Snippets From Dreams

"I'm glad somebody brought back the old curtains"

That was a character in last night's dream commenting on the improvement of a house I had recently moved into. Apparently I had restored some of its old credibility, unlike the previous owners, who had wrecked the place.

This dream, though, was noteable not for house restoration (which is a dream topic all on its own) but for the neon-pink-and-blue gel which glopped and glupped out of my head when I scratched a raised mark in the shape of a rat which had appeared on the side of my neck and was bothering me.

I remember feeling a sense of great relief as this toxic substance literally fell out of my head, leaving me clearer and cleaner.

Possible origins: mosquito in the bedroom, rat in the roofspace.

Coming Back to Life

There I was, walking down by the river.

A river running through steep banks of earth and grass in haphazard tufts.

A river not notable for its cleanliness, but neither noticed for its dirtiness - a river not very much noticed at all.

The banks, however, were strewn with civilization's rubbish; bits of paper and plastic, stickers and labels, all in smallish pieces and none of them whole items in themselves.

As I walked, I came across a brown envelope stuffed with ...documents, apparently. Certificates, acknowledgments, results of examinations, testimonials. All of them mine.


I took the envelope unto myself.

There are many methods of soul retrieval, but vivid dreams must be one of the most satisfying.

image:Bags Revolt

Roses

Dreaming last night, I was walking in my garden, which was unaccountably - since it is Winter - full of roses.

Huge blooms of all colours grew from bushes and trees, and although I rarely get the sense of smell vividly in my dreams, still I knew that their scent was powerful and beautiful.

When I awoke, something was nagging me...what was it now..oh yes, my doctor had found an unacceptably high blood pressure reading in me when I visited him for the 'flu two weeks ago.

Roses, for those who don't know it yet (and that apparently included me up to a few hours ago) are a sovereign aromatherapy for high blood pressure.

Another Glass House

I often dream of glass houses. Or rather, houses and other buildings made with a conspicuous amount of glass - usually in the walls.

On Saturday night, my dream was profound, involving bringing my Mom home. We collected her from where she had been kept, in safety, and brought her home with us.

That home was a glass-walled house of lovely design and comfortable proportions. I can see it now: a North (sun-facing, in this hemisphere) room which was a living room, and a parallel dining room containing a three-place and a two-place dining table. The dining room lead into a kitchen with low lighting but impeccable appointments. All the rooms had glass walls.

I know, near enough, what this seeming obsession with glass in buildings says about my life. I'm comfortable with it and I'm not hiding anything.

It was near the end of the dream, as we were all seated for a meal, that we started talking about death and our own readiness for it. I explained how easy I was with my own death, but my Dad, seated at the table on my left, expressed clear scepticism about all this woo-woo stuff.

Now my Dad, in life, wasn't above subscribing to the odd bit of woo himself: he was an early audience for Erich von Daniken's ideas, for example, and was very interested in Jacques Vallee's work as well. But his slightly superior attitude is a part of him I've carried a long way within myself. Judgemental, coldly critical attitudes which do me no credit as a human being.

Something I'm sure I've still got a lot of work to do on. Still, it was lovely being in Mom's presence once again.

Rough Green

I'm posting this as a dream log.

 Last night I dreamt of Snake Woman.

 She had tattoos of coiled snakes at her temples, tiny green snakes along her upper lash line and a snake protruding at either hip.

 I thought that the snakes on her person were called Grass Snakes, so I looked them up. Interestingly, they are indeed known sometimes as Grass Snakes in North America, but not in the UK, where the Grass Snake is another creature altogether.

These were the snakes otherwise known as Rough Green Snakes, or  Opheodrys aestivus.

Apparently, they are friendly little snakes and are often kept as pets. Not that I would keep a snake as a pet - I have way too much respect for their wild and archetypal selves.

A Soul Retrieval Start

"The point is not to think good thoughts about yourself and remember that you're special. That's nice but it won't do any good if you haven't figured out who you really are. You are the perfect, pure essence and love of the Universe. That's what you are. Not what you're made of. It's you. You are the manifested love of the Universe. And your love has a purpose." 

I'd like to preserve that quote by Lisa at Panthea  and engrave it on my heart - at least for a little while.
I'm sure I've mixed my metaphors there but whatthehel.

