Sleep Working

This post really is about running.

When I was writing my Ph.D. dissertation, there were a few times when I caught myself "sleep working." This has only happened to me a handful of times in my life. Basically, I wake up with the recollection of a dream. During those dissertation months, the dreams were conceptual frameworks or strategies for stitching together my chapters. There were times when several sentences strung together would be waiting for me when I woke up. I didn't need to work to recall them; I didn't dash off and grab a pen or turn on the computer. They were just there. My theory has been that it was some kind of long-term processing that finished during the night. Kind of like the familiar "epiphany" or "breakthrough" thoughts that are more familiar during waking, but captured with your brain's TiVo during sleep and played back.

So, what's this got to do with running? Well, I've had a couple of running concept "dreams," though they are not narratives with plots, settings, and characters. They are really sensations--things I've tried to "feel" while running but have struggled. They happened a few nights apart, and when I say nights I really mean mornings, as I think they happened immediately before waking.

I've heard it said that you really learn a language once you start to dream in it. Well, perhaps I am getting this new running form down given these two dreams below. Now, I need to caution you: reading about dreams is like reading stuff that was written by people on drugs. I am seriously not on drugs. Seriously.

1. My Straight Spine. The first sensation was feeling my straight spine. From my tailbone up to my head, I felt a keen awareness of my spine as a straight line, lying right there in bed with me but suspended in space. The outside "felt" like a gauzy dark gray (a sensation of feeling a color, or synethesia--something I've never felt waking). My actual spine was a yellow dotted line--this yellow I saw, not felt. I was so aware of my spine, its straightness, and the space it occupied. I knew as I dremt that this was about my running, that it came from my reading and from the DVD and the whole "column" thing in ChiRunning. While walking and running, I can recall this feeling but not quite re-capture it or re-create it. I don't think that kind of awareness is possible for me, but in my dream it was. It's still been helpful.
2. Gravity Pulling Me. This morning (or last night, depending on how you look at it) I dreamed the sensation of leaning forward and letting gravity do all the work. Again, this comes straight from my reading and thinking and focusing on the idea of a lean and the Pose/ChiRunning idea. When I am actually running, I feel like I can approximate a lean and get some help from gravity, but I can't feel gravity pulling me. In my dream, my straight spine leaned forward and I could feel gravity pulling me down toward the ground. I could also feel my clumsy attempts to catch myself and run on my legs. I tripped and only got it a few times. I don't think I'll ever feel that in real life, not as strong.

So what is really odd is that, while I cannot conjure the feelings described above, I can keenly remember feeling them in the same way you can remember a smell that is not present in your nose or a taste that is not present in your mouth. Do it right now: lilac bushes; barbecue sauce. They are there but they're not. Unlike lilacs and barbecue, however, I'm not sure that the two things above ever were sensations I had. Still, the memory of having them has already helped me. Strange, indeed.