Dreams: May 11

Was on the phone trying to get information about a test I wanted to take. The person that I spoke to was not at work. She was at home, and had guests over, so I was actually disturbing her. I don’t remember whether I became a reporter, or pretended to be a reporter to get information from her about the test, but the reporter thing was in my mind as I was talking. She gave me some information before I let her go. While we were speaking, it was as though I saw a diagram with different areas that the test targeted being highlighted. The diagram was a gold-ish reddish color. It was a rainy day, and it almost seemed that the woman I was speaking with was in the house next door.

I was on a ship or a large boat. Someone had died, and their ashes were about to be scattered in the ocean. There were a lot of us on the boat – about 20 people or so, and, when an announcement was made, we all went to see the ashes being scattered. We weren’t allowed outside, or there were no exits, so we had to look through windows which only gave a very limited view. I stood near a window, pressing my face up to the glass, and strained to see something. Someone near me said, “There’re the ashes on the water.” I saw a spot of something on the surface of the ocean that was only a slightly different shade than the water. The water was a very dark color – bluish blackish – and the smudge that was supposed to have been the ashes were a dark grey – barely distinguishable on the ocean’s surface. I thought momentarily about sneaking around the boat to find a better viewing spot, and then gave up, disgusted.

Dreams: May 8

A very unusual dream situation:

I was in the house I grew up in – at least, that’s where the dream ended up. The earliest scene that I remember is that I was constructing a display about the British monarchy. I started with an early king and got as far as the first woman who was queen in her own right. Her name should have been Mathilida, but in the dream it was Gertrude. There was either a television on in the dream, or the scene changed to The Night Of The Living Dead. There was a woman running toward her house (with blue socks) because she thought she’d just seen her husband. I can’t remember whether he was a zombie, or whether he was dressed as a woman, but by the time she made it back, he was still wearing a wig and makeup. He didn’t have a shirt on. He tried to play it off like he didn’t know who she was, said something insulting to her that I can’t remember, and slammed the door in her face.

Then, somehow, where I was, making the display in my room in the house I grew up in, became a part of the movie. There was a man in the room who was my husband. He revived, and I started running from him. He chased around the house. I managed to get outside, ran down the back steps, and in the downstairs section of the house. A couple times he caught up with me. He was very strong, but I managed to fight him off. I made like I was going to jump through a hole in the brickwork, and tricked him into doing it himself. He was outside, and I had a few moments before he figured out how to get back in. I ran back to, and up, the back steps. I shouted to my sister who was there in a flowered short dress, casually talking on the phone. I told her to come inside with me, but as she turned to me, she suddenly grew very old – her hair turned gray, and her face wrinkled, and she became feeble. She couldn’t run. I ran back down the stairs and picked her up, and quickly brought her into the house. I managed to close the door just as my husband was coming up the stairs again. I closed the door and locked it, and ran into the living room. I turned to my left and could see the shadow of a figure climbing through the window in the bathroom. He’d found his way in. I screamed, and that’s when I woke up, still screaming.

(I’d spent just about the whole previous day watching television. There was a show on about the moguls of Hollywood which contained a 5-second clip from Night Of The Living Dead; the husband in the dream was the husband-patient in a documentary about the emergency room of a hospital who couldn’t stop screaming; the last thing that I watched between sleep and wake before turning the TV off and going to bed was a documentary about British monarchical history on Netflix)

Dreams: April 28

Was in a living room - might have been my deceased grandmother's house, but not sure - with other people, including my eldest uncle, Roderick. Ruth, a former friend of my mother's, entered the room. She was emotionally/mentally unstable. (Ruth has had a history of unstability in waking life. There is also a past episode invvolving her and this particular uncle.) My uncle Roderick began to undress himself in order to deal (exorcise?) with the situation. The room was darkly lit - like late evening. My uncle took off items of clothing and handed them to me - his shirt, his pants, his jewelry - he handed me gold chain with a three-cross pendant. I wondered about the three crosses. The chain was solid gold and very heavy. Soon he was butt naked with his back to me, facing Ruth.

I was in an apartment building that seemed familiar. It might have been the building where I currently live, but it was quite different. My upstairs neighbor had some kind of a leak, and I could see the paint on the ceiling of my apartment beginning to swell. I put my hand on the wall, and I could feel the water running under the paint. She came to the door, and we started talking. She seemed to be headed out somewhere - she was well dressed. After she left, I went upstairs to another apartment which was really large, with very modern stainless steel fixtures. The apartment was so large that I couldn't see the end of it - it wrapped around other apartments in the building in an L- shape. I went to use the bathroom which was also very luxurious. I was sitting on the toilet remarking to myself how nice everything looked.

