Only a Dream Away

Losing my shoes at the Indian dance

The flood of dreams has returned, after a dearth brought about by too much study and stress. The past few nights I have dreamed almost all night long, different scenarios flowing seamlessly into the next, dozens of them in a night, so many I can't remember all but a few aspects the following morning.

The night before last, a few snippets remain: looking at Dulac-style children's book illustrations, woodcuts maybe, and reading some illuminated caption about bees, which had to do with the illustration. The more I tried to focus on what I was reading as the words appeared before me, the more I tried to be lucid so as to remember it, the more the words would slip away. It turns out Dulac did an illustration for Shakespeare's the Tempest called "Ariel and the Bee" and also did woodcuts for Yeats' "A Vision,"(see left) neither of which I knew about before (consciously anyway). Interestingly, just before bed that night I was meditating in a milk and honey bath about Yeats' gyres and the lemniscate of the Mellisae tradition.

All I remember from last night was going to an East Indian party. When I arrived, dozens and dozens of women were outside and had arranged themselves to a do a complicated dance. They were all wearing saris but not the sort that were glamorous or of very high quality; it seemed to be a village folk dance, and they were common women gathering for a festival. I looked down at myself and was dressed similarly. I took off my shoes and put them with the others off to the side. We were in a semi-enclosed stone courtyard. It was daylight and warm. Yes, probably in India. Some of the women looked at me like I didn't belong, and I felt like I didn't quite belong either, but they went on with their dancing. 

I went inside where there was food and some friends of mine (whom I do not recognize) were helping to set up and keep the food coming out. I was in a large 'kitchen' -- nothing indicated that it was a kitchen except for a large refrigerator which wouldn't always close properly. I remember volunteering to take some things out of the freezer to help it seal. The room was sunny, lots of big windows, warm, not air-conditioned, and was carpeted. The main party was going on in some other place but I never went there.

At the end of the evening I went back to retrieve my low-heeled shoes -- which were a curious yellow color, not something I'd ever wear, and I couldn't find them. There was one pair of shoes left that resembled mine but I was entirely sure they were mine. I put them on, and they did fit, so I took them.

Psychedelic Jail Cell/ Sleeping Car

Lots of big dreams over the past couple of weeks that should have been recorded but alas, were not. I can't ignore this one because this morning I received an e-mail from my teacher about his life in the late '60s that dovetails neatly with the subject matter. This is my dream from last night:

I am discussing with a fellow herb classmate, Mary, an herb event taking place somewhere out of state. She is showing me a program, or perhaps it was a train schedule. I understand that one of my teachers (Michael) will be at this event, so I decide to go.

The scene changes and I am standing on a train platform -- an oversized one high above the street. It is a sunny day and I know that I will be taking this train to the herb event. The wind is blowing and I notice I am alone. Where is everyone? Isn't anyone else getting on this train?

Scene jumps again -- I did not see the train actually pull up but now I have just stepped into a train car and the door, which takes up a whole wall, is slid shut behind me with a loud metallic clang. I feel as though I have been pushed in, or tripped in, right off the platform (not off a main aisle in a larger train car; this seems like a whole car unto itself, though it is very small, about 9x9').

I go straight to a very small square window opposite the door. It is placed too high on the wall and I have to get on tiptoe to see out of it. I see another train going by, and faces of strangers inside. They are going in the opposite direction. I think about Michael and wherever it is that I'm going.

I back away from the window and look at the room for the first time. How odd; it is painted in bright, psychedelic colors -- the floor and some of the walls are bright orange and lilac. I look down at myself and I'm wearing knee-high boots and a fluttery chiffon pleated mini-dress in a lemon color, with angel-wing sleeves. My lucid self pops in and wonders why I'm wearing something so outdated and  inappropriate for traveling.

The car has no furniture, just a fold-down bunk on the right side, attached to the wall. I lie on it and it is extremely uncomfortable, hurting my spine. The mattress is old and thin, with little substance. I ease off the bed and look under the mattress, which seems light as a feather. Someone has shoved corrugated cardboard under there, presumably to protect their back from the bars and springs of the black bedframe. I adjust the location of the cardboard to where my lower back meets the bed.

I stand back and think, "Huh. This is more like a jail cell than a sleeping car," and wonder about the garish colors, which give one the impression of cheer but are so incongruous with the space. I have no access to other passengers, nor do I know if there even *are* any on this train, and I cannot open my own door.

The end.

