Category: Dreams

Nesting Dreams

I dreamed my mother was sitting at a table and telling me of her dream, in which I was telling her of my dream, in which I dreamed she was saying, “Michael is gathering his energy and purging his disciplines.”

Don’t know what it means, but I dreamed it before. I recall thinking, what an unusual nesting dream. What are the Russian dolls called? Matryoshka dolls?

That stream triggered a search of old dreams, and there it was, December 7, 2016. I didn’t share the bit about Mom in the post, but posting about other dreams (which used the title “Matryoshka Dreams”) enabled me to do a search of my dream entries, where I found it.

I dreamed Mom and I were sitting at a table. She was telling me about her dream, which was a dream about me telling her about my dream. In my dream, she said, I told her, “Michael is gathering his energy and purging his disciplines.”

I don’t know what she/I meant about ‘purging my disciplines’. That doesn’t make sense to me.

I don’t know what Mom was wearing in that first dream, but in this dream, she wore a light blue shirt and was thirty years younger. She was the only person seen or heard in the dream, but I knew she was talking to me.

After I meditated about the dream’s meaning while traveling, I decided this was about thinking deeper and drawing deeper energy. It’s an intuitive leap. I can’t explain the intuition, except that it’s because the dream is about layers, and about both male and female energy, and mother and son energy. Now, writing that, I think, it’s also about balancing deep thinking and drawing deeper energy. Purging disciplines is about re-shaping paradigms vis–à–vis effort and expectations.

Or maybe I’m just tired.

 

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The System Connections

I took an unplanned writing break. One of those things called death interrupted the usual progression.

A family member died. It was expected, sooner or later. The sooner seemed to be getting closer but it came as a surprise. She’d been hospitalized with flu, pneumonia, congested heart and lungs, things complicated by her Parkinson’s disease. We were originally certain, this might be it, but that morning the doctors said, “Hey, she’s doing better. She can probably leave the hospital in two or three days.” They were wrong. She left that day, but she was no longer alive.

I shut down the writing component in my brain. I know this about myself: the writing component demands a lot of energy. It puts me in another place, but removes me from the moment. Being removed from the moment means that my patience and empathy become compromised. That wouldn’t do. So, shut it down, I ordered.

The writing component was kept shut down for three days. I was given writing time but chose not to indulge it. I knew what it would mean. I took the time to think of life and other matters instead of writing.

What I didn’t expect were the side-effects. I slept miserably, tossing and turning way more than the usual. I also didn’t dream, or didn’t recall any dreams, and I seemed a lot hungrier. I never felt rested.

I imagined the chemical and physiological reasons probably contributing to my side-effects. The drugs my body releases through the creative process and writing. The highs achieved, the flow of neurotransmitters and their interactions, and why writing is an addiction.

I kept the writing component off until today. Notifications of the death are completed. Grieving has commenced and progressed. Funeral and burial arrangements have been made.

When I turned the writing component back on, it was a deluge. Whoomp. I was slammed with words and thoughts to write.

Interesting experience. Fascinating, to me, at least. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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The Pirates’ Thanksgiving Dream

To begin, it’s Thanksgiving. I’ve volunteered to feed the pirates a Thanksgiving meal.

Setting: a modern port city. I don’t know its name. The pirates are not a baseball or football team. They’re not a social organization. They’re pirates on sailing ships.

My offer to feed the pirates pleases them. I set about getting the ingredients. It all comes together. Strangely, though, I’ve put the meal in someplace that turns out to be a toilet, and the meal is gone when I automatically flush.

It’s freak out time. OMG, the food is gone. OMG, why’d I put it in the toilet? Why’d I flush? Well, did the flushing part matter? I mean, once it’s in the toilet….

Panic time. Find replacement food. I scurry about, reaching out and begging for help. Promises are exchanged but time is growing short. Thanksgiving is almost here, it’s almost time for the meal – but there’s also a storm coming.

People are fleeing the storm. The sky is darkening. Storm surge waves are growing larger and more powerful. I’m on a plaza by a hotel, and the waves are half of the hotel’s height.

But strangely, on that plaza, I’m in sunlight. I know the storm is coming. but the waves and wind don’t touch me. I’m less worried about the storm than I worry about feeding the pirates. I know my opportunity is slipping away. People have evacuated. Ships are sailing away. I’m not certain of the pirates’ location now, but I’m certain that I won’t be able to feed them a Thanksgiving meal, and I’m sad.

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A Turbulent Dream

Wow, what a dream.

Featuring swollen brown rivers, hill people, and my wife and I as we search for a new house, the dream was very strange.

Brown swollen rivers flowed everywhere. I had the sense that they surrounded us. When I looked in some directions, the rivers seemed higher than the land and moved like fat, sinuous dragons. While they never overflowed, they hampered and guided our movement by their presence.

