Dream Islands

Marge Nelk, "Island Monster"

There is a lovely younger woman whose skin glows like pearls, and a stocky little man with frizzy red hair and beard who has been watching me for some time, possibly the whole time I have been on the island.

    I have something I must do, and I leave them in their beds in a communal space we are sharing with others, to tiptoe out into the night. The air is charged with excitement and intrigue.
    Now I am off the island, back in my bed at home, where it's nearly 4:00 a.m. according to the digital clock. I could go to the bathroom, but I don't want to lose my way back to the island, so I lie on my back and make it my intention to return to the moon pearl woman and a mystery I don't yet understand.
    Time runs differently on the island. It is now broad daylight. I swim and go through a busy morning schedule on the other side of the island. The people I was with before are in East End. To get to them, I choose to hike across the middle of the island. Leaving the coast road, I follow a winding trail through forest up into the highlands. There are thrilling views across land and sea, and waterfalls and long-tailed birds in flashing colors, but the going is getting hard. There is a resort hotel up on the mountain ahead of me; maybe I can get some wheels there. But the final ascent is very steep.
    I notice a man in khakis, perhaps one of the hotel staff, slip through a door in a cliff beside the path. The door was invisible until he opened it. I follow him through. Going this route, I get to the hotel up a short flight of steps, avoiding the long hard climb. Distance is not a constant on the island; how you approach things determines how near or far you are. I am noticing now that the surface of things here is a facade. Backstage is a different reality.
    I enter the hotel lobby. There is a great hubbub, people checking our or waiting with their bags for an airport shuttle. They are leaving a conference. I recognize one woman, and several of her colleagues recognize me. They are all members of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Did I get a message from a new committee chairperson? They are eager to recruit me for a new project. I'm non-committal, since I am not a committee person.
    I ask at the desk about getting a taxi or shuttle to East End. It seems this is a busy season; no taxis are available, and they warn me that the bus service is notoriously unreliable. Someone may be able to rent me a VW bug, which I am assured is the best vehicle for travel to East End, but this will take time to arrange.
    "Backstage!" I bark at the people at the desk. My volume is the product of excitement, rather than frustration, because I have just realized that what happened with the stairs under the cliff may be possible anywhere on the island. Step behind the facade, fold time and space. "Show me the way to Backstage!"
    Some of the people look at me as if I’m crazy. But someone at the back with a jacket and badge seems to understand, and speaks into a radio phone. Maybe I don’t need anybody’s help to find the entrance I am seeking. Maybe it will simply open with my realization that this whole island environment is a constructed reality. Maybe this is the real point of lucid dreaming. To wake ourselves up to the nature of reality construction, and our ability to change things by recognizing that no world may be as solid as it seems.

     I’m getting excited now, fully lucid inside my dream. The fact that I am on an island may be a clue to the nature of “I-lands”, locales or worlds created – generally unconsciously – from our dreams and memories and desires. Let’s see. I’ve brought in extras from dream conferences I’ve attended. I have melded Disneyland and memories of both Hawaii and Bermuda for the geography and resort setting. What about the stocky, bullet-headed guy who’s been watching me? Is he a character from previous dreams?  And who is the pearly white woman?
    Backstage. No one at the hotel desk seems willing or able to show me, so I will myself there. Backstage. Surely my desire for the moon pearl woman will get me to East End.
     BRU
     The sound, in a high male voice, comes like a clap of wind in front of my face, slightly to the right. I feel quite sure this is coming from outside myself, and also that it is a deliberate intrusion or interruption. There is the same transpersonal feeling that came when a woman’s voice said BA in my “Egyptian” vision earlier this week. But while the woman’s voice seemed to be giving an explanation and a direction, the male voice seems bent on interrupting my presence in the lucid dream. Whether or not this is also the purpose, it shakes any assumption that the dreamscape is solely mine.
    I’m off-island now, thinking things over. I am not convinced that all the characters and features of the dream are projections. While I have been in a constructed reality, other minds may have taken part in the building, and it may be shared with others, both residents and visitors, and fellow-travelers. To know more, I really need to go Backstage and find my way to East End. But this will now require a new trip.

    
As for BRU: Can it be that what I heard was Brugh, which in Ireland is the name for a domain or palace of the Sidhe, the Faery Folk? The moon pearl woman and the stocky little man would certainly not look out of place in their territory.


- from last night's dreaming




Marge Nelk is a wonderful Estonian artist and "illusionista"; for more of her work, journey here.