Herb seminar, smoking

I am at my school's annual seminar in May. The mood is comfortable. First I see my roommates, Anne and Pam. After greeting one another, Anne shows us to her office, which is located in a structure in the forest on the mountain where we spend our week. The outside of the structure is what you'd expect from the surroundings -- small, rustic. But inside it is a multi-media smorgasbord, with at least two dozen TV monitors all over. Groups of them show the same image, some display a camera trained on the room, others old newsreel footage. I try to understand why Anne, a practicing herbalist, would have such a set-up but get the impression that she's doing some serious research and it might involve uncovering some conspiracy theories. Strangely I seem to remember seeing footage of Dwight Eisenhower getting into a car.

Then the action changes a bit and Michael appears. He leads me/us down a sunlit path through the trees. It feels like a positive reunion; the energy is easy and affectionate. He leads me into some other structure on the compound. About three or four young men whom I have never seen before are sitting in some kind of conference room. Michael leaves me in the room and goes into an adjoining room, his own office. HIs office has windows around it but the blinds are drawn.

I observe while the men discuss something for awhile. I feel simultaneously out of place but also like I belong. I am standing while they are all seated. I look down at my legs -- I am wearing a long velvet black skirt with a floral cut-out pattern lined in sheer taffeta. The pattern is mostly around the bottom of the skirt but it extends in a wide block up my hips. The cut-out pattern shows nothing but my hips, but since it is sheer it shows that I am not wearing any underwear! (I myself feel surprised to see myself wearing this skirt which is at once conservative and sexy, and also feel surprised to not be wearing panties.) I figure it's all right as long as it doesn't show anything else.

The guys are probably younger than I am -- just out of college maybe. Smart but goofy and immature, wearing t-shirts with bubble-letters on them. I have a wave of uncomfortability. At some point I excuse myself and go into Michael's office. He's eating something -- ice cream? He says something reassuring and I go back out into the conference room.

The guys are smoking. One of them gives me a cigarette and lights it for me. My lucid editor perks up and says "You don't smoke!" I start to become aware that I am dreaming but try to stay in it, taking a long drag on the cigarette and blowing smoke rings into the air above our heads. I think, "This is a crappy cigarette," and look at the filter: Marlboro.

Rilke and Buckley

OK, here's one of the more bizarre ones I've had in awhile, and my recollection is sketchy. This is from last night:

I am in Rainer Maria Rilke's body. It is the early 20th century; teens, maybe '20s. I am wearing a dark brown suit, which I observe on my legs and forearms. I am walking around a small room. To my left, an old woman comes and sits on a (green velvet?) sofa across from my desk. The sofa has an arched back and the velvet is set in a polished dark wood frame. She looks very prim. I feel she might be related to me, but she reaches over and grabs her boxy little purse from a nearby spot in the room where she was standing before, and clutches it to her body. I wonder if she thought it wasn't safe, if she thought I might steal something from her.

This thought bothers me. It bothers me also that she is here. Why is she here? I have to work! I have to find a way to ignore her.

To this end, I walk to a credenza on which there rests a record player and a record. The record is by Tim Buckley. I remove the disk from its sleeve and, without putting it on, I can hear the music. On the paper-covered center, where the song listing usually is on records, there is a picture of Buckley and it is moving as a movie, and he is singing along with the music I hear.

(My lucid self jumps in at this point and says, "What the hell is a 70s folk-rock artist doing in an early 20th-century poet's office?" Also, it is not an album I recognize.)

I put aside the vinyl and look at the album cover. It is a photograph of Buckley but in the lower-left-to-middle area is the floor in front of him, essentially a blank, tan-colored space. I take a pen and begin to draw a shape in that space, and the shape resembles a jigsaw puzzle-piece. I think, either as Rilke or lucidly as myself (they are starting to blur now), "This is where Jeff goes."

Magick and the reluctant squirrel

I am in a strange room -- almost a tree-house, really, or some kind of living area in the trees, with trees growing through it. I am with my Mystery School group, and we are being led in some ritual (not sure what it is) by Althea.

I am watching her and she begins to sing a song slowly while walking around and embracing everyone. Most of us are wearing cowled robes in a dark brown or dirty purple color. She makes eye contact with me and gestures to me to stand up and assist her. I do, but I begin to sing "Everybody knows your face, everybody knows your face" to the hypnotic tune of "Everybody Knows" from the James album "Laid." (In the real song, the lyric is "Everybody knows your fate.")

So I go around hugging everyone but it is not somber, the way Althea is doing it. A mutual acquaintance, Hazel, is there, with her young daughter, Violet. Violet does something funny -- I can't remember what, but it has to do with her shoes -- and I stop my rounds and laugh with her, feeling only slightly out of place in the otherwise serious mood. Hazel begins to sing with us but says the last note should be held longer. I let her hold the note and continue to sing it as I have been singing it.

Trees come up through the floor and grow through the ceiling of our ritual room. A squirrel comes up one of the trees (like the messenger squirrel of Yggdrasil!) and Althea spots him running up through the ceiling to the branches above.