Last night I dreamt I was at the  flat my Mom and Dad died in more than a decade ago. I was there with my family. We had a small female dog with us, part of the family, very devoted, very loving.

As I dreamt, I remembered that we also had a larger,male family dog, who we had all completely forgotten about for a long time.I felt tremendous guilt and deep sorrow that we had forgotten this boy -personal guilt and very personal, anguished sorrow.

In the dream, I remembered his name. I resolved to find him again and bring him home

Now, this dream may be blindingly obvious to all who read about it here. But believe me, I'm a lot denser than that in my daytime persona. It wasn't until around noon that the meaning hit me.

It's not, as I uncharacteristically assumed on waking, to do with the larger view of Beings in this Cosmos. Or if it is, it's only peripheral. It's directly about me, and a large part of my Self I lost a while ago.

We cannot remember Who we are until we re-member all our parts.

And Lisa said it on her Facebook page later that same day.

If I do not miss my mark,my soul retrieval skills are about to be given a strenuous workout.

Pic: Susan Bien

Coleus And Cosatu

A thin but very dense cloud came and sat over us just as the invisible lunar eclipse started. It looked as if we were sitting under a grey mushroom which dropped a little hail, rumbled a bit of thunder, and discharged lightning along its interior.
Then it was gone as if it had never been. The eclipse was over, and I was visited by another plant in my dreams.

Allow me to introduce Coleus - whose scientific taxonomy actually reads Solenestemon, but we've been calling it Coleus for so long that the name has stuck, for humans.

The meeting was in a garden courtyard, full of rain and luxuriant vegetation, which I was looking at through a glass door. There were wooden chairs among the plants - indicating humans of a low level of technology. A rocking chair with a broken left arm was sitting not far from a patch of Coleus, and a voice said to me: "Don't worry, we can fix this."

There were people being killed and re-appearing from parallel dimensions, too.

Coleus - to my surprise,although maybe it shouldn't be - is considered psychoactive., but unresearched in the entheogen department. While I have no intention of taking it for this purpose, still it remains a fact that psychoactive plants are invariably beneficial to humankind in other healing ways.

And now, with a psychedelic change of subject,a word from COSATU:

In the wake of a High Court hearing on eTolls at which the defence advocate descended into threats against both the judge and the prosecuting advocate(however smarmily disguised), the Congress have decided they're going to mobilise against the government decision to ram the privatisation of the freeways down our throats.

Tomorrow the protest marches begin. Gather at Mary Fitzgerald Square at 9am.
Next week Thursday the people intend to occupy the highways. There may well be violence.

I leave it to your individual consciences whether or not to join in. But I will say this: it's about bloody time we all started to take action.

Made Of Language

"The world" opined Terence McKenna "is made of language"

Perhaps. For human animals, anyway.

I doubt very much that this is true for non-human animals - which still,despite our best efforts, outnumber us - or for insects, fish, or any of the plant kingdom.

In fact, plants are stunning examples of Beings who can use language, after a fashion, to communicate with human animals, but whose world does not seem to be constructed of language.

Our ancient allies seem to have a survival strategy which includes getting humans to nurture, propagate and protect their species- while they benefit us in numerous ways. Food, aesthetics, medicine and psychedelic states of mind are some of the benefits chlorophyll based life bestows on humanity.

Is this a symbiotic relationship? Do we even acknowledge it?
And I haven't even mentioned the non-chlorophyll-based vegetables, the mushrooms.

Back to humans. It seems to be in the way we have grown culture around us like a shell - or is culture an artifact of language? - as from the first few words we utter we're encouraged to name things, relate those named things with other named things, and ourselves with the named things. Forgetting, I suppose, that we haven't named or related ourselves to our selves at all, yet.

That continuous background chatter which is always with us in normal waking consciousness, and which we strive to still in meditative states, that's construction going on, right there, all the time. Humming away like demented muzac in the elevator.

Hel, i don't know about you, but I certainly even dream in language.
When other Beings want to communicate with me in dreams, they have to use symbols and images, which are both direct products of language. Sometimes they throw up actual words on the screen of the dream for me to read.
It's quite bad, really, this dependence on language for our reality, and it's hard work for non-human Beings.

What would the world look like without being constructed of words?
This is the province of the shaman. And I'm sorry, Terence, but you didn't really go there too well. Apart from the mushrooms talking to you and the Machine Elves, that is.

