You stop breathing, you’re dead.

When Jesse was studying Dream Yoga while I was in class, he listened to the teachings of this guy who took two years to design and experience a retreat for himself so he could become a professional lucid dreamer. In these recordings he draws attention to your breath directing your consciousness. When you stop breathing, everything stops: you’re dead. So by that logic if you deepen and expand and extend your breath beyond its comfort zone, you become more alive. This is called Pranayama, one of the eight petals of Yoga.

Sometimes Jesse will recount something from the trip to me that I cannot recall. He remembers buying a flower for me at a specific point that in my recollection simply did not happen. Is it that he cannot distinguish between his dream life and his waking life any more? Apparently if you never get stressed out about anything you never need to sleep, he says.

Now I remember. It did happen. Though he remembers me putting it in a vase, I recall affixing it to my backpack somehow. These details are all blurred together in our shared unconscious, where we sometimes collaborate in sleep. I wonder what pieces of the journey will fall between the crevices where they may only ever be uncovered in future lives.

Now that we have no more unwanted growth plants I do not sleep as deeply, but remember more details of my dreams. I wonder what it will be like when we go to the Silence course, a ten day program popular among travellers wherein you are not allowed to make contact with other students, let alone utter a sound or word. Books and writing implements are not even allowed, and any regular exercise regimen is strictly discouraged. The genders’ sleeping quarters are also separated. Paul and Williamina have taken and endorse it. We are preparing to undergo this new course of study in June.