I never heard about this before!

Why don't we breathe equally out of both nostrils?

during the nasal cycle one nostril becomes congested and thus contributes less to airflow, while the other becomes decongested. On average, the congestion pattern switches about every 2 hours

Nasal Cycle

Turbinates consist of bony projections covered by erectile tissue, much like the tissues of the penis and clitoris. The turbinates in one fossa fill up with blood while the opposite turbinates decongest by shunting blood away. This cycle, which is controlled by the autonomic nervous system, has a mean duration of two and a half hours but varies widely with age, body-posture, and other conditions.

Some years back I took to always sleeping with my mouth open (ie. breathing through my mouth) because one or both of my nostrils so often get congested when I lie down to sleep. I dreaded not getting enough air and struggling to breathe while I was oblivious to it, asleep. I also didn't want to have those kinds of dreams where I'm trying to do something simple but it's a very hard struggle, which I suspect are likely due to those times when I'm having trouble breathing.

I had several lucid dreams this morning, and unlike most times, I didn't wake up right upon realizing they were dreams. Instead, I was able to try controlling the dreams, though with only partial success. I was able to levitate myself and fly. I was able to fly straight through a bedroom window, with the glass dissolving around me. I was able to make a wall become transparent, although I'm not sure why... there was an aggressive dog on the other side of the wall barking at me. I tried to make that dog disappear as it wasn't real; I don't think I succeeded but after that is when I flew through the window, so it no longer mattered. Other things in the dreams kept thwarting me.

In one dream, I thought I was awake, and that Qiao was on the other side of the bedroom door. I tried to get up to open the door for him, but I was too tangled up in the sheets and blankets. When I tried to speak, to yell to him, my voice was too faint to hear. That happens in my dreams every once in a while, I'm struggling to be heard, but can't make my voice come out more than a whisper.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I had an anxiety-type dream that manifested as difficulty in getting my face-mask on. I was meeting up with someone, and belatedly realized that I should be wearing a face-mask. So I started digging around in my purse... there were several in there, but it took a while to find the right one that I could wear. By then there was a whole group of people with us. The others were all wearing their face masks. I was being silently judged by them, though they were polite and didn't say anything... I was still struggling to get the face mask out of my purse. And then a group photo of us all was being taken, and I still didn't have the mask on, and it was going to be immortalized in a photograph...

Nothing too dire, and somewhat amusing in retrospect.

..

This evening I had a scary thought. What if I end up being sick on election day, so that I can't go vote? Or so I feel I shouldn't go vote, to avoid infecting anyone else? What if I'm just a little bit sick, and I don't know if I should go out or not?

There are probably going to be long lines again for this election. Not a nearly empty gymnasium like during the primaries. So if I have any reason to think I might have COVID or a flu, I ought not go out even to vote. That would be unfortunate.

I was so sleepy last night that I kept falling asleep while trying to write down notes about my day* on my laptop. Each time as I felt myself drifting into sleep, I started to hear sounds which coalesced into music or voices, someone saying something, etc. Instant dreams. Except that I woke up / pulled myself back from sleep before it went anywhere beyond those sounds.

*I've been writing daily notes to use for my own later reference, for the last few years. The notes are mainly lists of things I did, without any commentary of how I felt (as documenting the latter would take more effort and time, and generally doesn't even occur to me at the time that I'm writing the notes). Sometimes, maybe often, I still manage to miss writing down various semi-significant things that happened during the day. As I discovered today when I checked to see which recent day it was that we had a fire alarm at work.

We celebrated Christmas early yesterday.

I woke up early this morning to say farewell to my brother and his wife, then went back to bed as I'd only gotten 4 hours of sleep so far. They were still finishing up packing for a while, before my mom came to take them to the airport. They're visiting the wife's family now.

Until they left, I wasn't able to fall deeply asleep, but dozed for a while. I kept having dreams where it seemed like I had awakened, but then realized that something was off.

I woke up... the window was wide open and letting in wind. I thought I must have opened it while sleep-walking. Then I saw Serena on the floor. She's not normally in the bedroom. She was acting strange, and after a while I realized that it wasn't Serena.

That's the only one I remember now.

Now I'm watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on TV. I think it's the first time I've watched the whole movie. Hmmm, was it normal back then for people to keep crows and squirrels as pets, and to let them wander around inside houses?

Huh. They're hanging tinsel on the tree. Heavy tinsel like mine.

I woke up, sitting in my chair at work with my head leaning back. I had fallen asleep at work! It was now the middle of the night... when I saw a clock, it showed 4am.

I got up and started walking, to wake myself up. I walked into the next building where I don't normally go, and promptly got lost. I was surprised that there were still a lot of other people around, still working at that hour.

I saw sunlight starting to brighten the curtains on the east side of the building, and walked over there to look at the sunrise. When I looked out the window, I saw the ocean and a beach down below! I exclaimed something in surprise, and another guy nearby said something like yeah, the company put that there for employees. I said I had never seen it before, and looked back outside again. It looked like the real ocean, with waves, but it only extended out for a short distance and ended.

I found my way back to my cube and was preparing to leave, when I heard/saw another co-worker just leaving, locking the door behind them. I worried for a moment that he was locking me in, but then I remembered that I had a key - hopefully it worked from the inside too, to unlock the door.

