4:57pm March 30, 2012

Dreams and disability

Not all my dreams involve the usual reference points, sensory experiences, having a body, etc. for the real world. A lot of my dreams have so few of those reference points that there’s no way to describe them. And in dreams with the usual reference points, they’re often weirdly jumbled – like objects and people with one identity but a different sensory experience. The first dream I ever remember having – and it was repeated all the time – was silent and white with no other features anywhere. So the following is about stuff that does have some of the usual reference points.

If I have a body at all (which is far from always) I either fly, glide at ground level, walk, or use a wheelchair. When I fly, it sometimes (as before I used a wheelchair) involves a lot of weird arm movements. But for the most part it’s in the same physical position as using a wheelchair. Sometimes even with hand controls. I also frequently freeze up in my dreams the same as in real life. Or have other similar difficulties like inability to move in certain directions or cross lines. Sometimes I fall – like not over a distance, just on the ground, like real life.

My favorite way to move is flying in the wheelchair-type movement style without hand controls or any other movements aside from just gliding where I intend to go. Sometimes if I get stuck, using my hand as if it’s driving a powerchair unsticks me. I have far less trouble flying wheelchair-style than I have ever had flying in dreams. I used to get stuck in power lines or suddenly start falling and that almost never happens in flying wheelchair mode. There’s no actual wheelchair when I’m flying wheelchair-style, but there’s often one (sometimes intermittently) when I’m gliding along at ground level. Sometimes when there are hand controls, the direction I move the joystick will work opposite from real life. Other times moving forward and backward will be controlled by my mind but moving up and down or left and right will be controlled by joystick.

I remember hearing Christopher Reeve say that he never had a wheelchair in his dreams. That he always walked. He claimed that this showed hope and determination to walk again. I think he was missing out. I can do things in a chair (whether physically present or not) in my dreams that I could never do on foot. I move faster and fly better and there’s always that reassuring feeling of pressure behind me that being pushed or a rear wheel drive powerchair provides. It’s always too bad when disabled people never manage to move past the “I will walk again at all costs” mentality because even when you’re awake you miss a lot that way and tend to be unhappy.

Oh and I just had a dream that three women were washing their hands in a big bowl. And instead of water dripping off their fingertips, pewter blackberries dripped off their fingertips. It was the coolest looking thing, I wish I was able to realistically paint or animate it or something.

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