Growing Dream Bubbles in the Many Worlds

 I learn so much from my parallel selves, in dreams, in shamanic journeys,and in encounters in the liminal space between sleep and awake. I admire the writer Roberts who are highly accomplished in different genres, and the artist Robert who does great work in oils. I follow in the footsteps of the Roberts who are ahead of me on my present path, teaching things I have just started to master. I draw comfort from observing the plight of parallel Roberts who made choices that led to blighted relationships, illness or creative sterility.
    The parallel Roberts who intrigue me most are ones who are living full-time in the imaginal realm. It is likely they are Roberts who left the physical world before me. There is nothing surprising in that idea. If the Many Worlds hypothesis in physics is correct, and we are living right now in one of innumerable parallel worlds, then numberless versions of ourselves died before us, at birth or in childhood, through a heart attack or the virus or self-destruction, in easy or difficult ways.
     I love to check on the lifestyles, living arrangements and activities of my Roberts on the Other Side. I admire the residence of the Penthouse Robert who swims in an infinity pool in his rooftop terrace and then dives twenty stories down, like a sea bird, to swim in a turquoise bay. I am thrilled by the access of the scholar Roberts to a Total Library where they bring together knowledge from many realms. I am humbled by the service of the psychopomp Roberts who are devoted to helping people on both sides of death to find and follow their rightful soul paths. 
     I enjoy Robert the Literary Angel who loves to play muse to writers in the physical world, beaming them material that leaps effortlessly on to their pages. He enjoys seeing his ideas take form without having to tap them out on a keyboard and - amazingly - seems to take not pride in the assertion of authorship. Being in his mind gives me an inkling of why guardian angels do what they do. I try not to talk about him in my creative writing retreats because participants start looking at me hungrily, as if willing me to check out soon and start beaming new books to them. 
     I made a shamanic journey to visit a parallel Roberts who is one of the full-time residents of a School of Soul on the Other Side. I was delighted by his studies and his books, include many I have not yet written or published here below. It struck me that I had never consciously visited his bedroom. Does he even have one? After all, he has no need of sleep in this reality. He obliged me by showing me a bed in a pleasant room, with French doors opening onto a little terrace with flowering vines. So what goes on here?
     He invited me to lie down and dream as he does. I found that thoughts and images from inside me instantly took form around me, quickly composing a complete hologram that seemed entirely real, utterly alive. I played with floating in the waters of a wonderful sea cave, enjoying the scene with all of my senses. And then of enjoying the vibrant life of a great city where the arts are cherished. The scene grew until it became a whole world.
     I was reminded by this visit that there is a way of dreaming that is the inverse of receiving images from without and also quite different from making an excursion.. It is a way of projecting a dream reality from within and floating within it, inside a 360 degree bubble that can expand until it is as big as a world.

RM journal drawing: "Dream Box"