Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Where to find missing dreams



What happens to the dreams we don't remember?

I asked myself that question one morning, when I awoke with little dream recall, though I could feel that my night had been highly active. I decided to go back to bed, focused on this intention: I would like to visit a place where forgotten dreams are kept.

I drifted into the following conscious dream, which I titled

THE COSMIC DREAM VIDEO STORE

I arrive in a space that looks like a neighborhood video store. I don’t walk through the door. I am simply there. There do not seem to be other clients, or any of the regular clerks.

There is a strange creature among the shelves. Its head is birdlike, with a single eye, and – like its long neck and upper body – is chromium-plated. I notice this thing is next to the Horror section. I wonder whether it is simply a display, then see that it is alive, moving slowly on multiple feet or pads. I give it a wide berth.

The videos on this level are organized according to familiar categories – Drama, Comedy, Family, Adult etc. There is a large Adult section most of whose content is quite unfamiliar to me. I realize that a block has been placed on some of this material, so that it did not reach my conscious mind, or – in cases where the film has been rated I (for Intrusion) was not allowed through during the night.

Beyond the first room, I see a space devoted to Diagnostic Imagery.

I also discover sections devoted to my dreams of individual people. I have only to focus on a name or title, and the movie begins to play all around me, so I can enter it at will. There is no need here for a DVD player. You simply select a movie, and it starts playing.

I see an unremembered dream of a woman who had disappeared completely from my remembered dreams. In the dream movie she tells me, “I want to give you a life of exquisite beauty.” She changes from a sarong to the flowing evening gown of an older woman; its gauzy fabric floats about her.

I am surprised to find a fairly large section devoted to another woman who has only appeared in my remembered dreams once or twice, and equally infrequently in my waking thoughts. I sample one of these dream movies. In it, she shapeshifts back and forth between the forms of a woman and a flowering vine.

I realize I have a guide available, a woman in a sky-blue uniform, rather like a flight attendant’s outfit. She shows me a staircase leading down, through an opening that is doughnut-shaped, padded with blue upholstery. I go down, and am surprised to find myself at a bus stop. I wait at the bus stop for a time, then realize that just as a bus is a shared vehicle, so this bus stop is a portal to the realm of shared dreams.

I am excited by the prospect of exploring dream adventures I may have shared with other people, and may not have remembered. I focus on three women who are central to my life. In each case, I ask to view the dream movie that presents our initial encounter (whenever and wherever that may have been). I find that there is an immense archive of shared dreams involving each of these people. One is as large as a great gothic cathedral, with shelves rising to the high roof many stories above. I watch several dream movies in each location. They take me deeply and vividly into scenes of other lives and other times - of leopard people in Africa, of Celtic voyagers in a coracle on a cold northern sea, of a turning castle in a high desert landscape where everything is the color of sand except for the pretty star-shaped flowers, blue and purple, on a terrace. The dream movies reveal a hidden order of connection in all these relationships, transcending our present lives.

I know now that there is no limit to the entertainment and instruction available in this Cosmic Video Library. I note again that some of the unremembered dreams were not merely forgotten, but blocked. There is an operating censor who tries to shut out psychic intrusions and projections.

I decide to make a quick scan of materials available for the history of dreaming. A new movie starts playing. It involves an ancient battle in China. In the time of the Tang dynasty, guided by a dream, a general deploys his troops in a mountain pass to crush an enemy.

I will watch no more dream movies on this visit, because my female guide in the sky-blue uniform is telling me it's time to get up and write things down. Time to re-member the forgotten dreams.

9 comments:

Ro said...

This is great! I've always been frustrated when I can't remember a dream, but it never occurred to me to go looking for them! Once I have a quiet moment to myself, I definitely want to try. :)

Robert Moss said...

Do let us know what you find, R! I've recovered missing dreams from other intriguing locations, one like a post office, another like an old-time movie theater.

Mike B said...

Thanks Robert. I think I will need to use this intention of visiting the place where forgotten dreams are kept. I suspect I have a large personal section there!

Lately my dream recollection has been alternating. Sometimes the entire night is filled with story dreams with a clear progression and flow of events. Other nights the entire night seems to be filled with energy-body work without a clear progression of narrative or story. The energy work seems to be reiterated with only slight variation through the night. It leaves me feeling well and charged up but wondering if I’m missing something from the lack of clear ‘story’.

Robert Moss said...

Hi Mike - Though I love to collect and replay full-scale movies from my nights of dreaming, I'm also grateful (and often quite content with) those nights that bring energy replenishment rather than specific dream content.

KMG said...

I wonder why we forget dreams in the first place. Sometimes I'm sure it has to do with social taboos, like with the "Adult" section in your dream. But other times I know I wasn't dreaming about anything like that, yet the dream still disappears.

Robert Moss said...

KMG - Why do we lose our dreams? First, our typical daily habits don't support remembering. Next, the surface of memory can only hold so much. Third, in the "sleep of experiences" we may travel through many levels or courtyards of dreaming and it can become progressively harder to bring back clear recollection of the deeper levels as we return - one of many reasons why adopting the practice of dream reentry can be so interesting. Fear is a blocker for many; we don't want to hear about the dark side in us, or of possible future events. Finally (for now) I agree with the old adage that "if we don't DO something with our dreams, we do not dream well." Dreams require action, which starts with developing a practice - like our Lightning Dreamwork process (explained in my "Three 'Only" Things") for quick and creative everyday dream-sharing.

Justin Patrick Moore said...

One of my favorite musical groups, Current 93, has a song called "The Dreammoves of the Sleeping King". In it the musicians explore the question of "where dreams go when they die." I wonder if those are contained in a whole separate library (or crypt). Incidentally much of David Tibet's lyrics are inspired directly from his dreams.

Robert Moss said...

Thanks for the musicsl lead, Justin. Of course the crypt of dead dreams may be a very different location from the shelters of dreams we missed.

I've helped a number of people who have been estranged from dreaming for a long tiome to reenter their last remembered dreams, with remarkable results. Those "old" dreams, in two cases from 30 years ago, came alive again, not as revenants but in vivid and soul-restoring ways.

Irène said...

Thanks for your comment, KMG. I noticed a few years ago that on some days when I cross paths with people in everyday life, I sometimes have a huge, overwhelming embarassment flash that turns my face bright red & and makes me want to immediately crawl under the nearest rock. I noticed too that when this happens, the person that I'm faced with seems confused by my unusual reaction (that I obviously can not hide from them or myself). Each time this has happens, it's because I spontaneously realize that I've recently had an erotic dream (that I forgot) about the person I'm faced with. So this is how I first realized that my own "adult section" is often filtered out.

But things are changing! I recently had a beautiful dream where a guardian angel appeared to me in the form of a splendid dragon with multi-hued blue and silver scales. On this occasion, I was given a silver sword (with a dragon skin handle!) and told that when in good dream company, if ever I doubt the identity or intention of those who appear to me, the sword would shine blue to confirm that I can allow myself to trust.

And so, just two nights ago, I had an incredibly beautiful & errotic dream filled with deep, bodily love yet upon waking, I felt waves of mental doubt for in this dream, there was a person who is, for me, one of the purest spiritual references I've ever met in human form. And so I thought, "No... He would never do that." Nonetheless, I continued to hold the dream close and took my tea & dream journal into the garden wondering what to do when I saw to my right a brilliantly luminous, shinny blue and silver feather float down from the apricot tree. I thought, "What kind of bird lost this feather? I looks absolutely metalic" and with this thought I inwardly saw my sword.

I inspected the ground and found no such feather and only yellow-brown dried up bamboo leaves. I did write down my dream (and am now looking forward to the sequal!).