Just-so dreams

 I always note my feelings on leaving a dream. Very often I jot down "just-so", meaning that it feels as if I have been having an entirely literal experience in a another space.That space is other than my ordinary reality in which my body has been lying dormant on the bed,but is no less real. Indeed, in our crazy shut-down time the dream space may feel more real and certainly more vibrant and mobile than the everyday world.
    Dreams are social as well as private, transpersonal as well as personal. We get out and about, far from the basement of the personal subconscious. We make visits and receive visitations. We meet people who are not merely projections or aspects of ourselves. We enter parallel worlds and alternate realities. We travel across time and space, seeing things that may play out in the future and meeting up with friends and strangers far away.
    Let me call as evidence my records from dreaming in the last two phases of sleep overnight. There is nothing extraordinary going on here and no strong feelings were aroused. I felt just-so: been there, done that. My other feelings were mild curiosity and a certain wistfulness over the fact that I can't get out and about in my regular body right now the way that I can in dreams. Nothing stronger. No sense of a call to action.No need to face a monster or call a doctor, to walk a tiger or swim to the moon, to continue a dialogue with a master teacher or bring back a book from the Total Library that has not yet been seen in this world. Had I had to rush to the airport, I might have let these little dreams go. But since March I have only been to airports in my dreams.
    I recorded six small just-so reports from my last two phases of sleep. I am glad I did so because the ordinariness of these vignettes may help to make my main point, that dreams are a field of action and interaction with others. In dreams we travel without leaving home, and can be as social as we please. Any approach to dreams that does not go beyond symbolic interpretation or rests on the narrow theory the whatever is going on in a  dream is a is part of the dreamer is going to miss the panoply of dream experience 

Here are unedited excerpts from my journal reports:

2020 August 8

dream (up at 4:00  a.m.)

New Retreat Place

I am showing a man around a retreat center where I am leading an advanced gathering. Someone comments on how the decor shifts very visibly from feminine to masculine design.  I realize that all the complex travel plans for this year must be abandoned.

I watch noisy kids go into the building in pairs from a pleasant outdoor recreation or pool area 

I lead the man to the dining room. It is very sterile, reminiscent of a diner. There are quite a lot of people there already but they are from another group. I don't recognize anyone from my group all of whose members are known to me because they have come to previous retreats. There is a second dining area. I lead the way there, hoping for a private table and more pleasant decor.

Feelings: Just-so. Mild curiosity.

Reality check: I don't recognize my male companion or this retreat center outside the dream. I could encounter them in the future. It does seem I will have to postpone all my teaching and travel plans for this year in my ordinary reality.

dreams (6:00-7:30 a.m.)

Mountain Loop

Taking a walk on a mountain path. The sun is bright but there is ice and hard packed snow. I decide to go back to the lodge but don't like the look of the ramparts of snow and ice I would need to climb. I think it will be easier to follow the trail making a big loop that will bring me to an easier access point. Walking slowly I am passed by cheerful girl hikers who are delighted by how melted snow sends little jets of water into the air. I have done this walk before but decide it is too long for me now. I turn back. If I need help climbing up I will ask for it.

Feelings: Neutral, curious.

Reality Check: This is a plausible situation. Despite my knee replacement, I have difficulty getting about on rough ground and am scared of slippery slopes. I don't recognize this locale but I could find myself there in the future. It was good to be out in the fresh mountain air. Symbolically, there are passages in life where one may need to be ready to turn back and ask for help. However, this felt like an entirely literal, just-so situation.

Dreamwork at a Table in Europe

With a friend at a big table in a restaurant in a European city. She gives me an update on her activities and we do dreamwork with several dream reports she shares.

Feelings: Glad to see my friend.

Reality Check: I think I know that restaurant. 

Action: Check whether my friend remembers a restaurant meeting from her dreams overnight. 

Deep Reading 

A man talks to me about a plan for deep reading he is following. This in involves reading or re-reading a list of books in a prescribed sequence with parallel reading encouraged at certain points. I suggest he should add Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps. 

Feelings: Cheerful

Reality check: Without much of a plan, I have lots of books on the go at any given time, skipping back and forth. I learn so much by re-reading old favorites. I loved The Lost Steps, which I first read in high school, and if I can find my copy in my forest of books I shall add it to my current reading pile. I don't recognize the man in the dream. I am willing to entertain the notion that he is an aspect of myself that approaches things with more planning than I do, but again he feels like another person altogether.