Meanwhile, my wife and I sought a new house. We had pages of listings, seventeen in all. But as I visited the houses, I discovered they vastly over-promised, were overpriced, and underwhelmed. After seeing the first one (alone), I found my wife and told her, “Don’t go to it. It’s a waste.” Then, talking almost to myself, I said, “I hope the others are better.” My doubts were high that they were.

I kept losing my wife and finding her. This was against a backdrop of lurking, spying, menacing mountain people out of Deliverance. If you’re not familiar with the reference, read the James Dickey novel, or see the movie starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox.

Eventually, concerned with the rivers and the people I’m encountering, who are growing more aggressive and belligerent, and disappointed with the houses, I look for my wife and develop plans to get us out of there. Extricating ourselves isn’t easy, and drains my energy and concentration, but eventually, we put the land behind us.

It was an intense dream.

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The Porsche Dream

One of last night’s dream seemed structured like a feature film.

It began with me becoming aware of a contest. I can’t tell you the details of the contest. They were vague and dreamy. But I entered the contest and was selected as one of the winners.

That thrilled me. As a prize, I was going to drive a Porsche 911 Cabrio. It wasn’t the current model, but a car that was part of a collector’s garage. I was happy and excited.

But the dream took a twist. Other people needed help. It wasn’t inconsequential help, but help they needed to survive. Although it meant that I would miss out on my prize, I did what I needed to do to help others. Yes, on the one hand, I regretted that I would miss out on my prize. On the other hand, come on, it’s a silly prize, compared to the larger picture of helping others who are fighting to survive. There wasn’t a question; it’s what needed to be done.

Smiling and happy, they thanked me after I helped them (I literally gave a number of people helping hands to climb out of muddy, swollen rivers.) When it was all over, I waved good-bye to them, satisfied with the result.

Taking another turn in the dream, though, a friend, Kevin, showed up. He said, “I called the guy and told him what you did and why you didn’t get your prize. He admired you, so he came up with another prize for you.” I was presented with the keys to an Arctic blue Porsche 911 Cabrio.

Oh, it was gorgeous. Although it was a cold day, with melting snow all over the place, it was sunny, and the car’s top was down. Kevin and I got into the car. I started it up and drove it carefully through puddles of slush and over patches of snow and ice.

Kevin said, “Come on. What are you doing? My grandma drives faster than this. Open it up.”

But I’d had a plan. I was getting to a place where I could turn and go up a hill onto a mountain road. Right as Kevin finished making his plaintive statements, I downshifted and mashed the throttle. As he was slammed back in his seat, he laughed and said, “Whoa, shit. This is more like it.”

Laughing, with the car’s engine in full song, I accelerated up the mountain road.

That was the dream’s ending.

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Such Weird Dreams

I haven’t been posting about my dreams in the last few weeks. There’s a plethora every night, but these two from last night seem so strange, I felt driven to share them.

In the first dream, I was at a competition. Dressed in dark swimming trunks, my team mates and I were standing in water up to our chest. I was in my mid-teens and white; the others were likewise young, but were people of color, and all male. No females were in this dream.

For our competition, we had to launch some small toy projectiles on the sandy sea floor. I’d been experimenting with it and developed some insights into how to set up the little plastic launcher for the best results. The launchers shot out small items like pebbles, marbles, bottle lids, and crayfish. They didn’t go far, and nothing was harmed.

What was odd to me as we practiced was that we were standing up in water to our chest, but bent down to the ocean floor to set up and launch things. We did that without putting our heads under water. I realized that in the dream, and keep thinking about it: how were we bending down in four feet of water without getting our heads wet?

The second dream found me experimenting with missile launchers. These were supposed to provide trains proactive protection. I was at a very large conference/school working on this. Working alone, I pursued ideas that were outside of my realm about taking one product and using it in an unplanned way.

It worked! Excited, I attended a large morning briefing where the top guy was being briefed on projects. After the formal briefings finished and the meeting was breaking up, I made my way to the top exec, sat down and told him my plan, how I tested it, and how it worked.

He was impressed. “Really,” he said. “You did this? I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this.”

Eagerly I explained how I’d procured and modified the parts, and then tested them…

…in my dream….

The admission and realization stunned me.

He was staring at me. “You did it in your dream?”

“Yes.” I was mortified. “I tested it in my dream.” I almost mumbled the words.

“But you haven’t really tested it.”

“No.” I stood.

“I thought I would have heard about it,” he said, and then turned to go on with other things.

Humiliated, I left. I found a place to sit and think alone, but people kept looking in or passing by me. I knew from their glances and snippets of comments that they’d heard about what had happened. They were stony-faced and silent when they looked at me, and avoided meeting my eyes.

I vowed to leave there. Day was beginning. The main body of workers were arriving. The place was noisy with busy, energetic people.

