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23 hours ago
When I'm experiencing the hypnopompic state --that in-between state that occurs just before waking--many of the images I receive are incomprehensible... ...and often flit by so fast that I forget them as soon as they're gone. However, sometimes an answer comes through clearly, succinctly, undeniably. For Wagner, the answer was the orchestral introduction to Das Rheingold : "After a night spent in fever and sleeplessness, I forced myself to take a long tramp the next day through the hilly country, which was covered with pinewoods... "It all looked dreary and desolate, and I could not think what I should do there. "Returning in the afternoon, I stretched myself, dead tired, on a hard couch, awaiting the long-desired hour of sleep. It did not come; but I fell into a kind of somnolent sate, in which I suddenly felt as though I were sinking in swiftly flowing water. "The rushing sound formed itself in my brain into a musical ...
8 days ago
Like the author of the haiku below... I have often said, "Give me back my dream!" Yet I know those unresolved dreams will eventually return, in one form or another. "Give me back my dream! a crow has wakened me to misty moonlight" -- Onitsura This haiku was translated by Stephen Addiss, with Fumiko & Akira Yamamoto, and can be found in A Haiku Menagerie . © 2009, Michael R. Patton sky rope (subterranean rappel): http://skyrope.wordpress.com taking new steps: http://mythsteps.wordpress.com
8 days ago
Some have used lucid dreaming to ascend to the heights of spiritual ecstasy... Whereas in a recent lucid dream, I merely watch myself sweep. In the dream... I'm sweeping the dark concrete floor of a small room. I have enough light, but it's not bright. I carefully sweep the debris into a small pile in the middle of the floor. I realize I'm dreaming, though the scene looks completely realistic. When I become lucid, I could have chosen to alter this mundane dream. But why should it? Obviously, the floor needed to be swept. I find it significant that I sweep the debris into the center of the room. This cleaning work, occurring on an inner level, is a type of centering--a way of focusing. A meditation. The debris is like an offering--I'm offering up that which I no longer need in my life. I'm acknowledging the spiritual purpose of all this old dust. Though this dream didn't bring me to the heights of spiritual ecstasy, I ...
13 days ago
Falling asleep while I listened to a book on CD... ...may have created confusion in a recent dream... ...yet it also added to the mystery of that dream. In the dream... ...I've gone underground to a cave with many levels. Visitors--both adults and children--move along the walkways on each level. I enter an alcove where some aquarium exhibits are set into the rock walls. In one cardboard box, I find some small marine creatures rolled up in a plastic bag. One is a delicate white spidery thing with little legs all around its circumference. While I'm examining these creatures, I hear a story about the demise of the baiji--the Yangtze River dolphin--one of the few freshwater dolphins in the world. The story is quite sad. The dolphin recently became extinct; we've lost it forever. One of the creatures in this bag is the river dolphin. But I'm confused--a river dolphin should be larger, much larger, than any of these ...
18 days ago
In observance of Veteran's Day, I am reposting this blog entry: "I have dreams that repeat over and over. I have a dream of my fiancee...sitting in a chair with her back to me... "...and there’s an Iraqi that cuts her throat. When I try to save her, when I try to go at him, he disappears. "I have another dream where I’m mutilating my little baby...picking her up by the legs and smashing her against the wall..." These dreams were told on the radio program This American Life by an Iraq War veteran, referred to simply as "John". A self-proclaimed high school "band geek", John did not have a history of violence--until he returned from the war in Iraq. We don’t seem to be doing a very good job of helping soldiers like John, soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I know that listening to their dreams can help them. Unfortunately, dream work doesn’t seem to be a part of most therapies today--whether ...