"What is that squirrel doing here?" she demands, clearly irritated.

"He lives in that tree," I explain.

"Well, he is going to have to find some other tree to live in. He can't live in that one," she says.

I wonder why... what is the difference between him living in that tree or any of the other trees that come up through our ritual space? But she seems in such a state that I do not ask.

On one of the squirrel's next trips through, Althea stops him as if by a spell and tries to command him to take up residence in another tree.

He looks at her as though completely comprehending, shocked, and somewhat fearful but skitters away, running around the tree and down through the floor (somehow with an air of defiance, for a mute little creature!). Frustrated, she commands me to "take care of it" and stalks off.

I go to where the tree comes up through the floor. From out of nowhere, I have a handful of shelled walnuts, and more in my pocket. I make clicking noises with my hand extended, and sure enough, the squirrel appears. With his nimble little hands we takes the nutmeats from me and we share a friendly moment. He seems the picture of innocence -- my lucid self seems to notice this in the dream, that he is the representation of innocence. I speak to him in squirrel-speak (more clicking) and tell him he must find another place to live. I realize that I have no idea why he can't live in that tree, and I can't give him a good reason. He looks at me like I've betrayed him, sad, surprised. His cheeks still full of nuts, he casts a hurt and disapproving look backwards at me and runs off once again.

-----

Just for reference, here are the lyrics to the original song:

Everybody Knows

When you took me in your arms
I knew I'd revive
You breathe me in so deeply
You took my hand as the music began
I knew I could dance if you led me
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate
The snake is poised and is held by your noise
You charm the life out of demons
You kept me up there with a web of your hair
You spun my life into meaning
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate
I've seen your stars so many lives
You seem to shine forever
Do you remember the time
Do you remember the time
Our memories held us together
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate
Everybody hopes for so much healing
See your face in windows
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate
Everybody knows your fate honey
Everybody knows your fate

Astral travel to Atlantean temple = dream of small town America?

I went to bed last night following a meditation prepared for me by Althea. I do not remember what happened after I completed the introductory steps, but here is the dream from which I awakened this morning:

I am a middle or high school student in small-town America. I don't recognize the town, or the time, or any of the people, or even myself, but it seems to be after 1960.

I am riding my bike around with a friend in some kind of town square. The street is red brick. An older man is sitting at a table with an older woman. Her back is to me. He is smoking a cigarette, looks blue-collar, thick sandy gray hair combed back, heavy-lidded blue eyes, sallow complexion, probably looks older than he is.

He has an avuncular energy to me. I feel as if I have a new-found freedom around him, as though he once used to take care of me or at least had me on a tighter leash. I ride in circles farther and farther away from him, and he just smokes his cigarette, gazing off into the distance. Finally I stop before him and ask him for permission to go off on my own. He says yes, and that I am now past the age where he can tell me what to do.

"There are three ages a woman passes where she can't be told what to do anymore," he says. "Those are 18, 21, and 30." All of a sudden my lucid self jumps in and I feel very old but not necessarily more empowered... in fact my lucid self wonders, "Well why do I feel newly empowered just now, when I'm already past all those three ages?"

But in the dream I am someone else, of a much younger age.

I ride away down the small town streets, which all seem to be brick-paved. I find a hall/restaurant, also made of brick, and somehow get my bicycle down some steps and into the back door of the building. I am now riding my bike down a carpeted hall. Some middle-aged men come out into the hall en route to somewhere else but don't seem too fazed by my presence. When I exit the building I see it adjoins to an eatery and my lucid mind kicks in again and wonders what I am doing in such a tiny town.

Just when I think that there is no one in this town except older folk, I pass by a sad-looking storefront for a place that sells exercise equipment. I find that for some odd reason related to not having enough funds, the graduating high school class's graduation party and/or ceremony will be cancelled. So the townspeople and local businesses are trying to do something to make it better for the kids. This storefront has a live model in a 70s or 80s style powder blue leotard with matching headband advertising a raffle that will grant some lucky winner a pair of five-pound dumbbells, a free aerobics class, etc. I understand the profits will go toward the high school seniors.

Then all of a sudden I am in one of the high school senior girl's bedrooms. She is making a personal video about what's happening with the graduation party debacle. Something has been rehearsed -- a skit or a dance of some sort. She is dressed like it could be the mid 70s to early 80s. I am watching her create the video.

Apparently, I am a friend of hers but I don't feel like I'm part of the class; maybe I'm only in my junior year. But my lucid mind keeps kicking in, taking note of how I'm not 'me,' the strange time and place in which the dream is occurring, and I sporadically feel strange to be participating in it.

At the very end of her skit, she goes off script -- messes up a final pose actually, and I find the blooper hilarious. I laugh and laugh ... and in real life, I wake up laughing.