fly awake

Dream: I go into a basement that is full of light and has large windows. There is a lot of wood work. My father is there, as well as my step mother and brother. My father is slumped on the couch and is worried because he passed out recently. Neither my brother (a doctor) nor my step mother are worried. At first I am worried he had low blood sugar (eat some berries!) but, after I talk to him it sounds like he had a vasovagal episode after some belly discomfort. I am a little worried about him because of his cardiac history, so I tell him he should go to the doctor if it happens again, especially because he’s so worried.

I’m in a white, institutional hallway running/flying away from a man. I am flying feet first. I am face up, (back parallel to the ground), feet leading. I try a few arm positions to increase my speed. Finally I say “I want to go fast now”, and with my arms above my head, that works tolerably well. I go down stairs to get out of the building but I don’t navigate them as well as I normally do.  Outside I see the other person I am tryingt o escape–the woman–she managed to get outside ahead of me. She’s on her knees on the edge of a hill that has some cement ledges. I shove her forward and she bangs down the hill on her knees. I feel a bit bad about her knees being scraped up. I run off in the other direction through the grass. The man wraps his arms around me, I am unhappy about it, too hot.

Wake: Another nightmare from being too hot…and knees, knees of enemies. My father’s health comes up…I am worried about him and call him on waking. He’s fine in the waking time.  I was interested in this dream because of the new way of flying–feet first. Interestingly when I woke (immediately after being held) I was on my side, not flat on my back. In cases of peculiar positions I often find the body to be in the same position as in waking time, but not this time. I wonder if flying feet first is a more grounded way to fly, or related to moving around by your feet like we so often do in waking.

The other day I was tired and dragging around without much energy. I reminded myself, “That is because I am associating with my physical body, not my subtle body–my subtle body can do anything.” This works in dreamtime. It also lightened my step at that moment in the waking time.

Dream (3/29): I am in a top floor room–the walls are white and slanted towards the top–the light is tungsten/yellow. I’m standing with Hitler’s brother. He has him–a semi-conscious Hitler–tied to a chair facing away from us. I thought that Hitler was dead. For that matter, I thought his brother was too! Being so close to evil is making me uneasy. Hitler’s brother wants me to write the bible verses: “The Lord is my shepherd”, and the next line after that (”Lord hear my prayer”?), above his knees. Very uncomfortable to be interacting with Hitler. I pick up my special black marker and write “the Lord is my shepherd” in nice script above Hitler’s left knee. I look up to find Hitler standing where his brother was.

“Ha! It’s a fake! They’re fake,” he says, gesturing to a box full of tubes, “He’ll never get me.” The tubes are ‘fake knees’ that have been written on. Hitler’s brother has replaced Hitler and is now tied in the chair, semi-unconscious, looking like a prop. Apparently his brother has been trying to pull something over on Hitler for a while. Hitler has a tube in each hand.  I have to get out of there. I grab the cardboard box containing the rest of the fakes. I wish I could get all of them, but realistically, I must protect my life. I run out the door, into the next room which has two fires in it. I go to the closest fire and start putting the tubes in it. One tube is too long and I am having trouble getting it into the fire. I say to myself, “This is a dream–now bend”, it bends and I get them all in the blaze. I run out the door and find myself at the top of a stairwell.

I am excited about this because I am good at stairs in dreams. I love to do big jumps down them. I do this for a flight or two, but it is not fast enough.  I try a new technique, I put my big toe on the railing and slide down to the next landing. This is awesome. I go down an extra flight of stairs because it is so fun.

