In my dream: I am dreaming together with a group of people, including a family in which a man has been expected to die in his middle years. In our group experience, we are able to change probabilities; the man survives and enters a new creative phase of life, and other things change for the better. In order to accomplish this, we all need to remain focused on the reality we have been dreaming until it is fully embodied in the physical world. If any one of us lets our focus - and belief - waver too soon, the physical outcome will revert to what it was before. This attempt is a great success.
But when we try again, one or two of our group can't sustain focus after the collective dreaming. They may want to celebrate too soon. So on the second attempt we lose the fruits of our dreaming. However, we can try again.
I remark to the group that experiences like ours may be the source of the legends in which the hero fails because he looks back too soon. Orpheus charms Hades with his music and wins the release of Eurydice from the Underworld, on condition that he must not look back until they have both returned to the realm of the living. But when he reaches the sunlit world, Orpheus forgets and looks back at his wife before she is safely out; so she must return to the dead. I tell the group we don't have to go on making the same mistake.
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I woke from this dream excited and intrigued. I have been actively exploring the possibility of looking in on parallel lives and switching between them. This has been the focus of several recent experiments in group journeying in my advanced workshops and of several posts at this blog over the past couple of months. Could we stage a group experiment along the lines of the one in my dream in the future? Why not?
7 comments:
Hi Robert,
This notion of looking back too soon vs remaining focused is and has been a strong ongoing story in the stories of my life. A group experiment - yes absolutely - what delicious fun !
It has been playing out recently . In a parallel / future dreaming self ( I have spoken of before) I am performing original music with a group of musicians / have a recording contract and Tom Waits is interested in my work. Last week on the day of your post entitled 'Parallel lives and the meaning of catastrophe' I spent the day recording an original story song to send to a music competition in which Tom Waits is a judge. Midnight was the absolute deadline ( there were a number of deadlines I had already missed - but the song was not ripe - it became ripe the day before this last deadline) During the day - I consulted my dreaming self and the dreaming Tom Waits a few times on various editing and recording issues and received fabulous assistance. With all the great advice the whole thing came together juicily indeed. I was not a simple task however. I struggled against software crashing, had to keep starting and stopping , equipment broke down and time ticked away. My body shook and shook and my heart was beating so fast it was jumping out of my chest. It felt that all of the shenanigans were somehow an important part of the whole process. Eventually, after technical problems getting bigger and bigger and it becoming doubtful that I would physically be able to create a file to send, just before midnight, it was all done and dusted. I felt I had gone through a gateway and by honouring that dreaming vision, and saying yes to it, something magical had happened. My capacity for words and speaking was very jumblied up in the process and it took a day or so to recover (I felt a little mad but mad in a mulchy way) - (is that the collision of which you spoke Robert in your post ?)
I am also reminded of the old bible story of Lot's wife who looked back and turned into the pillar of salt.
And on the daily song goes - and on the focus goes too.
Sweet dreams
Karen
Hi Karen - I love your vivid account of "ripening" your story song through dreaming and then getting it delivered through that gauntlet of technical problems. On that latter theme, I must say that I thrive (as a writer) on all-but-impossible deadlines, and technical mayhem sometimes becomes part of the excitement. I had bound myself (there's that "Proteus" theme) to deliver one of my books on the last day of a month, and then ripped the mis-named floppy on which I had started to save the final chapter before the saving was complete. I then sat down and wrote a replacement chapter - not quite as good as the original, I think, but ner enough - over the next hours. This was fun at the time, not only with hindsight.
Maybe you could do a dream reentry and see what would happen if you don't attempt this experiment, and alternately what would happen if you do.
What are the differences along these paths?
Robert,
Hi -- I too thought of Lot's wife as soon as I saw your title, & expected to then read about being immobilized for being distracted from one's goal. This is a theme in many people's lives I know who are multitasking constantly, but "never get anything done".
The group experiment is a great idea; I'd love to participate.
Nancy
Justin - Yes, dream reentry is always a good recourse with an intriguing dream that has the traction to get you back in. And some preliminary scouting certainly seems advisable when the stakes may be rather high.
Nancy, I'll consider an experiment in group journeying on these themes, starting with an exploratory scout within one of our advanced circles.
It's already happening. The exploratory dream group I mean. And, it has already succeeded.
In my dream of your dream, it's a wonderful lesson in focus and patience and the doing of magic, individually and in a group. I take away a valuable lesson from reading this; thanks for sharing it, Robert.
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