Suddenly there was something. Smaller than a cell, than an atom, the universe was this something. The precursors to everything ever known by humanity, as well as everything that still remains a mystery to us, not to mention the mysteries we haven't stumbled upon -- it was all compressed into a tiny space. Of course, all of that cannot be in the same space for too long; it expanded rapidly, and now there was space and time, as well as a lot of really small, hot particles zooming around the universe, at this point still smaller than a penny.
As time passed, these particles cooled, letting light through, condensing into atoms.
These atoms condensed into stars.
The stars found themselves attracted into galaxies.
The stars pushed these atoms together to create different atoms. When they could no longer make different atoms, they died in violent, firey explosions that were seen eons after their demise. This galactic dance has lasted longer anyone can even imagine.
Two generations of stars passed in this way, until one star in a hundred million stars in one galaxy in trillions of galaxies was formed. This star had eight planets: four inner, rocky planets and four giant, gaseous monsters.
One of the little rocky planets had a violent start. Magma erupted from the surface; giant rocks crashed into it, and the atmosphere was filled with toxins.
But that little planet settled down, and things started moving around. Little tiny bacteria eventually became larger, grouped together, adapting to the environment. Slowly but surely, over four billion years later, humanity began to evolve.
And here I am, writing about mythology. This is the story that has held up to scientific reasoning, but there's no reason it can't make a good story.
In class, we have been telling each other creation stories. It's been fantastic; I've highly enjoyed listening to all the different myths from around the world and how they all converge on certain aspects, and how through telling and retelling, a myth can take on a new form and masquerade as a completely different creation myth while not quite covering up its tracks.
For example, we heard many creation myths talking about "earth-divers", or animals that would dive down into the water to bring earth back up to a higher being that would then create land from the small bit of earth from the bottom of the ocean. We must have heard at least seven different versions of this tale, yet each one was different and new. It was wonderful.
One theme that I kept hearing was the removal of a god or goddess's eyes to make the sun, moon, and stars. It's kind of comforting in a way; this means that the higher being is always watching us, day or night.
That notion can be either comforting or terrifying depending on how you look at it.
I have a free morning today so I figured I would catch up on writing my blog posts. First up: posting about dreams!
I had two dreams about a week ago that I felt worth mentioning, if only to provide the stark contrast of the worlds that dreams can provide.
The first dream was fairly straightforward. I was hanging out with my (ex) high school boyfriend, and we were chatting and playing video games and having a jolly old time, like old friends. Nothing really notable happened in the hours we were hanging out, but near the end things got a bit wonky. My current boyfriend showed up, and my high school boyfriend began acting weird. He tried to make me kiss him, forcing my face to his, but I broke away. The last thing I remember about the dream was my current boyfriend yelling at him.
Current boyfriend's face near the end of the dream
All in all, it could have happened in real life given the right circumstances. Everything happened within the bounds of physics and the world that I know.
The other dream, however...
I was urgently flying over mountains, watching the sun glance off the snow and the clouds, hurrying to someone important. This part of the dream reminded me of a video game I've played recently, Journey.
(Skip ahead to 15:26 for the part I'm referring to.)
The wind streaming past my face, my hair blowing behind me, the beauty of the surrounding landscape, the music going through my head, absolutely blew me away with wonder.
When I reached my destination, there was a figure standing there that looked something like this:
I've been playing Journey too much.
We didn't talk, but communicated with thoughts and sensations. From our interaction, I knew to return to the earth, to a farmer below the mountains. So I went.
When I arrived at the farm, I talked to the farmer, who said that he had found a strange structure on his farm. I went with him to the structure and entered it. It was dull and grey on the outside with a circular entrance leading down. I entered it, trying to discern the purpose of the thing.
Inside, it resembled a metallic adult-size children's play park; silver, circular hallways crisscrossed and intertwined with large circular black doors leading to different areas. I tried one of the doors, but it was locked. After a time in the maze, I started making my way back to the surface to tell the farmer what I'd found. Before I could get there, though, a small aspiring dictator stepped outside one of the black doors near the entrance.
He looked like the rude Nicelander from Wreck-It Ralph:
"Snooping about, are you?" he said in a shrill voice. "I can't have you doing that."
I laughed at him jovially and decided to entertain him as he took me to another of the black doors. "I'm locking you up!" he said, in a supposed-to-be menacing voice.
I amicably went into the door and he locked it behind me. The room he had put me in looked very similar to a test chamber from Portal:
Oh, videogame references.
It was absolutely huge. It encased a theater (which actually seemed to be made of mostly backstage curtains. There was a stage, but barely), a really big pool with sharks in it, a big empty space with just tiles, and a small little place situated in the wall where Zeus hung out. A few other people were in the cell with me: one or two members from the Glee cast (what?) as well as a few of my college friends.
My memory gets a little fuzzy after this, but from what I can remember, when the little dictator came to visit us, we would all hide and he would think we'd escaped, but then pop out and surprise him. It was worth it to see his moustache jump off of his face.
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So, in conclusion: the dreaming subconscious is a strange place. It can think up simple scenarios like hanging out with friends, then go the complete opposite direction and think up highly elaborate scenarios with no logical description that still seem to make sense within the context of the dream as you dream it.
Either way, I like dreaming. I love being swept away by whatever my subconscious can dream up when it's not listening to my conscious, logical mind tell it what's possible and impossible. No matter what the dream, I'm always in for a fun ride.