It is time to exit the stairwell. I jump over the partition, run by a woman, and out into a small hallway. One direction shows me I am in a large building, like a hotel, there are many people there and I am worried that people will see me, and that Hitler will catch up with me. The other option is a door to my left. I go through the door and down a few steps into a large room with no furniture or drapes. It reminds me of a dance studio. It is not well lit–most of the light comes from the two large windows (moon light and street lights coming through). There is a woman in the room. She is eying me as I run across the room to check the windows for an escape. My running is slow dream running–I say, “this is a dream, I will run fast now,” and I do. The windows are both locked. I think about breaking them to escape. I run back across towards the door I came in through. The woman says something about what I am doing–she’s suspicious of me. There is another door, a door to the outside. I fly across the room to it. Surprisingly the lock is loose and the door opens. I am outside now, still flying. On the grounds there are a couple large trees. I fly between the branches of closest one. The lower branches are as big as trunks. I wish to land there and be with the tree. Floating up I manage to grab on to one of the smaller branches higher in the tree. I lay on my tummy straddling the branch. The branch below me is so beautiful with patches of orange and green lichens and mosses. I want to take a picture, but I don’t think it will come out–the light is dim and orange from the street lights.

I take a step back mentally. I haven’t really seen Hitler since I left the room. I need to let go of my fear and commune with this amazing tree out in the calm, cool night. I start to relax, breathing in the night.

Wake:

This was a nightmare related to being overheated. I like several things about this dream. It seems like it is easier to become lucid in a nightmare because there are many tip-offs that you are dreaming, like: scary situations, having difficulty performing simple tasks and dream running. Plus, you’re scared and that is motivation to change situations, whereas you might not want to change more pleasant dreams.

I have not been thinking about Hitler lately.  What I was thinking about: Last night I was working on an essay about the importance of language in manifesting reality. One point being that saying directly what you want is an excellent technique. I use that technique in the dream a couple times. And Hitler’s brother is perhaps hoping to use that by editing Hitler to ask for God’s assistence on his knees.

It seems like Hitler’s brother wants to redeem him, by making him pray on his knees–a prayer admitting and requesting God’s help.  Incidentally it looks like Hitler had three brothers, but they all died within the first few years of their lives. Apparently he only had one sibling that he would have known, a sister who outlived him. (Some people think that Hitler didn’t die, regardless I bet he’s dead by now.) Somehow Hitler one-ups dream brother every time–he is not interested in redemption. I wonder how helpful it is if you are coerced into redemption.  The evil is thick in the room, it really did not feel good. The right thing to do seems to get rid of the fakes. Does it lessen his evil power to have his past successes at evading God taken away? It feels more like Hitler’s brother is casting spells of surreptitious goodness and Hitler is casting spells back at him.

I know I am dreaming many times, though I still am engaged in the nightmare until the tree.  I get lucid three times: 1. fireplace 2. running 3. (most importantly) letting go of my fear in the tree.

The bible reference I found thanks to Google: Psalm 23. I’ve been to church now and again throughout my life, but was raised with more Eastern philosophies. Number 23 (a special number to me) is an awesome psalm and very apt I must say. It certainly deals with holding fast to God in the presence of adversity and evil. Not happy to be in Hitler’s presence but, at least I am trying to elevate him/connect him to God. Remembering God in the face of evil. Asking evil to remember God in the face of itself. If only I had been able to live inside the words of the psalm “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” when kneeling before him and painting on his knee. Then I would have felt the peace in my heart that I began to realize at the end of the dream. That was more of a “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters” moment. Much easier to be at peace in a peaceful situation.

………….later

I knew some piece of information was missing so I didn’t post right away. Last night (3/30) I dreamed of crossing the deserts using hawthorn (heart opener). I was beginning to suspect something religious was going on. My buddy Rachel called and informed me that last night was Passover. This lent new light to the dreams. So it seems to be a reference to Judaism (unfortunately making much more sense now with the Hitler thing). Is this a dream about forgiveness or facing our fears in order to redeem the worst parts of ourselves to find release? Unfortunately dream Hitler appears to have evaded transformation/redemption. Although maybe I slowed him down by getting rid of his fake knees (false prayers?). Still, by the end of the dream, I am closing to the essence of psalm 23. Releasing my fear and being with nature/God. So…despite this coming in the form of a wretched nightmare, it is a beautiful message of God as savior and guide.

Our dreams have different roles, and different ways to teach us. I find that my dreams often provide me the reassurance of protection, love and hope that I may not see, or allow myself to feel in the waking time. Somehow these messages are very easily received while asleep, and yet awake, my fears and insecurities, or ‘rational thought’, obscures them. Dreams such as these serve as a reminder of the benevolence and support that we are forgetting/ignoring. We may take a lesson to endeavor to cultivate deeper relationships with such forces of good in other waking dreams.

