differences of the dream-verse are ones of pure design. Physics exist in the dream-verse, but instead of keeping me from doing things, physics allows me to do things, like flying.

Flying is one of my dream signs. Specifically, flying down the stairs from the hallway to the basement in the house i grew up in. This house has retreated from my memory in many, many ways. I don't remember how it looked, smelled,

Smelling is a key sense to me. Smells are tangible to me. They connect me with memories, with the past, with a planned or imagined future. I define moods by smell. When I enter a new place, or a changed old place, I define that place or it's changes by it's current smell.

I will give you an example: the smell of Ramen noodles brings back these seemingly unconnected memories, brought together indirectly through a smell, connected exactly through ways only I know:
*the day after someone I knew committed suicide, when a friend and I retreated from the world to a world of fiction to survive the pain of this event
*lazy Saturday mornings as a kid, waking up after watching a movie with my family late into the previous night
*the feel of sock-shod feet on institutional carpet (as in, the carpet normally found in a kindergarten class. i.e. low maintenance carpet)

Smelling is also in some ways a reverse dream sign for me. Smelling doesn't work the same way in my dream-verse. Not to say that it doesn't exist, it just plays a peripheral role to the other senses in that universe.


, or much else about it. The few things i do remember are scattered, except in one area. that area is the look of that stairway from top to bottom. For my entire life I have had recurring dreams of standing at the top of that stairway and simply pushing up with my feet, then floating down that stairway to the bottom. this has become a dream sign and part of my dream-verse in a almost archetypical way. I will be having a dream, be within that dream-verse, when i will catch some glimpse of that stairway in the corner of the place I'm in. There will sometimes be just a little hint of it...a little glimpse of the corner of a stair or the railing....but that will be enough. Enough to reconnect me with my past and add an overtone to that part of my dream-verse.

Because of the strangeness of my dream-verse, I subconsciously have been performing reality checks for years. My reality checks include some traditional ones like looking at a clock and trying to remember the time while looking away and looking back, but other ones as well, such as feeling something with a distinct texture a few times in different places on it. For example, i will run my hands over various parts of a piece of clothing or a blanket, changing the place, direction, and speed i run my hands over it. In the real world, that object will have the same texture over it's entirety, but in my dream-verse the change of direction and speed of my hands' motion (more often than just where i place my hands on it) cause almost a discordance (really, in a very musical sense) to the feeling of it.

I'm not really sure how to conclude this, except to say that I'm very curious as to if others have a whole dream-verse, or if that is something unique to me.

*BONUS* The song i listened to on loop while writing this was Silver Strand by The Corrs, which frankly is in many ways a dream like song. It recalls the wonder of seeing something you previously thought to be impossible, in both real life and a dream-verse. It's Beautiful too. Oh, and i'm listening to it right now :)