Part of the Shaman's work involves becoming the Other - and often, that's a non-human Other.

In deep meditation or Shamanic Journeying we get a taste of what the world looks like when the mind is cut free from the bindings of language. Then we're really starting to cook with gas.
The problem is - and it's something I've run into several times on this blog - we can't perform the other part of the Shaman's work -  bringing the tales back to our community - without using some form of language. Snookered again.

The only way I can see around this is to go there - do the journey, do the meditation - establish that it is indeed possible, come back and bring the information that the human mind can be shipped free from its moorings. And say: Now, go you and do likewise.





Pic: Found here

Lord Of Obstacles..

..and of the removing of obstacles.

I have never dreamt of a Hindu deity before. Well, there's always a first time, as they say.

So- Lord Ganesha, ruler of the muladhara chakra, first mover, clearer of the way - it's nice to make your acquaintance at last.

Got some obstacles around here in dire need of moving....thanks.

Soulscape

My dreams are quite frequently of houses, and I know that the house in my dreams represents to me my soul.

I also frequently dream of cities. Being a small child growing up on a university campus, and since that time never having lived far from a large town or a city, I know also that the cityscape is the dream representation of my soul's environs.

Concrete, underground parking lots, asphalt streets with traffic on them, tall rows of apartment buildings, neon lit stores and gathering places: this is the geography in which my soul lies. Always, naturally, represented at night.

So I was quite pleased the other night when my dream city appeared....better. More sleek, cleaner, full of black-glass-coated skyscrapers, with me riding around in a very plush, black, tinted-window SUV.

Unfortunately for the cityscape, it was there that I died,too.

I was vaccinated by a cleaner of lavatories, and died in the lobby of one of the skyscrapers.

As instructive as this part of the journey has been, I suspect that this is the last I will see of The City in this form. Nor am I too sad to be moving on.

Out of The Blue

I woke up this morning pretty convinced that I was awakening in an alternate reality.

See, last night I dreamed of inhabiting two other realities which lay close together in what is probably a continuum of fully-fledged sets of dimensions, rather than discrete alternates.

I dreamed I was in Wokingham - which will surprise no-one who is aware of the way I haunt that place in England. Perhaps it;s because I started my journey into this individuation from there.

The two alternates were similar in many material details, with startling diversions from each other in a few places. I can't go into these dreams very deeply right now - I'm still processing them - but the appearance of silver and amethyst rings, especially one in the shape of the Ouroboros, are pretty telling points.

And I'm not afraid for my sanity. No indeed. If I am coming apart at the seams, it feels more like a shedding of the last vestiges of conformist upbringing and the blue turn of the spiral than an actual loss of reason.


Pic: from this Deviant artist

A Deaf Person Dreams

“Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?”  -Frank Herbert, Dune

The  square-holed grille which runs around the balcony at a height of about 3 meters - sheltering us from neither rain nor sun - was casting its shadow on the canvas of a large outdoor sunshade just before noon.

The combination of light source - the sun - metal grille and slopping canvas surface produced a shadow which resembled its original hardly at all. None of the squares was actually square in the projection, and each was of a different size. If you didn't know what it was, you'd be hard pressed to identify the source.

The distortion is all around us. Born into it, each of us, choosing this earthly incarnation for a span of years (or days or months) grow to accept the explanation of what we experience as just the way things are.

But what if they aren't?

The night before last -Sun Libra, Moon Cancer - I had a dream of starting a new job. In the dream, the director of my new company was a shadowy figure who I nevertheless knew intimately. He was gravely disfigured in his most human parts. I went awol from this new position and soon received an angry phone call from the director's straw boss, telling me I was in trouble and had to come back immediately.

I climbed onto a bicycle - unusual in my dreams - and took to a rutted, decaying road heading back to the company. A man travelling in the same direction as I tried to stop me, steal my bicycle and harm me. He carried a long metal spear for this purpose.
I realised even as I sped around and away from him that his agenda was not the same as the company executives - he had his own, very personal, very selfish reasons for wanting to steal my bicycle and didn't care how much damage he inflicted in pursuit of gain. He was not a rich or powerful man, just a person badly damaged by this culture. Unlike the director.

I reached the new office. To my surprise and relief, the old order had passed away and the place was run by women now. I knew that I was not in any trouble at all.

