Dreams

Monday, May 05, 2008: Treading water, college dorms

They clung to the balconies of tall buildings for as long as they could. But eventually, the waters rose above the buildings, and they were forced to tread water. He and some others began to swim towards what appeared to be an island in the distance, but somebody warned them that carnivorous fish circled that island. So they turned back and swam in a different direction.

In a different dream, he was returning to college. He arrived early with a few belongings: some clothes, notebooks of poetry, a few books. He and the early arrivals chose a spacious, attractive, clean dorm near the front of the building on the first floor.

Then the late arrivals came. And a voice of authority forced him and the other early arrivals out of the dorm and rush back to try and claim a space. It was not fair, he thought, gathering up his possessions again. He and the others had lost the nice dorm, and were forced upstairs to less attractive, less clean dorms further from the building entrance.

He grabbed a clean towel from a co-ed shower, trying to be as discrete as possible.

He noticed that an older student was on the student roster, which sounded promising.

A witch met him along the way. She gave him her business card and exited as he waved goodbye to her.

Finally, he found an empty bed in a crowded dorm on one of the uppermost floors, full of loud frat boys. He put his possessions down and threw himself on the bed.

Sunday, May 04, 2008: Masks, roads, and the chapel of everything

He stood with his wife on a pier before a vast sea. Above the sea hovered masks with different expressions. The masks wanted them to join with them. But together, they kept the masks at bay.

Later, they walked. They found themselves at crossroads going in all directions. It was night, but there was sufficient light from street lamps to see where they were going. His wife pointed and suggested a road. He turned to look at the road, and saw that it was steep, unpaved, and rough. He said that it was likely the road to take. And they began to climb the road.

They came upon a small chapel in the woods and entered. The interior was white and softly lit. They intuited that this chapel served no particular religion, denomination, path, way, world view or system of belief. A young scholarly woman served here. She stopped us from entering the next room, as a service was in progress. She let us know that if there was anything she could do for us, to let her know and she would help us.

Sunday, April 27, 2008: Hunter

He walked along ancient roads, through cities of long past, seeking out men and women whose passions and ambitions and the worship from others had crystallized in them something more than human. They had become gods, haunting cyclopean palace chambers; striding and strutting, demanding and destroying; beautiful, graceful, intellectual, powerful beyond human possession, and entirely mad.

He was nobody.

He saw through their wondrous and terrible mien, which flowed like fire and water and gold and sky. He broke through the spell that put men under their sway, and brought their reigns to an end.

He pursued one of them through darkness along a red path: a road, a river, a rivulet of molten earth. There was a break in the path. He leaped the gap towards his foe and landed in a stream. The stream cooled him and he broke the surface.

But his foe had eluded him. A stone fish lay on the shore of an unfamiliar sunlit villa. He walked into the villa, searching for a native to ask directions. Over a low wall, he saw a young woman. She wore a short red diaphanous dress. Her hair was red gold curls gathered up to bare her long slender neck. He approached her. There was nothing imperfect about her. She appeared to him coy but receptive. But he realized the great, great temptation she represented, and he woke himself up.

Saturday, April 26, 2008: Tornado, waking dream, father

He stood in a high apartment with others. Through a center window, he saw a tornado form from the underside of a hovering rectangle. He pointed it out to the others, and warned them. Suddenly, all was swept away by the tornado. He kept his eyes closed, but he could feel himself carried away by the wind.

Suddenly, he woke up, and he was lying in a bed. His father lay on his right next to him, holding him by the shoulder, shaking him awake and keeping him from falling off of the bed. “Where did you come from?” he asked. “I was tired, so I decided to lay down here. You were having a bad dream, so I woke you up.”

Friday, April 25, 2008: Watcher

He woke up in a bed next to his wife, the sheets twisted. Outside of the window, he could see the shadow of a man with a camera, peering through the curtains. “I see you,” he tried to shout, but could only whisper. He pointed his finger at the man. “I see YOU!”

Monday, April 21, 2008: Barracks

He found himself in sparse barracks of unpainted wood. Dark green shades were pulled down over window screens. A few others of the same rank milled about the barracks.

Two officers entered the barracks through a screen door. One officer ranked higher than the other. First, they taught him how to address them correctly. Second, they gave him a mission. Then they departed.

He departed the barracks alone. He walked to a remote part of the city at twilight. He stood quietly, waiting for a bus.

After some time, a bus drove along the street. It pulled up to the curb further away than he expected. He ran to the bus. Then he remembered that he left his bags where he had stood. He begged the bus-driver to wait while he went back and retrieved his bags.

Sunday, April 20, 2008: Seven stones

In the rain, he crouched down on the lower side of a green grassy embankment. On a narrow vertical strip of dirt dug into the embankment, he placed seven rough flat stones in a row, from the top of the embankment to the bottom. He looked up from his work. Raindrops splashed in brown muddy puddles beyond the embankment. He heard the voice of his wife behind him, calling gently for him to come out of the rain. The stones slid in the mud out of place slightly. He fixed the stones and turned home.

Thursday, April 17, 2008: The man who fell to earth

He found himself riding in a shiny metal bus. The bus was floating through space. Neither the driver nor the passengers could control the bus as it floated through space. There was little they could do about their situation.

He could see that the bus and its passengers were floating towards a very bad, very dangerous part of space. Some passengers decided to abandon the bus. He did not know where they went, but they departed just the same. He and the few remaining passengers braved the dangerous part of space together.

Soon, asteroids struck the bus, and the thin metal of the bus tore open. The bus broke apart completely, spilling him and the rest of the passengers into cold dark space.

Alone, unprotected and adrift, he exhaled a final breath. He felt his body freeze solid.

And for a long time, nothing happened.

After some time, the man woke up. He found himself on planet earth. He examined himself, clenching and stretching out his softening hand. He felt warmth entering his body again. He realized what he had endured.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008: No one should brave the Underworld alone

He looked left and he was riding on a blue-green bus; he looked right and he was in a long white room. On the left, his wife sat across from him on the bus. On the right, his wife played a banjo and sang a song. Everybody on the bus or in the room applauded when she finished the song. He thought it was unusual that his wife was playing banjo, as she normally plays guitar.

His old friend William was in the white room; it was an apartment. There was a lot of clutter they were sorting through. Amidst the clutter, they found two tightly bundles stacks of dark gray rectangles. These were some kind of artifact they had created but forgotten, whose purpose they could no longer identify.

An old friend (who took his life many years ago) was playing guitar and singing Jesus is my Friend, which he always played tongue-in-cheek. The space he was in seemed to be like the blue-green bus only more open.

He found himself walking with a companion, underground. He was moving through a series of vaults. These vast rectangular chambers were cut from dark gray stone. He and his companion were exploring, though there was little light to see by. Suddenly, a menacing giant whose body consisted almost entirely of a large head came upon them and began to harass them. His companion said to ignore the giant and move on.

They came upon a chamber with a feature; a large crevasse in the far left corner. A violet light emanated from it. He thought perhaps this could be a way out. But he was hasty, parted with his companion, and leaped before he looked. He found himself falling into a deeper layer of this Underworld. Fortunately, he landed on a rough flat square stone. The stone hovered independent of the crevasse shelves. He rose on the stone into the air. Another man was using his will to lift him up.

You may noticed that this dream is told as a third person narrative. I am experimenting with this method to give myself a different perspective on the material.

A slight alteration has been made to the episode order: the deceased friend playing guitar happened last.

The companion in the underworld, his guidance, and powers resemble the idea of the psychopomp.