On the other hand dreams can sometimes be filled with horrible fantasies or, even worse, metaphors of the unpleasant side of waking time. I tend to look at these dreams one of two ways (well…three). Either they are a wake up call saying, “Hey, are you the dreamer or the dreamed? Time to be lucid and make some changes.” Alternately, bad things may happen in the dreamtime so that you don’t have to experience them in waking. “Well…three”, being that sometimes we have wretched dreams because we are out of balance physically, for example: extremely violent dreams often occur when people are overheated.  I find it best to consider the dreams from various perspectives. Such as, if this dream is a metaphor for my life, or warning, I might do such and such. Or taken on more literal level it might mean… For example: I dream that I need to eat a kidney soaked in dandelion. Well, on one hand it might be suggesting that I need to do some work on my kidneys (water processing system/grief organ) which may involve taking dandelion which is both a strong diuretic and great for deep inflammation/anger, not to mention investigating the role of that organ and plant in my life, and what it would mean for me to eat meat. Or, on an even more literal level: perhaps it would be good if I eat some kidneys saturated in dandelion–getting both the meat and the dandelion (I am a vegetarian, and at the time I had this dream I had had others about eating meat).  Dreams act on many different levels, and I find it very helpful to write your dreams down, you may get a great first impression of a dream, only to look back with a year’s perspective to say, “Oh my goodness–that dream was about that thing I was thinking about, but…it was also so obviously about the loss of my relationship with X”.

Just as we have beautiful moments and nightmares in dreamtime, we experience similar highs and lows in the waking time. We can learn a lot by looking at our waking dreams with similar analysis. When faced with a frustrating situation we might ask ourselves, how am I contributing to this ‘nightmare’. Is my pride preventing me from turning this disagreement into a truce? Am I not willing to let go of something bad, and just walk away? How am I limiting this area of my life?  We can take hold of the reigns in a scary situation by manifesting changes through our intent. Rather than allowing our patterned reactions to govern us, we can instead envision our preferred outcome and how it would feel to experience this.  This act can change our feelings about what we think is possible, it can affect the situation physically, and/or it can improve our emotional take on the situation.  By using our intent and imagination, we can ‘dream up’ a preferred waking reality. Because the waking dream is more of a “group project” it may not entirely change the situation, but you may still be surprised by how much your intent affects your environment.

When enriching/spiritual moments occur, it is good to take note: how did my actions contribute to this happening and how can I encourage more moments like these to occur? Regardless of whether the dreams seem positive or negative they are filled with information, in a language written for the dreamer, that can help us to live a better life.  I have learned so many things from the guidance of my dreams: To ask questions of my environment, to interact more freely with animals, crystals, and herbs. To interact with things that scare me too. That it is possible to deeply connect with time and space. That these interactions grow oneness. We can use our intent to encourage these positive experiences as well. This is a way that we can practice lucidity in the waking time.

Dream (1/12/10): I start a dream group with three or four people I vaguely know. I’ve brought my jug of Oregon Brandy and am drinking out of it. This really surprises me as I am not a drinker. My friend Nicole shows up and she’s got her brandy bottle too. One of the guy’s in the group is excited that I have “Oregon Red”–so he calls it. His wife is encouraging him to get the good stuff too, since it makes him excited. I say, “Oh, I like that, but actually I ran out and refilled it with Safeway stuff.” I shrug as I say this, as if the quality of the alcohol doesn’t really matter. His wife laughs at this. “Oregon Brandy is good,” I continue, “also there is a really good vodka…” I am trying to remember the name, but can’t. These are all good for tincture making.

A young man in the group helps Nicole. He is attractive with curly blondish brown hair. He comes over to her and drips the brandy on her third eye. I ask him to help me. He pours some into his hand and wipes it across my forehead. Nice.

At our second meeting a nurse I’ve hardly spoken to is there and a man in the group is taking over my lead and explaining the group to him. He’s not telling her the things I think she needs to know about how we tell our dreams, so I step in to redirect.

