As someone with vivid, demanding dreams, I take my waking slow - accepting it as a kind of rebirth, carefully deciphering symbols as well as coded commands, realizing how those first moments, interstate, might set the tone for the day, ahead.

Awaiting my consciousness to return from faraway places, I understand the need to protect my self as you say, and honor the dream world - in hopes that precious little is wasted on me.

Here’s a small poem of mine, to this effect:

Dark Room

Awoke, with an unseen
reel of dream film
I’d found wandering

And, now wondering
where does one develop
such unreal pictures?