listening to wolves

moonlight sparkles

I deeply love sleeping outside under the stars. I just returned from a two week long winter camping trip in the mountains outside Yellowstone in Wyoming.

On one calm night, with an almost full moon, I chose to sleep outside the tent out in the middle of a lovely meadow. I stomped out a flat spot with my skis, to create a bed. It was probably 20 below zero fahrenheit, and I was zipped tight and content in my enormous winter sleeping bag.

I listened to wolves howling all night long, and they were close. It was beautiful.

The next day I skied around the edges of the meadow, and found a lot of wolf tracks. One wolf, or several, I have no idea. Some were just a few dozen yards from where I slept under the big cold deep blue sky.

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funny dream

Double click on the illustration for a hi-rez view.

During the summer of 2008 I was at the receiving end of a series of oddly vivid dreams. I call them “reassuring” dreams because in each one I confront certain frightening UFO issues. In these dreams the scary things are presented to me as something simple and non-threatening. I’m not sure what to make of these dreams.

One of these curious “reassuring” dreams had the distinct air of comedy. It happened last summer while I was sleeping in a tent in the mountains of central Wyoming.

Please note, this NEVER happened, it was a dream!

In this dream, I was visiting my older brother in Michigan. We were together in his kitchen and he off-handedly told me that he had something that he thought I would find interesting. Then, he took me to the garage and showed me what he had, it was a flying saucer! It was about the size of a van, up on saw-horses and partially covered with a tarp. It looked like someone had started disassembling the thing because two big sections had been removed from the sides.

I was completely mystified.

My brother calmly explained he done some sort of government work, and knew some guy who ended up with this thing, and he didn’t want it anymore so my brother took it off his hands as a sort of favor. Anyway, it was funny how casual he was about it.

Here’s the weird part. He explained that if I got too close it would distort my perceptions, and - well - alter reality. I didn’t quite get what he meant. So, I approached it and as I got closer there was a distinct warping of my psyche. This eerie feeling would be hard to explain, but it was very defined. The feeling was unmistakably vivid.

And here’s the bizarre part, that warped sensation was familiar, it seemed to exactly match my memory of the events from Maine in 1993, and the dream like fog I experienced.

As I backed away, the feeling subsided, when I got closer it happened again.

My brother was totally cavalier about the whole thing. He said he was used to that weird feeling, no big deal. But he can’t figure out how to get inside the thing, that sensation holds him back. Then he showed me how he attached a camera on the end of a long stick and puts that in the door to see what was inside.

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The way I saw the craft was as a disassembled disc, with the sides removed. This drawing shows how I perceived the assembled craft.


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five owls

A bunch more owls have shown up in my life.

Here's what happened. I just got out of the mountains in Southern Montana near Yellowstone.

I was on a 7-day trip teaching lightweight camping skills. As twilight approached, myself and a student named Peter did a water run to a nearby spring. It was a beautiful walk, and it probably took less than 20 minutes. We were talking about our lives, and the curious paranormal events that seem to flavor some of our personal experiences.

We got back to camp, and we both lay down to watch the sky. Now, this is unusual, it's something I would never do. But we both did it that evening.

Both of us were on our backs, looking up from a small meadow surrounded by dens trees. Peter is a psychiatrist and the conversation seemed to get deeper and deeper, as the sky got darker and darker.

At one point, there was a noise in the trees above us, and suddenly the small opening in the trees was filled with FIVE OWLS. Yes - FIVE OWLS!

All adult owls, approx 2 feet long, beak to tail, probably common Barred Owls.

It lasted about 10 minutes, and we were both a little bit in shock at the intensity of the sighting. At some point, as we watched them swoop above us, I asked Peter what I was talking about when the owls appeared.

He said I spoke about my mother.

I said, "Really?"

He said, "Yes, they appeared right when you mentioned your mother."

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That night I had a dream my mother was crying, and the image of her face was terribly sad. The next day I called her using a cell phone from high on an alpine ridge top. I was relieved when she said she was fine. I'll add that two years ago she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and presently her life is extremely confusing and stressful. I was worried, and it was nice to hear her voice.

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New text added March 9th 2012:

In this story I noted: "Peter did a water run to a nearby spring."

I need to add a little more to this story. We were camped in a beautiful spot, and there was a pond near our camp site. But the pond was sort of green and murky, not really the best for drinking. I had been in this area before, and I knew of a beautiful spring nearby. So, Peter and I collected all the water bottles from our teammates, there were seven of us total. We carried the empty water bottles to the spring, filled 'em up with cold clear water trickling right out of the rocks, and then took them back to camp.

