Remnants 8 - Late-night Limbo: Part 4 (Living Dream)

No, not living the dream. In fact, kind of the opposite just for the fact that it's limbo.

This form of late-night limbo is distinguishable because it sits right on the edge of the line between consciousness and sleep, not that all forms of limbo aren't close enough already. Living Dream limbo is something only I have experienced, as far as I know. Rather than wavering between states of consciousness, Living Dream limbo involves both at the same time. As the name implies, it's everything a daydream wishes it could be - complete immersion into a dream world during the waking hours.

Reaching this form of limbo could probably compete with entering the Matrix. Since the alternate world in which you find yourself is, in fact, a dream world, anything goes in terms of what you may encounter there. For instance, one time I went into Living Dream limbo, I somehow managed to get a virus on my computer, and I can very clearly recall the slightly manic state of mind I found myself in before exiting limbo. In a different Living Dream I was decked out in dark silver armor, fighting a slimy tentacle monster in a grassy, muddy clearing in a forest of towering evergreens under a dark, cloudy sky.

See, the thing with Living Dream limbo is not simply the fact that you enter a dream, but more the concept that you have complete awareness while inside this dream. Whereas in most cases it is somewhat difficult to remember exactly what goes on in a dream, the level of awareness in this kind of limbo allows for normal encoding of events into episodic memory, to use psychology terms. In other words, events experienced in this form of limbo can be remembered just as clearly as events that occur in real life.

Now, this revelation brings up a very intriguing concept. As made very clear in the movie Inception, time in a dream world seems to pass much more quickly than time that actually passes in real life. I don't recall the specifics used in the movie, but as an example, ten minutes in real life could mean as much as ten hours in a dream. This normally would be totally fine since "it was all just a dream", except for the fact that in a Living Dream, events (including information from all five senses, be there something to remember for each) are recorded in the mind with accuracy comparable to real life. This being the case, what's to say these dreams are not actual occurrences? The only reason I say they're dreams is because I make a logical jump in assuming that since the last non-limbo memories I have are me lying down face-up in bed, and my next perceptions after limbo are me lying down face-up in bed, my experience in limbo must have been a dream.

If, however, I don't make this jump, the next most logical thing would be to assume that the events I experience in limbo are actual occurrences that take place in some alternate dimension. This possibility is not some thing to be ruled out immediately, as other forms of limbo (namely Life Balance and 11 o'clock Fail) do suggest that it is quite possible that limbo represents a fold in the space-time continuum. . .