It is often through my dreams that I begin to deconstruct this illusion.

“Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear.."

Unsupported By Reams Of Data

Oh, and I am so happy to say that the psychotic has broken and I'm back to whatever passes for normal in my life.

Whether that means I'm actually accommodating the assimilation of the distortion of reality 90% of us seem to prefer living in, or whether it indicates that a great screaming-in-your-head rage is a necessary adjunct to observing the degradation of the soul of life under the conditions of civilisation, I'm not too sure.

But I had a Big Dream last night.

The intro was me re-making the acquaintance of some man I have known before. He told me in no uncertain terms that I used to shop for silly things, but he hoped that that was past. And I knew exactly what he meant.

The dream moved on to a setting on some other world, where beings were created out of whole cloth while we wondered and asked questions about their being-ness. In the distance, a crow called, once.

Since I have taken to sleeping with a smooth smokey quartz next to my bed  I have found the nightmare edges have come off my dreams, which is interesting. I don't wake with thumping heart so often.

But how do I know that this dream was a Big Dream? I cannot say. You just know these things when they come, that's all.

Unscientific, unsupported by reams of data, not underpinned by any theorem found in contemporary physics. Yet I'm perfectly happy to take this as gnosis. No one needs to tell you these things when your Self is the teacher.

Isle Of Rest

Last night, a whole crowd of dogs came to take me to the Isle of Rest.

It's a place covered in just..dogs.

Lying around, chilling, playing. Dogs.

I was invited to rest a while myself, and I laid my head on the tan side of a large recumbent canine.

The idea I gathered was that this is where domestic dogs come, when their stint on Earth is done, to rest, recuperate, and integrate their experience.

Not a mind-blowing idea, or particularly startling, I know.

The Isle of Dogs!

It was just sort of..mundane, if I can ever use that word to describe conversations with other, non corporeal, beings.
But kind of reassuring all the same. And maybe that was the point.

Thanks, guys.

Acknowledging Ownership

As much as I dislike the idea that humans must "control" and "manage" their environments - this being a distinguishing mark of the Wetiko culture we all live in - I have found that a certain amount of regency over one's own life is,well, desireable.

The night before last I dreamt, as I have before, of a yellow motorcycle whicih was my means of transport.
This seems to be my imagery for control over my self - or rather, over the 3D projection of my Self which lives and breathes on this plane. So, I dreamt of riding the yellow motorcycle (hey, it's an Enduro machine with a fairly large engine, don't knock it) and that I was also wearing a yellow helmet.
That last detail was true in "real" life also - I wore a yellow full face helmet for most of my motorcycling life.

Now, when I dream of travelling about in cars, I'm never the one driving the machine.
This is largely because, in real life, I do not drive a car. I never have - no car driver's licence.
The car I am presently transported around in is, technically, "mine", in that I bought it, but it is Warren who occupies the driver's seat.

So I was rather surprised to dream, last night, that I climbed into the car which I "own" but do not own, and started to drive it.
At first, I was a little fearful. All these pedals and levers and stuff! How would I ever manage? I was likely to crash the damned thing into the nearest kerb.
When riding a bike, one's body has a great influence on the control of the machine. After many years of riding it becomes like an extension of your flesh. I'm not so sure that this is true of driving a car, but I might be wrong.

Anyway, in this dream I quickly became more confident of my ability to drive the car. I realised that I had known all along how to do this, but had just never tried. Driving the car was soon as simple and smooth as riding a bike.

I guess I need to look at things I "own" but do not own in my life. it could be that I have always owned these things, but never acknowledged that ownership. ..On reflection, I'm starting to tie last night's dream in with the activity I undertook earlier that evening.

I was death-walking a colleague's beloved feline companion of 20 years, so I invoked my Shadow Totem - a black panther - to aid me.

The invocation was powerful indeed, and seems to have had fallout in my immediate environment.

Nagapies

Again tonight I asked the sacred question: "Who has lived on this land before me?", this time seated at my altar.

My opening dream was of re-arranging furniture in a large room. Very much like a stage set. I was carefully piecing together a figure which was broken, but which would be the centrepiece for the room when it was ready.

Next I found myself negotiating for an artifact - it looked a little like a digital camera - with a "saleswoman".
Opening up the little gadget, I found that it had been used once before. The previous owner had left various till slips, pieces of tissue paper and other odds and ends in one of the pockets. I didn't give the gadget back, but started exploring it further.