We go as a group to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s presentation on dream groups as ordained by the US government of health and somesuch. At first I am excited because the government is participating in dream work.  It is a show of naked men, women and children dancing and moving together. We are part of a huge audience. One by one members of our dream group stand to speak out against the show. They are ashamed of this portrayal of the dream world/work. One stands up in her night shirt. She speaks directly into the camera that is filming the event, as she puts on her sweats:

“Dreaming is not about feeling new things, or hearing new things, it is about seeing new things.”

Wake: Well, so many things. First of all I think the “Oregon Red” refers to the hawthorn berry tincture I made with brandy (Oregon brandy) that is a sleep/insomnia remedy. It is good for waking up in the middle of the night type insomnia. I have been taking it lately for other reasons. But I have also suggested it to a few people I know who have that type of insomnia. The way the man puts the tincture on our foreheads reminds me of the last time I was at my Guru’s. There was a big Shiva puja and we had ashes wiped on our foreheads. It was a healing ceremony.

The young man with the curly blondish hair seems like a plant spirit.

I have been planning on starting a dream group soon. One of the things I am interested in doing in the group aside from dreams, is spending some time meditating with plants that facilitate dreams and sleep. This dream brought up some ideas about the process.  It also brings up representations of dreams and manifestation in mainstream culture. Such as Men Who Stare at Goats, which I saw recently. At first I was excited that a mainstream movie was delving into these issues, let alone that the US Govt did, but ultimately both seem to treat the area of study with disrespect. The nudity and partially dressed people in the dream reminded me of the way people’s bodies often are when sleeping.

I really liked this dream and was very inspired by the way the herbal tincture, hawthorn or otherwise, was used in the dream group process.  I am also going to be contemplating the final statement: “dreams…are for seeing new things.” This statement reminds me of Calea.

A bit piecemeal, but here goes:

Dream (12/30/09):  I’m sitting in some sparse, wintery woods with a couple other people. We’re hiding. Some people are coming through the woods to get us. I am sewing poetry along the collar of a dress I designed (rusty red thread on a cream collar). It’s the start of a poem I’ve been working on. “Like as…” it begins.  I sense the people are getting closer. One of my comrades and I run away through the woods. We get round to the other side and I jump off the path into the thick just before they shoot him with a rifle. The enemies back off, and I step onto the path to see him. He’s dead, but a wolf with a hunchback comes to me from his body. I say, “Oh, good, you can help lead me to safety.”  The wolf seems uncertain of this. He’s thinking about going back to the place where I was sewing. I don’t think that’s safe. We run back on the path that led us to the shooting.  The poem keeps running though my mind. I keep thinking of it and working on it. Going all the way back doesn’t feel safe. At one point on the edge of the the woods  the path meets up with the back of someone’s dirty gold ranch house with chain link fence and dog. I think we can get through without the dog hearing us and attacking. I look at the wolf and scoot through the fence and make it through the driveway into the town. The town is old. All the architecture is 1800’s. I touch the curvy molding on a shop, it’s freshly painted–red and white. We run through the streets. My running is fast, but on some level I know I am dreaming and could just be gliding through the air. I run and run and run until I cross the train tracks and get to a motel. I go inside my room, still afraid that someone is after me. I crash on the polyester covered bed.  I wake after hours and am surprised to see the door ajar (not very safe of me). I go and close it and turn around to see that David has slipped through the door and is sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. He’s a bit hunched over. He reminds me of the wolf in his expression.