What do I want?

I was talking on the phone to Hall from the SETH group today, and he asked me the following question: what would make me happy? And it set me to thinking. What WOULD make me happy? What do I want? If I could do anything with my life, what would it be? I saw the movie Limitless yesterday, and it was a reminder that Life is really wide open. We're so used to thinking along particular lines that we don't really consider that there might be another way of seeing things. We dismiss out of hand anything that does not make immediate rational sense. But, we can only be rational about what we know, and there's far too much about the Universe, Life, our own bodies, that we don't know to rely so heavily on rational thinking. It just won't get us very far. And then we'll die, and that'll be it. What would we have done? Spent our whole life thinking that this was all there is. It seems like a dreadful waste.

What does the Limitless Me look like? If I could turn on every now-latent capacity and talent I possess, what would my life be like? What would I be doing? If I were confident that the Universe backs me up at every step, what would I do? What does that even mean? The truth is that we don't know how our bodies function from moment to moment. We don't know what keeps our hearts beating, or what keeps the myriad processes that it takes to keep a human body alive going? We live by faith already from one moment to the next. Could we take that faith even further; how much further? How far will faith carry us?

When I asked myself the question: what do I want, here's what I came up with:

To be in a position, physically, mentally, and financially, to determine the direction of my life;

To have an experience of life from a much broader perspective;

To write or tell stories like Limitless that leave us wondering how much more we can be or do;

To have an opportunity to be in the company and to listen to the words of a wise person;

To experience the beauty of the natural world, and to capture as much of it as I can;

To perform from the depths of my being;

To believe that there are available solutions to every problem.

Dream: April 12/13

I was singing in a choir - getting ready to perform the Messiah. We were rehearsing in what seemed to be a narrow room, all standing, all wearing black. One of the girls in the choir was near the back of the group, leaning against a wall, sleeping. Another person directly in front of me was talking while were singing. The conductor told them both, and a third person who I couldn't see, that they would not be participating with the choir at this performance.

I was at work, and was heading out to purchase West Indian food at a particular place on Madison and 33rd Street (there is no such place in real life). I could visualize in my mind, the cook preparing ochroe and rice, and my mouth was watering on the way there. I took a very strange route. I went all the way to the east side, walked uptown, and then made my way west again, all the while having this cooking vision in my head. I was able to see the street that I was on, as well as the place that I was heading to very clearly - one as clearly as the other.

Dream: April 11

Judiette C. and I are standing on a corner a block away from the building in which we work. It’s dark and the streets are deserted. As we stand there talking, it begins to feel less and less safe. We see a man coming up the block, and we decide to go inside. We begin to walk the length of the block back to the office and we break into a run. There was light on the corner on which we were standing, but it’s dark along the way back to the office. We get to the building entrance where it’s light again. The entrance is all glass, and there’re a lot of people milling about. I overhear someone complaining about the heat. I think to myself that it’s 52 degrees, and not hot at all. At the bottom of a staircase near the entrance, I see Winfield L. talking to a woman. I get the impression that he’s interested in her. She looks older, and she’s carrying a baby in a carry-carriage. She’s wearing a white shirt and a black skirt. As I’m going up the stairs, she looks at me looking back at her, while Winfield is talking to her. Winfield sees me, but does not acknowledge me at all. I continue up the staircase which seems to be suspended in midair. Everything is well lit and modern. On the way up the stairs, I see Christine L. on a landing below. She sees me, gives me a curt nod, and turns away. At the top of the staircase, there’s a very small office. It’s locked but I have the key. As I open it, another man comes in dressed in a suit and tie. He makes a comment about the heat, and I tell him that I don’t it’s hot at all – it’s only 52 degrees.

"Television is the enemy of the spiritual life."

I've heard this statement made from time to time, and have had various reactions to it - from scoffing to wondering. In the past week, I've noticed that, although I have memories of the dreams that I've had, they're only bits and pieces - nothing, it seems to me, worth writing down. I've also noticed that I'd given myself over to the TV a bit more than before. I fell asleep watching television just about every night. So this week, I'd like to try not watching television at all to see whether or not it would make a difference in the clarity and volume of my dream memory. It's Sunday night, April 10. Let's call this Night One. Wish me luck! :-)