Dream Upon Waking

Mecca and Babylon were competing soccer teams having a match. Mecca wore red, and Babylon wore Blue. But this was no ordinary soccer match. They were playing with two balls, which were also the prize. One was the sun, the other was the moon.

Big Ben

I dreamt I was attending a very formal and pompous ceremony in England. My grandmother and at least one of my brothers was there. I was somehow vaguely related to the monarch via my grandmother and she looked like Tilda Swinton. However, quite abruptly, the queen died. Very chaotically and suddenly my grandmother was being ushered into a very crowded limosine with other members of the court. I was making an effort to get nearer to some man who was being ushered into the limo as well. I think I was attempt to reach him so I could be comforted by him. Though I hardly knew the woman I was incredibly upset. Everyone was. But I was barred by my brother. I said, "But my grandmother is in there!" and he replied, "And so is mine! You can't go," and the limo drove off to the funeral. I remember standing apart, alone, leaning against a column facing the street which was very yellow and sunny, but weeping uncontrollably. To my left someone asked me a question about the crowd, twice, and then I turned and snapped, "DO I LOOK LIKE I WANT TO TALK?!" I recognized the person addressing me as a girl I'd gone to middle school and high school with. She just walked off, understandably discouraged from talking to me by my outburst. The funeral was being held in a small church across the street from where I stood, but only members of the court (those driven there in limosines) were admitted to the chapel. The unselect could stand outside the chapel, or climb the towers to some very high balconies overlooking. I was standing in the hallway outside the chapel when I was approached by a handsome, very tall young man wearing slacks and a white button down shirt. He was the butler for the court (I know that doesn't make sense, but it was a dream so bear with me) and I'd met him once before in a dream. I recognized him immediately but I had to rack my brain for his name. Still, he approached me with familiarity and comfortingly put his arm around my shoulders. He showed me to a small room off the hallway, and there were some flags pinned to the wall in the farthest corner from Iran and some other Muslim nation that I didn't recognize, and I was holding some item that likewise had the flag on it. He said, "I got that when I went there, to Iran." Then he lead me out of the small room, and I had remembered his name was Ben. Someone asked me what the name of the woman was who had died and I couldn't remember but I guessed, Katie. Ben corrected me, saying Katie had been her older sister who had died before her; her name was Julie. And I remembered that I had met him before at Katie's funeral, then he put his arm around my shoulder and was stroking my hand, and said something like "Let's go, S-----," as we began to climb the stairs. All the while I am still crying and sniffling. Going up, the stairs were straight, wide, and after every other landing there were 4 doors, one to the left, one to the right, one opposite the ascending staircase, and one directly beside the ascending staircase. About halfway up we encountered a little girl in a party dress being followed by an old man. The little girl said hello and asked us what we were doing. We said we were trying to see the funeral. She said something like, "Very good, nice to see young people doing something besides sitting in their rooms wasting themselves." I was startled to hear such a remark from the little girl; it would have been more fitting coming from the old man, who never said anything but appeared friendly and merely followed the little girl through the doorway beside the stairs. Ben led me the rest of the way to the highest landing of the stairs. Once we were to the top he gave me no directions, so I pushed open the door to the left, only the enter a pristine, sparkling white tiled bathroom with wooden stalls. Ben followed me in and I sat on a sill by the sink, and Ben sat beside me. He said something to me about a funeral, for mourning, needing to be in a darker environment than I had chosen. So, putting his arm around my shoulders again he led me out of the bathroom. However, the funeral was over by now. He opened the door opposite the stairs, and I stepped down onto a very well-lit landing where a processiong of people were listening to an organist in a ceremonial gown playing a requiem (presumably), behind him a window with the sun shining in, and then the procession walked down a spiral staircase. As Ben and I began to descend the spiral staircase, I awoke. I opened my eyes, then closed them again, and an image appeared of Ben standing in a hallway, smiling at me, hands in his pockets, then a close up of his face and his brown eyes were sparkling. The dream was very vivid and the building I was in had a very strong architecture. Ben's features were very clear, and once Ben appeared there were no jumps in the sequence of action, everything followed from something else. I think Ben is one of my spirit companions, because it was not like we knew each other forever, but that we had met before and this was our reuniting. We both remembered the other. He is one who meets me to lend me comfort in a time of great sadness and mourning for the past.

A Subconscious Mirror Image, Myself

A few nights ago, I had a dream. To be brief, in this dream I was hanging upside down, suspended by the left foot by a rope wrapped around my ankle. I was hanging against a wall from the threshold of a door, where normally a set of stairs would be constructed. However, past this threshold there was only a 90 drop to the floor below, and me hanging there.

When I awoke I recognized that the way I was suspended was exactly that of the Hanged Man from various tarot decks. The image above is from the Light and Shadow tarot, the most frequently used by me.

