During the summer, I sleep outside a lot. I make a real-deal effort to spend a LOT of time camping in the mountains. If I can sleep under the stars, I'm happiest.
Sometimes if I'm inspired, I'll go through a simple request. As I lay down at night, I'll ask, out-loud, "Okay universe, if you wanna tell me anything that could help our troubled world, please let me know. I'm receptive."
And then I go to sleep. I did this last summer, and here's what I got.
The dream I received was amazingly overtly visual and wildly exaggerated. I was alone on an enormous metal roof, literally miles wide. The angle was shallow enough to walk around on, but still it plenty steep to be really scary. I looked up above me on the roof to see a huge canvas tarp tied off with ropes. When I say huge, I mean it, again - literally miles wide.
Behind the tarp was a chaotic conglomeration of all the world armaments, tanks, bombers, aircraft carriers - piled together in a massive jumble. Everything was crammed tightly behind this tarp. And the tarp was old, stained and rotten. The failing tarp as inadequately jury-rigged on the metal roof. This massive pile of weaponry looked so tenuous, it was obvious just a hair's breath away from failing and sliding down the roof.
I walked down to the edge of the roof, and the precipice was mind blowing.
I've spent a lot of time in places like Yosemite, so I know what it's like to stand at the edge of a huge cliff. But the edge of this roof was altogether more expansive and awe-inspiring - and down-right scary.
I'll add that the world below was a haunting vision of natural beauty, lush wet jungles and waterfalls.
Then I wake up. This was not a normal dream, it was something much more vivid.
Okay, I don't need a doctorate in comparative mythology to interpret that dream. The imagery was blatant and unconcealed. But - I mean, is it news that the world is on a precipice with looming military disaster threatening to ruin the natural world? It's not like I was given some secret knowledge. I already knew this, and (I hope) so does any thinking citizen of this planet.
I've had overtly weird experiences (see the rest of this blog) that point to some sort of unknown contact. And, I truly feel that these vivid dreams are part of the same phenomenon. This is somehow intertwined.
What am I supposed to DO with these not-so-subtle experiences? Am I over analyzing this?
(more vivid dreams to come)
I don't know that one is supposed to "do" anything about such experiences, whether dreamed or otherwise. In my own case, i have learned to pay attention, and if so moved, draw or write about them. Like you, mine have been synchronistic and positive, even joyful. For me they tend toward archetypal imagery and structural information, along with places long dead or gone, or at least, very distant. Some of this may have to do with the type of art I do, though I sometimes wonder if the reverse is the case - that my creative bent is an outgrowth of a well-developed intimacy with strangeness.
ReplyDeleteI share your discomfort with pegging these to any particular category or phenomena. I suspect they are more common than we are led to believe (or at least they would be if we let them). Nor do I think it requires any special inclination or ability, though details may differ according to our individual tendencies or backgrounds.
I don't think you are over analyzing. I think it is part of an integration process that we humans, being the thinking, split-brain creatures that we are, need to do.
Thank you for sharing your stories and cartoons. I'm enjoying them immensely.