Dejected and angry, I didn’t want to be there. Packing up a box of personal items, I went and found one of my team members. I called her to me. She was just beginning to start her work day. “I’m going home,” I told her. “If anyone asks, that’s where I’m at.”

I hid my face when I spoke to her so that no one could read my lips, and spoke softly so others couldn’t overhear me. Those circumstances forced me to repeat what I said before she understood.

She was concerned and sympathetic, asking if everything was okay. I didn’t want to explain, and left without saying anything more. As I did, I kept thinking, it was only a dream. I’d confused it with reality, and had acted upon a dream like it was real. That worried me about my mental state, but also worried me about how others perceived me, and what was in store for me for my future.

 

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The Prize Dreams

I dreamed of prizes last night. There were at least dreams, or prizes, involved.

Awakening to Papi the ginger cat’s request to enter, I remembered the dreams. But after tending to him (and the other cats who were roused by the activity) and taking a whizz (of course, since I was up, is what my bladder seemed to say), the dreams were sharply recalled. I thought about them as I returned to bed and sleep. But, awakening this memory, I found that I’d suffered dream amnesia. I remembered I’d dreamed about prizes, and there’d been three dreams, but I only remember one prize.

The prize was part of a game. Doing activities in the game earn you points. Most activities earn you one to four points. But the prize I won was a collector bill. Considered extremely rare, it was worth one hundred fifty points.

Bummer that this is all I remember, other than grinning like mad when I won it. Perhaps more will return to me later.

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The Pre-writing Walk

A northern wind slices off some of the sun’s warmth. It’s a surprisingly clear, bright sun, the kind of sun that appears after storms dump inches and feet of snow.

But there’s no snow today. Snow is as rare as found diamonds this year. Ashland’s traffic is light. Town’s energy emanates a feel-good vibe. Restaurants are gearing up for lunch. Enticing aromas tempt and tease on every corner and most doors. I identify grilled burgers, French fries, and grilled onions among the scents. There are others that tantalize but leave without identification. We have a lot of good eateries and abundant offerings. Fortunately, their plot to capture me is avoided.

The writer, editor, and I discuss today’s writing plans, works spoken only in my head, so others don’t pin unwanted labels on me. The plans are fully developed, and I’m eager to get to them.

Still, I walk, thinking about last night’s dreams. One in particular trots alongside my thoughts. I was doing dishes, and I had a plan, but I was falling behind…is that about writing, life, or something else? It involved a POTUS but not the current guy. Others want to step in to help me, but a woman instructs them, “Let him go.” I struggle, turning in different directions, becoming thoughtless and distracted about what I was doing. It occurs to me that the sinks in my dream were full of dirty dishes and hot, soapy water. I slip a reminder into my head to look that up.

Lifted by the day, I walk longer and farther than planned, but finally make the turns necessary to reach my office away from home, the coffee shop where I write. ‘My’ space is available, and I take to it.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more.

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The Movie Dream

I dreamed last night people were watching one of my novels from the trilogy in progress. I wasn’t certain if it was on television or at the movies. I could see and hear scenes, and see people, including me, watching them.

Conversely, after waking and thinking about it, I wondered if that was how my novel is delivered to my brain: as a movie that exists somewhere else that I’m watching and recording. I suspected that idea because some of what I saw seemed new to me. I was enjoying it and wowed.

Whichever and whatever it was, definitely time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

See you at the movies.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

This song popped into a dream last night. It wasn’t streaming when I awoke, but as I was in the kitchen making coffee and considering breakfast options, the song began streaming.

Won’t you take me back to school
I need to learn the golden rule
Won’t you lay it on the line
I need to hear it just one more time

Portions of the dream drifted in with the smell of coffee brewing. The dream had been about school. Not many fragments endured the transition to consciousness. The gist of what was recalled was that I was a distinguished person teaching people. I don’t know what the hell I was teaching them, nor where. I do recall it was more of a Socratic method, and that the dream ended, and the song began, like it was part of the closing credits. I felt joyous, liberated, and satisfied at that point. As I think about it, I could characterize my reaction as triumphant, as I felt like I’d achieved something that I’d worked on for a long period.

And how many words have I got to say
And how many times will it be this way
With your arms around the future
And your back up against the past
You’re already falling it’s calling you
On to face the music
And the song that is coming through
You’re already falling
The one it’s calling is you

h/t to lyricsfreak.com

The song’s title, “The Voice,” is apropos to the dream, as it seemed like an ethereal voice was instructing me on how to teach the others. Not enough survived to do more than ponder the shards like a forensics team seeking clues. It’s odd how many times I seem to dream of others instructing me, or of me, passing on instructions. I also dream frequently of receiving and passing on warnings. Nothing ever comes of them, at least in this dimension.

Here are the Moody Blues, from 1981. Cheers

 

 

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