This is the kind of thing I like to do, just a nice gesture at the end of a long day of hiking. Now, this altruistic act has shown up in another synchronicity (linked HERE). This isn't much of a pattern, that an altruistic act would directly proceed something odd, but I just felt it was important to share my thoughts.

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the universe answers my plea

I’m in the midst of a very curious event, and I’m posting it, right now, as it’s unfolding.

I’ve been searching for answers, and something that seems to provide some insight involves me sleeping out under the stars. I’ve been going out into the mountains, alone, with the sole intent of asking the Universe for help. Yes, I know this sounds corny, but please keep reading.

Before I fall asleep, I’ll lay in my sleeping bag and I’ll ask out loud. I do this periodically, and I almost always get some sort of curious reply. It started in the form of VERY vivid dreams, and some are posted on this blog. Sometimes I’ll wake up, no dreams, nothing curious at all, but before noon I’ll find some other synchronistic event that seems to match my questioning. This post about the neuron-like nature of the internet is a good example, and it adds a deeper layer to this story.

Lately, I’ve been bringing a tiny hand held voice recorder. I’ll sit in my sleeping bag and record my appeal to the Universe. If I have a vivid dream in the night, I can record it as soon as I wake up.

Two days ago (Wed. July 29th) I hiked into the Tetons alone, I live close by, and I can get in quick. I just walk until it gets dark, and then I set up my sleeping bag. I know the weather around here, and I rarely set up a shelter.

Recently (and its an ongoing theme in this blog) I have been feeling lost and adrift. I’ve been trying to articulate my insecurities about what I’m dealing with, and it’s implications. It’s created a form of fatigue that is oppressive and confusing, and I’m tired of it. I want some answers.

As I hiked into the mountains on Wednesday afternoon, I rehearsed my speech, my appeal. I did this out loud. Is this prayer? I guess, maybe.

I feel comfortable hiking off-trail, and at about 10,000 feet this gets easy, you come out above tree-line and the terrain is open and lovely. I picked a direction (east) and just kept going, the sun was setting as I found an area just big enough to set my sleeping bag down. A little ledge of sorts, tucked in next to a little sub-alpine fir. There was a trickling spring nearby, and I was provided with a spectacular view of a canyon that sees visitors only rarely. I was perched above it, on a small platform of granite, watching the sun setting (in a blaze of orange) and the half moon rising. It was about 9:30 when I found my home for the night.

I ate a little something, I brushed my teeth, arranged my pad and climbed into my sleeping bag. Before zipping myself in, I spoke into my little digital audio recorder.

Yes, I recognize how perfectly mushy and New-Agey I sound. 

But this exactly reflects my deepest feeling, right then. 1 minute, 34 seconds.

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I woke up the next morning just a little before dawn. No dreams, nothing. I packed up my gear and kept going up in the calm blue-gray of the pre-dawn light. I hiked along a really pretty ridge system as the sun came up, climbed a nice peak, and then turned around, heading west, and made my way (off trail) back to my car. I got to the parking lot at about noon, and back to my house at about 1:PM.

 I open my email account and my heart literally stops. There, on my screen, was a Facebook friend request from Mike Lewis (a pseudonym for privacy). Okay - let me fill you in, Mike Lewis was with me in 1974 as we walked home on a friday night from a high school football game. If my memory is correct, at about 9:30 in the evening, we saw a strange orange flash in the sky, and I arrived home at about 11:30. Together, as best as I can figure, we experienced about 2 hours of missing time. (see this posting for more details).

I've been searching for Mike Lewis for the last three years. Unfortunately, I’ve found a large number of folks with this very common name, but I’ve been to scared to follow up and try to contact him. The last time we saw each other was probably high school graduation in 1980, that’s 29 years ago. The time of the incoming email from Mike Lewis was 9:38 PM, pretty close to the same time I spoke my emotional plea into that little recorder from my sleeping bag.

I ask the Universe for help and it answers me. This is a repeat of the single most important story on this blog. Please read the events surrounding Cindy Gail, and her reappearance in my life. The orange Flash and missing time took place in Cindy Gail front yard. The Facebook friend request. The exactness of the time. And both are an overt answer to a deep need in me. Okay - as I write this I am a little bit freaked-out.

Why can’t this feel peaceful and fun? Instead it’s welling up as a stifling quandary.

My next task as a human on planet earth is to “confirm this friend request.” But I’m frozen and scared. More soon.

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Added text on Sept. 3rd 2009

I have replied to the friend request from Mike Lewis. I even had a film crew in the room as I sent the note. Since that point, we've sent a few short notes back and forth. Just pleasantries. There will be a day when I ask him about that night in 1974, but it hasn't happened yet.

