Marley Terry Vigil

Digital Studio

Claudia O’steen

12/02/2021

Traveling Dreams: An Observation of the Line Between Dream and Reality

Traveling Dreams is a website built in order to document my lucid dreams. I began this

documentation so I could answer three questions.

1. How do my everyday thoughts affect my dreams?

2. How does my environment affect my dreams?

3. What themes run throughout my dreams and why?

For my audience to understand my blog, I need to explain a few things. I suffer from Post

Traumatic Stress Disorder and Bi-Polar Disorder. These mental illnesses both stem from a

severely truamatic childhood filled with violence, sexual assualt, drugs, and even murder. In the

past year I began my journey to healing. I have been attending regression therapy every two

weeks. This therapy helps send signals to my brain that it is okay to release memories I have

suppressed because I am now in a place where I can handle them. Because I am allowing my

brain to heal from this trauma, it is sending mixed messages to my body. These messages keep

my adrenaline high and do not allow me to sleep. I now take a prescribed antipsychotic called

Seroquel. Seroquel makes me fall asleep but does not slow down the adrenaline signals my brain

sends to my body. This causes me to have lucid dreams.

When I set out on this journey I originally thought that my Seroquel was causing these

dreams, but it was actually my body. I learned this through research and talking with my doctor.

Knowing these dreams were really interpretations of my trauma, I began to see themes. The first
is that almost all of these dreams take place in my childhood homes. The second is that they are

filled with mythical beings that represent evil. The final theme I noticed was that I was always

alone in these battles against evil. I think my brain is using my dreams to help me come to terms

with some of the evil and vile people I have dealt with. I think it is giving my brain opportunities

to fight against things that I was helpless against as a child. I came to the conclusion that my

everyday thoughts/environment is not affecting my dreams. My memories are what affect my

dreams.