Just now, I finally got around to googling some information on the symbolism and interpretation of the Hanged Man. Those of you who know me know that I do not believe in chance, and that everything that seems like a coincidence is merely an opportunity presented by the universe to see through the veil of our mundane, over-rationalized experience.

Here is some of what wikipedia had to say about the Hanged Man. It is incredibly resonant with me, especially in light of my recent series of revelations.
The Hanged Man is a card of profound but veiled significance. Its symbolism points to divinity, linking it to the Passion of Christ in Christianity, especially The Crucifixion; to the narratives of Osiris (Egyptian mythology) and Mithras (Roman mythology). In all of these archetypal stories, the destruction of self brings life to humanity; on the card, these are symbolized respectively by the person of the hanged man and the living tree from which he hangs bound. Its relationship to the other cards usually involves the sacrifice that makes sacred; personal loss for a greater good or a greater gain.

Serenely dangling upside-down, the Hanged Man has let go of worldly attachments. He has sacrificed a desire for control over his circumstances in order to gain an understanding of, and communion with, creative energies far greater than his individual self. In letting go, the hero gains a profound perspective accessible only to someone free from everyday conceptual, dualistic reality.

rewards

So, it might not be news to many of you that smoking weed diminishes one's ability to recall dreams. Indeed, this is not news to me, either. However, this summer after I significantly cut back on smoking (for the first time in four or more years), I began to recognize that I gain much more through dreaming than getting stoned. I also accomplish much more in my waking life. Still, when school started again, I fell back into my old routine of smoking all day every day. This had negative repercussion both for my internal condition and my scholastic obligations. About a week to a week and a half ago, I voluntarily cut back on smoking. Okay, it was partially involuntary, since weed costs money and I can't afford it right now, but some of you can verify that I have started turning down offers to smoke with those who can, in fact, afford it. Anyway, the point is, my dreams are returning in their fullness. They usually come to me right before I wake in the morning, but sometimes they draw me out of my sleep in the dead of night.

dreams

have been occuring only in snapshots

i had one where i had a kitten i couldn't take care of.

i had one where my friend pissed me off so much i punch a door to pieces, and inside of it was another door.

and i dreamt i went to church but i left because it was boring.

sitting on the bottom of the pool

After I went back to sleep, I had another dream. This time I was swimming in a pool. According to DreamMoods.com, swimming

"...suggests that you are exploring aspects of your unconscious mind and emotions. The dream may be a sign that you are seeking some sort of emotional support... . To dream that you are swimming underwater, suggests that you are completely submerged in your own feelings. You are forcing yourself to deal with your emotional difficulties."

Departure/Arrival

For the third time this week I dreamt I was flying. The first time, I was flying freely in my own form. The second time, I was flying up, then flying down; later I was flying in one plane and then transferred to another. This last time, I was again flying in a plane and transferring from one to another. This recurrence of the same theme is very positive and reassuring, indicative of liberation and being lead down new, unforseen paths to the realization of personal freedom.

wallow

Something mysterious and strange hangs in the air tonight. A thick electricity of chaotic potential. At any moment it might erupt in brilliant violence. The moon is new and the world is new. I am weighted with a directionless longing. Because I want nothing, I want to want something. This longing is lodged in my belly, waiting to be turned on its head, shaken loose. I need to be shaken, stirred, my fires stoked, unshackled from the familiar and routine. The city is alive with possibility, seeping forth like gas from volcanic vents, struggling against the density of the whole ocean.

My dreams have become more real than my waking life. My emotions are more fully alive where reason cannot reach them. I linger between contempt and affection, love and hate, hope and despair. I do not know what gnaws at my heart, only that it is unfulfilled, hungering. Unsated, it feeds on itself, growing stronger, all consuming. Anxiety shivers down my spine, anticipating the day when this thing is satisfied, consuming itself with cancerous abandon. My heart is ever broken.

There is no peace in my mind, no respite from this nagging need for the mystery that eludes me. I cannot find what I do not know how to seek. I cannot find what I seek until my searching ceases. And still I sense this enigma beyond my grasp, and find myself pursuing it to all ends in the hope of turning up some clue. Yet, nothing. I am met by a mile high wall, erect and defiant. A plaque on its face reads, "You have not reached a wall. There is no wall where you stand. Go forth." It mocks my futile pursuit of a shadow of a dream. When will the shadow take form?

I send myself to bed hungry, a furnace roaring in my gut and bitterness on my tongue.