Wake: Here I am hiding in the woods from all the people I think are after me, crafting clothing and writing poetry. In the place I love doing all the things I love, only problem is that there are too many people and not enough woods. The poem reminds me of Shakespeare’s sonnet 118–starts off, “Like as, to make our appetites more keen…”–confession and getting sick off of preventative medicine (cathartic purging that seems downright sick). The wolf comes when my friend dies.  I think of him as a guide, but he doesn’t really guide me; we do go together. The gold house is very like a house in my childhood neighborhood. The kind of house that has been neglected for 20 years, and has a sketchy/dangerous vibe, bull dogs, etc. I associate the era of the old town with simpler times, which is appealing, although in the dream there wasn’t much feeling about it, just relief at so many fewer things to interface with maybe–no cars, computers, no people on the streets, etc. A motel is the logical place to hide. David…well, I just found out that my friend’s husband, David, joined the circus when he was younger. This changed the way I think about him. The circus reminds me of wolf people (loners in a pack). The expression of the wolf and David don’t really remind me of David. The woods remind me of the woods in Iowa that we used to live by. David and Dee are in Iowa. It’s almost like seeing this side of David makes me think twice about going back to Iowa. I am running from people and memories from Iowa in the waking time, though I yearn to be back in Hickory Hill Park. Dee sent me a Hickory Hill Calendar along with this exciting info about David. I look forward to hear the circus story some day.

Dream (1/1/10): I’m in a dark hall, with a bunch of people, we’re in line to see my Guru–Shri Dhyanyogi. When I am in front of the Guru, he tells me to draw an Om on my third eye. I am surprised that I remember how to do it–it’s in reddish orange ink. I go into a very deep meditation. I can hardly will myself to move. Guruji talks to the crowd, while I am sitting in front of him in my state. I am aware enough that I am blocking traffic, even though I really shouldn’t worry, just meditate. I eventually move to the side, which breaks my meditation. I think of poetry. I hear, “just write the Truth“. I also wonder about my meditations being not so great, and I hear, “soon”.

Wake: Poetry again, I think of my the falcon poem that I wrote for my Guru, but also of my Fly Awake installation that was meant to be poem-like in its construction. A poem you could walk into and feel, between the text and imagery I created. The dream seems like a reminder to organize my art in this way, while working aligned to the highest Truth. Also gives reassurance that my meditations, which haven’t been the best, will become infused with light again. A Day or so before these dreams, I smoked some Calea and asked for help with my art. With Calea I am not surprised to find dreams coming up long after the physical interaction.

I have published Dreamtime Pamphlet vol. 3: A Pocket Guide to Inner Time and Space. It is available in my etsy shop. The booklet gives varied ideas and exercises for getting more in touch with time and space on a personal and bodily level. I hope you like it.

I also just added some blank dream journals that I have been working on.  I bound the books, printed the titling with letterpress, and collaged the covers with dream imagery.

Last night I had a nightmare. Actually it was a great dream that just happened to have a nightmarish overtone, few of us truly enjoy the threat of imminent danger. I really liked the dream because I did lots of flying. I flew up and down, I flew to the sea, and then along a tree lined streets.  I touched my toes down on the tiny branches here and there, leaping gently to the next tree.  I felt light as a feather and connected to the air element. Unfortunately there was a nasty man following me, and he also could fly. He caught up with me after a bit and then I was in his captivity for a while. Then I chop somebody up. I escape, carrying the pieces of his body in a yellow pages bag, since I don’t know what else to do with the remains. I look at a map and plan my trip down the east coast and back to New Mexico, that I will be taking in my dream trailer. Okay, the parts I liked were the sea, chase/flight, map and dream trailer–I guess I can deal with a little murder if I can have that kind of stuff too.

None of that really matters, the important thing about this dream it that it reminded me of my friend Rachel. She was in town last week and she asked me about nightmares, if I had them, and what you could do about them. So here are some ideas and techniques related to nightmares:

1. Often it is easier to realize that we are dreaming when we are in nightmare. We’ve been down this road many times before, it’s that same old feeling of running very slowly, or falling, etc. This is an excellent opportunity to switch into lucid dreaming. Quickly think of anything that you’d rather be doing and do it, or alter the situation somehow, so that you are not terrified. Maybe you could turn knives into roses, or maybe you will just come to a stand still and repeat mantras, or connect with your favorite version of the higher power how ever you like. This can be difficult when you are having a nightmare. Sometimes the best thing to do is just wake yourself up as soon as you have an inkling you may be dreaming.