Call to an Author

I have the phone number of a famous author with an Italian surname. I decide to call him. I admire his work and would like to engage his support for a new book project. When I call, it is like listening in on a party line. His wife delivers his eulogy but in a robotic monotone. His son is lively and friendly but has a hard time speaking over the monologue. The writer seems to be taking a nap but when I ask the son to get his dad he says he'll do it without asking who I am. However the man I want has not come on the call when I leave the dream. 

Feelings: Lively curiosity

Reality: I don't recognize the name I recorded (not included here) but I guess I have been given a detective assignment I do hope to birth some new books in different genres, and will be glad of support. 

Action: Maybe I'll manage to reenter to dream and complete that phone call.

As I complete this inventory I see that the "little" dreams are maybe not so trivial after all, and that a couple contain leads I will want to follow in one reality or another. 
    Whatever exactly is going on, all these episodes are examples of "just-so" dreams, leaving the sense of been there, done that - in another room, another land or another world. " They invite exploration rather than interpretation. I often find myself asking detective questions: Who, What, When,Where...Why?
    After a night of a dozen or more of these outings, my dominant feeling may be "travel worn" or "jet-lagged"....

Where I want to be in my dreams

I am in favor of setting intentions for dreams of the night. Sometimes I will simply say, to my dream producers, "Show me what I need to see."
   Sometimes I will set a specific intention for help or guidance. This might be general: "I open myself to the power of healing" or "I open myself to my creative source." It might be quite specific: "i would like guidance on publishing my new book" or "I would like to know how to handle the meeting next week".
    I might set the intention to go on an adventure or to rendezvous with a friend, or a group of friends, by common agreement. Dreaming is social as well as individual, and it can be wonderful fun sharing dream memories after a night when you made it your aim to meet others at a certain place. The best locales for a dream rendezvous, I find, are those that you have already discovered in the dreamlands - that magic library, that cottage with the blue door, that apple orchard, that cove where mermaids sing.
    When you set a specific intention for dream guidance, be ready to be surprised. You may find it hard, at first, to make a connection between the dream you recall and the intention you set. this may be because you have lost the best part of your dreams. It could be because the source of your dreams - which is wiser than the ordinary mind - may be unimpressed with your theme and is sending you something it considers more important for you to consider.
    However, I find it is always a helpful and creative exercise to try to make connections between the dream and the prior intention. This may require a lot of imagination and some element of detective work. The exercise may prosper faster when you draw on the imaginations of others, offering you feedback according to the "if it were my dream protocol".
    Sometimes the nature of the guide who appears in dreams is startling.
    When I was writing my first book on dreaming, I set the intention, "Show me how to bring the gifts of dreaming to many more people in our society." In my dream, I found myself under a huge circus tent. In the center was a character in a loud plaid suit, with a hat, smoking a big cigar. He performed impossibe acrobatics, leaping to the top of the tent, spinning fast in midair as he came down. Then he leaped into the bleachers and started smooching and cuddling an attractive blonde. I knew his name was "Marty", pronounced New York style.
    Now lucid in the dream, remembering my intention, I said to myself, This is my guide?
    Marty leered at me and gave me a horrible wink. Then he said, round the edge of his stogie, "It's about entertainment, kid. It's about entertainment."
     I came from this dream laughing. Marty may not have been the most evolved spiritual guide, but he was the counselor I needed. I kept his advice in mind as I completed the book that was published as Conscious Dreaming, and I have kept it in mind ever since.

Recently, in developing my practice and teaching of lucid dreaming, I have been experimenting with setting intentions in a rather different way.
    I let my body rest for the first cycle of "industrial sleep", when the body is most in need of sleep and repair . Then, when I stir from sleep in the middle of the night, I relax and compose a mental statement about where I want to be in my dream experiences.  
    If I feel in need of healing, I might say, "I am in a place of healing."
    If I want creative inspiration, I might say, "I am in a place of creativity."
    Around 3:00 this morning, in the liminal state between sleep and awake, with the soft patter of rain in the redwoods outside my window in California, I composed the following statement: I am living the life I am meant to live.
     I found myself in a thrilling  but gentle and caring adventure. I was given an assignment by higher authorities to save a woman's life. She was bent on self-destruction, and I was to play the role of the undeclared guide who would reawaken her to all the reasons she had for living.
    My assignment required me to get on a plane to Tegucigalpa. My seat had been reserved next to the woman who was bent on suicide. I would appear to be a charming stranger, meat by chance.
     I threw myself into the role with gusto. Soon the woman was coming alive again, swimming and diving in glorious blue waters, enjoying music and an excellent dinner.
     I came from the dream thinking, Yes, this is part of the life I am meant to live.
    

Drawing by RM