I found that this artifact gave me, on pressing various buttons, membership of a network, or club. I noticed that a colleague - who had negotiated for ownership of a bigger, sleeker gadget - was granted membership of something which looked bright, colourful and populated by artificial creatures. Somewhat like a My Little Pony club. My own network consisted of what appeared to be much smaller, drabber creatures resembling nagapies.

I pressed the buttons to join the network.

Ribbons and Warriors

The ribbons are yellow and golden, hanging from hooks on a market stall. I take them one by one, slipping them into my bag.

But then I hesitate: these are not my golden ribbons at all.
They belong on the display.
Why would I have gone off with them secreted from the world? ...

... A warrior's shoulder fills my vision. Skin and fur clad - some medium-sized wild cat, I think.
 My vision pulls away to reveal thousands of warriors, spears to hand, advancing in one direction across the veld. ....

... Before falling asleep, I had asked the sacred question: Who has lived on this land before me?

Pistachio Green Audi

Last night I dreamt of a pale green Audi-quite an expensive car.
The Audi drove on a road a little elevated above another, crossing, road.
Those of you who've stayed with me will know that cars in my dreams are generic four-wheeled vehicles almost exclusively. When they aren't, it means something more than  a dream is afoot.

In this dream, a man was flung out of the car onto the crossing road below, where he was hit by something else. I woke in horror as I saw his arms and legs separated from his body and blood fountained into the air.

Meanwhile, this was happening only a few kilometres from my sleeping body.

I still have no satisfactory mechanism to explain why I - infrequently - get these intimations. I think that I should stop looking for them. They just are, self-demonstrating.

The Whole Earth Will Capture Me

Jupiter has just entered Gemini, my eighth house, joining the general festivities which have been ongoing there this month.
But somehow my outlook has changed from mild exasperation to full-blown to hell with it, which in me comes across as offensively trivial, to some folks.
This is not a problem - in fact, I can't see very many problems at all, speaking purely for myself.
So, you know, just excuse me if I suddenly become offensive to you.

Last night, I fell into some deeply liminal spaces. Many of my worst transgressions of the past rose up and made an earnest effort at haunting me. In real emotional pain, I found myself being held, enrapt, by the very ground and all the plant and microbial life within and upon it. Safely snuggled by the landbase, I fell asleep with the vivid image of a Tiger straining out of the background towards me. I felt no fear - big cats represent my shadow self, and almost invariably appear when I'm about to take a leap into the Dark.
This particular dark crossing has much to do with my discriminating, at last, among my Ancestors, and deciding who among them is truly a helpful spirit and who is not.

Three nights ago I dreamed that I was having to apologise to my Mom for forgetting to call her on my mobile. She was waiting for me, however, and I was gutted with guilt.
The next night I dreamt that I was desperately trying to call her, and having great trouble with the connection. Waking, I apologised again.

The evening after that, our local Spar supermarket was robbed at gunpoint by seven men driving a security vehicle. The manager was shot and later died in hospital, while one of the shop's security guards was shot in the head but survived.
And I - wading deeper into the edges of the alam al mythal - have been plagued by the daimon of an elderly woman who is connected to the dead man in some way. It looks like a Death Walk is on the cards this New Moon, for me.

It is cold and dry in Joburg, and Sunday's great winds have shaken the dead leaves right off the trees. And with this howling ice cold air I sink deeper, almost to the point of forgetting my living human connections at times. The dimension of Wyrd is compelling at this time of year, as if with every swirling brown and wrinkled leaf I am shedding another layer of  enculturated ego. Falling backwards, arms outstretched, knowing the whole Earth is there to capture me.

From The Alam Al Mithal

The ground near the Embrook was teeming with life; up from the soil swarming and in the boles of trees and plants, wings aflutter. Standing in the damp meadow my legs sinking up to the knees while all around me hummed the hurrying, feeding, living avatars of the source.

Humans came and found the lifeswarm unclean. They sterilised the ground and buried the soil.

I was standing then upon a broad black highway, white lines stark against the new tarmac. Trains approached from every direction and only a couple of humans footed it across the road.

Between Samhain and Yule the Waters tend to cover us. We dream deep.
Pic: from this great site