SOUND RECORDING. CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY: I tried to capture a recording of a hypnagogic state for seven months with a voice activated recorder by my head when I napped or fell asleep. I kept trying to narrate the state and I knew I was close, but every time I tried, I woke myself up. I finally captured this one. I’ve been trying for a long time to record another one, but it’s very hard to do....

I am enveloped into a dream. The empty void of my awareness pulls me into a reality that is as real as any I’ve experienced. As I rouse from blissful unconsciousness I feel a weight on my chest. Sleepy and unable to move I become aware of a presence in the blackness of the room. It’s a strangely familiar sensation. I know you, I think from the blur of slumber. I become aware of an ecstatic warmth between my legs. There’s a pressure, a...

In waking reality, I lie down on a couch at a book launch party for Xenolinguistics. I enter a hypnagogic state. A cubist style man sitting in a chair operates a big industrial looking machine that rotates around, places his glasses on his face, then places a drink in his hand. Then he becomes a large framed painting from the waist up, sitting in a leather wing chair atop the legs of a man. During this hypnoidal dream, I am also listening to my...

I was with this wrinkled old brown guy in a wired hat/ headdress thing, maybe some sort of shaman, and I could tell he had a fiery tongue before he spoke because his whole mouth glowed so brightly that I could see his jaws and teeth through his flesh, like an X-ray. He spoke to me, but not in a way that I could understand, leaving glyph-like cinders hanging in the air.

Deep below the surface of the ocean, the water is arranged in boxes, all different shades of blue. I jump from one box to another, able to breathe underwater. A goddess rises from the water, her hair full of stars. She raises her arms and the stars all become the eyes of peacock feathers. A white beard appears first, then a stern man’s face forms around it, Cheshire cat style. He has wisdom to impart to me. In my sleep, I feel my right hand...

With a single bark, a German Shepard lunges forward straining against its leash. I’m acutely aware of the texture of the tan and black fur on the back of his neck and of the damp heat of his breath. I fall backwards onto the bed as Rachel pulls the covers up over her head. I wake up and realize that Rachel and I are in bed in line at a coffee shop. There’s the warmth and chaos of the crowded café, with the scent of coffee and morning...