Daydream

Gagarin suddenly realized that he was daydreaming.

In a momentary jolt of awaking awareness, he thought back through the last 5 minutes of his mind activity. 5 minutes. It turned out, he thought, that there were 3 distinct trains of thought that passed along in the space of 5 minutes.

First was a hypothetical experience with mild altering substances. Gagarin imagined himself and a few select others enjoying the roller coaster sensations of questioned and altered reality of every day. He relished in the richness - of joy, connection, and physical euphoria - this experience would allow. He may have even smiled to himself.

He then quickly switched his thoughts to his surroundings. He sat in the middle of a small wooded patch on the outskirts of a small town. He then took on a "role" of a public radio journalist, reporting on All Things Considered.

Melissa Block: .. some residents even say there is a serious problem of noise pollution. To talk more about that, we called a professional pilot - Gagarin. Welcome to the program, Gagarin.

Gagarin: Thank you, it's a pleasure.

Melissa Block: And as I understand, you are - right now - in the middle of the last wooded patch in your town?

Gagarin: That is correct.

Melissa Block: So you are surrounded by trees and can't see anyone! And what do you hear?

Gagarin: I hear noise from two different construction sites.

Melissa Block: And Gagarin, briefly, do you find it annoying?

Gagarin: It's actually not a bother. It would be nice though to hear the birds a little better.

Melissa Block: Thank you Gagarin.

Gagarin: The pleasure is all mine Melissa.

And just as quickly, Gagarin switched his thoughts again, this time to the fact that he was sitting in shade. That he enjoyed sitting in shade, and not being pounded ceaselessly by all the uvas and uvbs and maybe even some uvcs since we got them holes in the big OZO layer. Gagarin even remembered his darling wife who is so adamant about protection. He may have smiled again.

And then BAM. Awareness. Swooooosh, self-reference established, and riiiiiight back we go. Swwooooosh. And again. "I was just daydreaming, wow, just sittin in the grass and daydreaming," thought Gagarin. "I had these 3 thoughts, hmm. Interesting." Gagarin recounted all 3. "Wait? Was I aware or not? I definitely was not too present, leme tell ya. First thought I had - I was living a hypothetical event in my mind. Second, I was pretending to give a news report - how amateurish! And why to Melissa Block and not Robert Siegel?? And the third thought was about avoiding cancer. Damn." Gagarin was amazed.

He wondered how difficult of a task continuous awareness seemed to be. He also wondered at how monotonous and sterile the constant feedback looked to him in that moment. "Was I not happy just now, for 5 whole minutes, even in the midst of mindless daydreaming?" Gagarin asked himself. He knew he was.