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Added text on Jan. 16th 2010

I've just posted a dream where Mike Lewis makes a very curious appearance.

neuron-like nature of the internet

I experienced a tiny little dose of the divine in a coffee shop in Moab Utah.

The other night I slept out in the desert under the stars. I was a few miles outside of Moab along a lovely stretch of high-way that runs parallel to the Colorado River.

Sometimes when I sleep outside I'll experience the most vivid dreams, and recently I've tried to encourage some extra message from the great beyond as I sleep. So, as I zipped up my sleeping bag below the sandstone cliffs, I asked the universe to give me an insight, I was receptive. Alas, I woke up without any dreams.

Later that morning, I drove back into town for coffee, and I pull out my laptop. I wanted to look up MOAB for any mythic significance, so I go to Wikipedia, a resource I rarely use. I log on and the featured article of the day on was about high-way 128 in Utah, where I slept the night before.

That was odd...

Now, this coincidence is curious, true enough. It obviously made me take note. In the previous days I had been composing a blog-post in my head about on the neuron-like nature of the internet and the possibility that it might be developing it’s own self awareness. And then I get a very curious cyber-synchronicity linked to where I slept, and where I asked for an insight.

Are we witnessing the internet form a new kind of collective consciousness? There is now a global expanse of electronic brain neurons running everywhere, in the air, into space and into the psyche of individuals. It's all emerging from an unfamiliar digital zeitgeist.

Is there an evolving giant life form of synaptic fibers emerging within cyberspace? Is it a new set of neurotransmitters, allowing and encouraging an alternative web of synchronistic happenings?

I recently tried (and succeeded) to poach a wireless signal at a friends apartment in Brooklyn. I was amazed to see a ridiculously long list of available internet connections, it was bizarre.

This is a new chapter of human history, nothing like this has EVER happened before. We are surrounded by a swirling electo-magnetic soup, with wi-fi portals, cell-phone towers and satellites in space. I am somehow forced to imagine billions of devout monks all chanting together, resonating collectively.

What is unfolding?

There is a perceivable significance in a shuffled deck of Tarot cards. And the I Ching is regarded as a system of divination within a random set of set of 64 abstract line arrangements.

Why is the internet any different?

Here’s a little bit more:

Below is an excerpt from PARANORMAL MUSINGS:
This is no joke. Today Ian and I went to Forrest Lawn Cemetery to pay our respects to Forry Ackerman, who died Dec. 4.

Next we ... arrived at our hotel. When I sat down and logged into the computer, Facebook required the typical security typographical entry before letting me see my mail. To my total astonishment, the words I was prompted to type were, "Ackerman 000" I kid you not.

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Text added Sept.  2nd 2012

Just so y'know, highway 128 shows up again in a very curious set of events, described in this post HERE. The experiences described by 'Artimesia' happened just a few miles from where I slept in the post above.

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reassuring dreams

My weird journey has brought me face to face with a lot of people who declare themselves to be psychic, intuitive or at a higher spiritual vibration. I’m deeply skeptical of these claims, but if it’s true, I might as well chat with them. They will all ask me what I do. Do I meditate, do I pray, do I use a Ouija board?

I don’t do any of that. I sleep under the stars.

Here’s what seems to work for me. I walk into the mountains alone with a dinky backpack holding just the bare essentials. I live in a beautiful place, so this is convenient. I check the weather before I go (this means looking to see if there are any clouds in the south) because I don’t want to be bothered with a tent.

I hike until it’s dark, set out a little pad and then lay myself down to sleep. The proper term is "open bivouac" but the accepted slang is astro-bivy.

If I'm inspired, I'll go thru a simple request. I'll ask, out-loud, "Okay universe, if you want to tell me anything that could help our troubled world. Or, if there is a lesson I need, please let me know. I'm receptive."

And then I fall asleep.

The results have positively bizarre. I will have the most weirdly vivid dreams. Some of them are richly mythic, with heavy-handed metaphors. But most of the time, they are curiously reassuring. So much so, that I call these my reassuring dreams.

I don’t know what it is about me, but my sychronicities have (for the most part) been playful and - well - sometimes downright silly. Why it’s unfolding for me like this, I have no idea. Maybe because I’m a cartoonist, it’s manifesting - well - sort of cartoony.

I've met a lot of people who claim the the UFO abduction phenomenon, and when I tell them I sleep outside alone they say, "I could NEVER do that." For me, it's just the opposite, I am deeply content alone in the mountains. I love sleeping under the stars.

(more vivid and reassuring dreams to come)

vivid dream

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)