Hollow

I was awoken tonight from a disturbing dream by a text message. I should have known better than to leave my ringer on before going to bed but if the alert on my phone hadn't done it, the dream very well might have. Like most of my upsetting dreams, it started out without any particularly disturbing images. I was revisiting old dwelling space, though there were new dwellers in my old space... inevitable and yet saddening. Somehow, I was transport from there to a remote village in Brazil. A woman was telling me how she and a lover had been caught together by a local renegade militia and he had been murdered. Apparently the group of sadistic soldiers had been terrorizing the countryside, murdering for the thrill and thriving off the terror of their victims. They had been growing in number, collecting a brutal army. Finally they attacked the village where I was, and chaos broke loose. No one would be spared if they were caught by the enemy. I did not know who I was, only that I was somehow embodied and was running for my life. I ran past a rape treatment center, and leprosy hospital, and other indications of the miserable lives of the villagers. Though I was an alien in my settings, I was no less at risk. It was like hell's minions were descending upon us all, indiscriminate and blood thirsty. I ran through the village, from one house to the next. Eventually I came upon a man armed with a sword. He appeared to be white, presumably American, and when I encountered him he said something that I took to be a quote from a kung-fu movie. Then he paused and said "All I can think is how hollow those words sound in the face of my own death." Then he told me to follow him and we ran out of the house, nearly running over another armed man, I think he had a semi-automatic rifle. The three of us crouched along the wall of a house across the way, and waited, for what I'm not sure. It might have been to fight our way out of the village alone, it might have been for other armed villagers to band together and challenge the militia. I can't say exactly, because it was just at that moment that my phone roused me from the dream.

waking nightmare

perhaps it was precipitated by reading my old journal before bed. entries about how much i resented the people i once went to college with for their failures to acknowledge my potential and their own. is that why i dreamt of them as heartless, cruel, violent predators? ready to cut my eyes out to spite my face, to cut my arms off to spite my body.

"you need knew eyes" she said in a low, raspy tone, sharp with malice and hatred.

"uh, maybe later, i'm going to bed now."

in the dream i closed my eyes, only for the thought to occur to me i hope she doesn't do anything to me in my sleep. and armless from an earlier attack of the familiar, how would i defend myself from another? i opened them again, and she lingered over me, a vile smile on her sharp face, her yellow eyes thirsty for my pain. that was when i awoke, shaken. the near-attack was as real as any near-attack could have been. the fear of being brutally assaulted in my sleep. the heartlessness and cruelty suddenly painted on a familiar face, for no reason, with no warning, like a person possessed by a demon, disfigured, somehow changed and yet for all appearances still the same.

i rested in bed for a few brief minutes, feeling the darkness closing in on me. i was chilly, so i drew a blanket across my shoulders. it was too heavy. the darkness was too heavy, weighing on me, the nightmare too immanent. i was not yet ready to resubmerge in the pool of subconsciousness. i was rattled, so i rose, leaving my new room and my new bed and the cache of new dreams that have been flooding in from behind the veil these past few days.

i sit down before this computer. there is a message from one of those disappointing friends whom i had recently ceased communicating with, one with whom i had a long, disappointing affair. the time stamp reveals that the message was sent at the very time i was reading about our long, disappointing affair. strange how these synchronicities arise.

"soph, quick question."
but he never asked.

i will return to bed soon, and will perhaps take comfort in a fiction before i let the fog of sleep settle across my eyelids. i have things to do this coming day. a job interview, a friend's farewell, cementing my own travel plans. this was an unfortunate night for these demons to haunt me. is there anything worse than to wish for the immersion of sleep only to fear one's own powerless against the illusions that await one there? the terror of helplessness? all waiting in the comfort of a cool pillow, a soft mattress.

government warning

This morning I woke up to Katie yelling in my window. I was dreaming deeply of generous vending machines, Professor Arturo, empowering the oppressed with Marx, and ripping pages from their bindings. I spent four hours eliminating duplicate albums and tracks from my iTunes library. Then Katie and John went out, and I fidgeted around and tried to find someone to hang out, but I didn't really want to hang out with anyone if it meant spending money. By 7:20 I hadn't thought of anything to do except eat and watch more American Dad! Fortunately, that's when John returned with his bandmates to practice in our living room. I ate my veggie burger, read the first paragraph of an article in SEED then realized I'd already read it. Once I'd done that, I drew for a little while on the back of my letter exercises as step 3 of applying for this intership/research assistant position with Helen Whitney. I'm not getting my hopes up about it so I won't be disappointed if I don't get it. I know I'm very qualified, and I have Katherine's referral working in my favor, but I'm not sure if I'm the right person for the job. For one, I got the impression I was the only undergrad among the applicants, and that my obligations come fall might make me less desirable than someone who has long term availability. Whatever. I won't know anything until Helen returns from Germany next week. Because I spent so much time cleaning up my music library today I decided to start work on the playlist for the party Saturday. It's going to be my last party until Andy and I move in together in August. I spoke with Dad today and he might drive out here to help with the move. I think Andy and I will manage even if he can't. I don't have that much stuff and I can't imagine Andy having much if he's flying from California. As much fun as I have had in this apartment, I am ready to move out. I've realized in the last month or so, as the move out date has drawn near, that I am only comfortable living one place for about six months. A lot of that has to do with how difficult it has been to find a place that fits me. I've never really lived in a place that was completely my own, that I furnished, arranged, and decorated. Perhaps things would have been different here if I'd had a real bed rather than a loft.

