dreams
The mosquitoes didn't bite me, the toads and the crickets lulled me to sleep.
That's where I unlocked the portal of dreams. Sitting there closing my eyes I could get there so easily just like when I met the shaman in peru. Except I wasn't in peru, i was in Manitoba. And I wasn't with a shaman, I was all by myself.
I dreamed past dreams, future dreams, and dreams that I have never had and will never have. That much I know. I dreamed horrible bloody nightmares and beautiful multicolor visions. I dreamed bittersweet prophecies. I dreamed ominous nature and humble humanity. I dreamed all possible selves. I saw it with my own eyes only I felt no difference from them being open or closed.
I can go back there sometimes. I wasn't able to get there before.
But the question remains. Is it all stored in some physical location? Like some tucked away part of the brain that fires like crazy when you get really hungry or horny. or angry or happy. is it all in the same place?
How did it get unlocked? Is it a dangerous place wherein you need a more experienced guardian to protect you?
Or do you only have to protect yourself from yourself.
posted by Anita @ 6:28 PM
1 Comments:
Housecoat Diaries
(November 4, 1998)
One of the best things about spending most of your life in bed is all the interesting dreams you can have. Reality is alright, but as long as you're awake you're never going to be able to fly, eh?
When I was a little kid I used to have a lot of dreams about witches. Usually these ugly old witches scared me so bad that I would wet the bed. Later in life, I would wet the bed from other kinds of dreams, but the females in those dreams were never old or ugly, and there was a lot less liquid to deal with in the morning...
There are so many different kinds of dreams a person can have, and so many ways that reality can get our minds working. There are nightmares, and premonitions, and those deep, gripping visions where a dead person is alive again. My older sister died when she was 19, and for years afterward, her life continued to unfold inside my head at night. Later, my best friend would commit suicide. Now, he too lives on in my dreamworld.
Sometimes, maybe because of the need for comfort, it gets difficult to distinguish between dreams and reality. The Sufis talk a lot about reality as a "waking dream." They say that we think that we are awake when, in fact, we are so closely "identified" with what is happening to us that we lose awareness of ourselves. And like children building sand castles on the seashore while the tide inches in, we are destined to be destroyed by our lack of attention.
Well, that's a lot of pretty challenging stuff, and I personally am not looking to destroy anything. I have to stick to the housecoat as my destiny, so I'm going to rise up kind of casually and say that it's a huge misconception that lying in bed just thinking about things is a waste of one's life. Overindustriousness may well be more dangerous to your state of awareness. No matter what you do or don't do (like Yoda says, there is no try), you need to see yourself in the process. And, of course, I'm happy to provide an exercise that you can do at home.
In one of those Carlos Castenda books, Don Juan talks about learning to dream consciously. He tells Carlos that the first step to conscious dreaming is to tell yourself repeatedly before going to sleep that, during your dreams, you will try to see your hands, and if you keep practicing this for awhile, you will eventually gain a wonderful kind of hold on your dreams.
I can vouch for Don Juan's advice. I have seen my hands in these dreams of mine, and I have made things happen that are so true, I really do get to fly, and so do some other people, dammit.
No wonder I spend so much time in bed.
Post a Comment
<< Home