2. Nightmares can arise from being too hot. If you wake up from a nightmare and are overheated, take off a blanket, but also try sleeping on your back. Sleeping on your back is very helpful with heat nightmares, it is not a 100% guarantee against nightmares, but it very often will do the trick, try it if you are worried about slipping back into the nightmare.

3. Confront your demons. Try this when you’re dreaming if you are able to. If not then try it sometime during the waking time. Get yourself into a quiet, meditative space, close your eyes and go back into the dream. Visualize yourself in the dream as the events unfold in your memory, this time, instead of running away from your demons, turn around and face them. What happens?

For a while I kept dreaming of being chased under water by a big scary dog. When I turned and faced him in meditation he turned out to just have rough edges–really he was pretty nice dog. See what happens with you, maybe your demon has some qualities that you could use. Are they stronger or tougher than you? Maybe if you make friends with your demon you can assimilate some of their good qualities just like you would with a friend in the waking time.

Here’s a link that has some suggestions for dealing with nightmares:

http://www.mothernature.com/library/bookshelf/books/21/163.cfm

Finally my second Dreamtime Pamphlet is complete. This one: “Manifest Your Dreams”, continues where the last one left off in dreamtime and continues on to give some introductory info on manifesting/being lucid in the waking time. Come on, you know you want to check it out. Get one here.

Situations often arise in waking and in dreamtime where it is unclear whether we are awake or asleep. Often in my dreams I think I am awake, only to find that I am asleep.

In my recent dream, I was thinking of the world as being an illusion, and therefore dreamlike, but did not realize I was actually in a dream. I am sure that just as many times, in the waking dream, I pull the same tricks on myself. Many times we can step back from our myopic view of a situation enough to realize that we are co-creating the drama of the situation. For example: I see myself starting to get angry, rather than getting caught in the drama, I may use distraction if I am by myself, or with the other person if there is someone else involved.

Preventing drama escalation is very helpful, but this is only a little clarity/objectivity. How do we know when we are really lucid? How do we enhance our lucidity?

Sit down and meditate. If it seems like you can’t sit down, or even close you eyes, pull all of your energy inwards, focus your energy to the point between your brows, and breath. Can you let you mind be quiet? Can you act from a quiet place? Then you are lucid.

“Who can wait quietly while the mud
settles?
Who can remain still until the moment
of action?”

-Tao Te Ching, #15, Trans. Gia Fu Feng & Jane English

Here are your friends, the four winds, the directions, the elements…know them, but hold fast to the center.

Dream:

I have finally met my mother and father, and now they are going to die. Well, “you’ve finally met us, and now we are going to die.” I am a little sad about this, I like them, I’d gotten attached already.

There are holes in the wood floors of the attic we’re in. They are under the carpet, I wonder where they are. The hole is big, maybe 18″ x 18″. I can see the image of it, but it is under some carpet, under a piece of furniture. The Mother and Father hold each other in a classic photogenic embrace. They are getting rid of stuff, in preparation for their death. There are three pianos. They will get rid of the super nice one, it is too expensive to take care of. I am sitting at the not-so-fancy one, playing. It is coming apart at the seems a bit, but I like it better, it has more personality. Really, I only wanted to keep the “nice/fancy” one because of its assumed value.

I am a bit worried about the future, with them leaving me. My mother deals me a tarot reading. She deals all the cards into face-up piles of four. When she has dealt all the cards there are some piles with only three. To these she adds random photographs. She tells me, “Pick your favorite card from each pile and bring it into your life.”

Wake:

I’m not sure yet about the mom and dad…perhaps my own parents, the Earth and Sun (my New Year’s resolution was to recognize that the Earth is my true mother, the Sun my true father) or perhaps the idea going part-time at work and losing my benefits. The other day I was talking to my mother about how her parents prepared for their death by cleaning their house, and today is my late Grandmother’s birthday.

I really enjoyed my tarot reading. I have a love/hate relationship with tarot. I often use it when I am worried about the future. Because when we are anxious we forget our answers are within. I forget that the future is mutable and instead get caught up in the most negative aspects of what I see. In this tarot reading, I remember that I am co-creating the future. When I get to pick the best from each pile of four, suddenly there are so many positive options.