I lie down like a tired dog, licking his wounds in the shade.

I bought color film for my camera the other day. I asked for a film with a deep saturated color, and I'm excited to see how my first roll turns out. Unlike black and white, which taught me how to see in shades, since I bought this color film, I have started seeing things in hues. I now have the full spectrum (of visible color) at my availability, and now that it's nearly summer and the sun will be at it's more intense and colors will be at their most brilliant. I am excited to try this something new.

a dream vision

Yesterday I was feeling unsure of myself. I turned once again to my tarot cards. I recently bought the deck of the Sephiroth. I have done readings for friends with uncanny results. I had been unsatisfied with the readings I'd done for myself so far. Even when I asked a specific question I would still get an ambiguous answer. However, it was bothering me that I was so caught up on this young man. Certainly I knew better that to let my lust carry me away. What was it me or was it him that was causing this feeling in me? I did a six card linear spread from left to right, and five of the six cards had appeared in the readings I had done two nights before with essentially the same question at heart. It was startling how these pieces had reassembled in the order they had. There minor cards showed a man, the window of opportunity, right will, and nature. The major cards showed the Magician, the cosmic made manifest through the application of will, and Temperance, the tempering of masculinity with feminity and the elements of nature with each other. It was startlingly relevant to my question, with an important reiteration of the importance and power of right willing. So now the question had changed to one of action.

So last night I prayed for a dream vision. I took my prayer stone in my hands and opened my bag of dreaming stones and mugwort. I set the bag to the right of my bed and placed another bag of lavender with two more special stones at the head of my bed. I sat on my bed facing the window and prayed with prayer stone over my heart and head and asked the mysteries for a dream vision regarding what kind of action to take, since I my intentions seemed to be in the right place. I didn't quite know what to expect, as I had never explicitly called out to the cosmos for guidance. I prayed until I felt I'd finished, set the prayer stone beside the dream stones, and fell asleep.

I was a young woman, approximately the same age I am now, perhaps a little older. I was still a student living in the city. My brother lived in another city. In that city there lived a man with whom I was in love. The young man was in love with me, too, but our love lay dormant because of the distance separating us. My brother knew of my beloved, but did not know him. My beloved was a religious man and was, like I, committed to a religious education. He covered his head and appeared to be devoutly Jewish. Secretly I was collecting tokens which reminded me of my beloved. In my room I had collected a small mass of blue, red, and gold items that appeared to be various takes on the Superman insignia.

Quite suddenly an imminent danger appeared on the horizon and was descending upon the cities quite fast. I had no choice but to make haste to my beloved to warn him. We had no time to savor the sweetness of being reunited because of the danger which followed after me. I plucked the outward signs of faith from his appearance and we fled. First we fled through the dark streets, seemingly deserted of all friendly faces, danger lurking. I was guiding him to safety though I didn't know exactly where we would find it. We had no defense except for the swiftness to outrun our enemies. We escaped to a train where we hid from and narrowly escaped our enemies, who would have shot us on sight. From the train we escaped to a house. We ran from the front of the house through towards the back, and as we reached the rear of the house, we could find no way out. Our enemies had just entered through the front and would find us soon if we did not discover an exit. With moments to spare, there appeared the woman who lived in the house. She was large, vibrant, warm, and her skin was honey and olive. She showed us a door on the other side of a mirror, and we escaped through it to the back yard.

Once we crossed the threshhold into the yard, it became my yard and my house. I was older now and there were friends in the house. I stood just outside the house and I held a branch full of cherry blossoms in my right hand. In the middle of the yard between two cherry blossom trees sat a little girl about three years old. She was my daughter, and she sat with a woman and was painting her face with blue, red, and gold paint. As I watched them, my daughter finished painting the other woman's face. But the woman was unhappy. She didn't like the way my daughter had painted on her. I found it very beautiful though, red and blue and gold paint sparkling on her face and a glob of gold dripping through her hair. But the other woman was in fact also me, before I had wanted my daughter, and her discomfort with children had been my own. The other woman left when I approached my daughter because she had never really been there. I gave her the branch which was from her father, my beloved, who was away for important reasons. He had asked me to give it to our daughter to make a bed of flowers. She set the branch down and layed across it. We were happy and in love.

As soon as I woke up, I forgot my dream, but as soon as I sat down for a moment in my living room, it returned to me so fully I immediately wrote it down. It is only the second dream I've ever had that has ended with a conclusion rather than ending abruptly in the midst of action.