Slanted Reality
- I'm with my friend Allen and his girlfriend Nicole as we are driving to a friend's party at a house near an ocean cliff. The strange thing is, we are sitting on a large inflatable mattress (like you might find in a swimming pool) and it is on this that we are speeding down the twisty mountain road faster than all the other cars. As we approach oncoming vehicles they strangely pull over to my right-hand-side of the road. Traffic going the same way as us pulls over to the same side as we zoom past amazed faces. As we near the ocean, some militant farmers spot us from their hillside and begin to shoot at us from across the river canyon that we are skirting. Bullets ricochet around us but we finally arrive at the house; except it's actually the guest house and the party is going on across the large property in the main house. It's just one large room with no furniture or features besides the walls, windows and high ceiling. But something strange happens after I lie down in exhaustion and close my eyes. When I open them, I see the image of the blue-grey walls and sunlight streaming in through the window--all tilted sideways since I'm lying down. But when I try to sit up I find that my vision stays slanted; the room and Allen and Nicole tilt crazily as I move my head around. It's frightfully disorienting and I lament my troubles to my friends who can do nothing but encourage me to keep trying. Repeatedly I close my eyes and try to reopen them, hoping that my vision is restored but it never is.
I believe this sensation was caused by a partial association with my actual
supine body as it lay sleeping in my bed. My head was actually in that position, looking sideways at my wall and window. Thus I was experiencing my dream body's inability to move my real body. This was strangely reminiscent of
Salvia divinorum trips where gravity and physical orientation seem to function relative to your body. Also, the ride on the mattress was interesting since it bears such a close resemblance to my earliest dream memory: I was about two years old and dreamt I was rolling down a mountain highway on my parents' big bed.