Today (or rather yesterday), I:
- got more than 8 hours sleep
- turned in some old/broken electronics for recycling at Best Buy
- took some clothes & other stuff to Goodwill
- returned an unopened wireless doorbell to Lowes (Qiao bought it, but I wanted to get a different one that can be plugged into an outlet rather than requiring batteries)
- went grocery shopping

While sleeping, the last part of a dream involved a long flight of marble steps, outside, which I sat down on and slid down. I was expecting a somewhat rough ride on my butt, but it was gentle, comfortable, so I laid back all the way and closed my eyes for a bit. I reached my right arm out to slow down and stop myself. The steps went down into a large body of water (which wasn't there to begin with, but appeared while I was descending) and I stopped before reaching the water. But then all of a sudden before I could get up, this guy sat his heavy self down on me and started pressing hard on the jugular vein on one side of my neck, as if trying to make me pass out. Though I suppose he would have needed to do both sides of my neck to accomplish that. Then I woke up.

While shopping, I picked up a case (12 units) of Tofutti non-dairy American Cheese slices which I had ordered, since no stores in the area carry it anymore that I'm aware of. It goes on my lunch sandwiches for work, along with Vegenaise and Tofurky vegan pepperoni.

The intersection of Forest Drive and Beltline Blvd has some kind of noise device installed that must be intended for helping visually impaired people. Something like an Accessible Pedestrian Signal, I suppose. But it doesn't make a chirping, beeping, or cuckoo noise. It doesn't have a voice saying "Walk". It makes a HORRENDOUSLY LOUD SCREECHING BUZZING noise. I can't imagine who thought such a thing would be a good idea. I feel sorry for anyone who has to work in the area. Is the noise intended for people who are both blind and almost deaf?

If the noise only came on when a visually impaired person was walking in the area, it would make more sense to me (though if it were me, I'd avoid walking in that area at all costs, to avoid the horrible noise). But it never turns off from what I can tell. Surely in this day and age, where nearly everyone has a cell phone, apps could be available to allow people to trigger the noise makers only when they are nearing the intersection and actually need the audible assistance.

I've encountered a few other intersections with way too loud noise-makers (beepers and tickers), but this one has got to be the worst. I wouldn't want to live within a half mile of it.

I tried to find a video of the noise, but failed, even though I found a video of the intersection from February. Either the noise-maker is very new, or the news station edited that sound out of the video, or maybe it doesn't make noise all the time after all.

Creepy dream this morning, with me disposing of a dead body (of which I had nothing to do with the death) and then anxiously realizing that the authorities wouldn't approve of the way I had disposed of it, if they found out.

.

The dead goose has been floating at the edge of the pond for the last 3 weeks, slowly decomposing. I haven't noticed any bad smells, walking by. Yesterday there was a buzzard near that edge of the lake. It flew away as I approached. I didn't realize that buzzards would eat meat that's been dead *that* long.

I realized I had awoken. And I thought, "That was a dream? ... That was an Awesome Dream!!!"

I tried to remember it. The following was only the last bit of it. There was much more before, but that was too far gone already, to remember.

I was falling.
For an interminable time, as if I must surely smash into the ground and die.
(From a giant Tree? There had been another tree nearby, and someone Else who had suchly fallen and had felt great fear while falling, but they *had* hit the ground and died.)

Yet my falling kept being halted, and switching to weightlessness. Then falling again.

I was being played with, I realized. By a god. The god.
(I had the distinct feeling in the dream that the god was female gendered, and me male, but there was nothing otherwise gendered or sexual about the dream.)

So, knowing that this was a game and that She did not want me to die, only to be afraid, lightened my fears.

Eventually the Falling stopped.
Then the God beckoned, and I came - or maybe They pulled me - across galaxies and empty Space. I could see a set of ~7 galaxies, passing by. Then we stopped, having reached the destination (one of the galaxies?)

We were suddenly in a room, like an office (but I knew it was a jail cell).
The God was cutting a piece of pinkish ribbon (like for wrapping presents) in order to bind my wrists with it. A short piece. She was going to tape it closed.

I held my wrists out with my hands in loose fists, palms up. She indicated to turn them the other way, so I did. She must have tied them/taped them with the ribbon, as then she was writing in some Notebook of hers.

I watched/read as she wrote. It was some notes about me, and she was writing a Number at the top of the page. I realized it was a number to identify me, the prisoner, the specimen. It was a large number; like 16 thousand and something. I was one of that many prisoners of hers.

I became intensely sad, realizing that even if she came to visit me in this cell, that they would be short visits, with eternity in between.

But then I made my sadness be still and go away, for right now, she was here. I should appreciate/enjoy her Presence while I still could.

Around the time that I woke up, I was thinking about how easily I could break the ribbon binding my wrists, if it weren't that doing so would bring Her wrath. Who would dare to invoke her wrath? Or maybe the light binding was so I could free myself if other Danger came. Or maybe the ribbon would shortly transform into thick steel.

I was outside with someone else, apparently having trimmed / cut back overgrowth. The other person mentioned that this one plant that had been trimmed was an oracle.

There was a question/mystery we needed answered. So I addressed the plant, "Oh, Oracle Plant, ..."

Immediately, a vine on the plant grew outwards, and wrapped itself around my wrists. It may have also wrapped one around my neck. But it wasn't menacing; it was recognizing me as a supplicant.