Dream Guides
Wisdom is not intelligence. It is the repackaging of the obvious. It is the PR department of truth.
Dream guides are characters who attempt make obvious truths manifest through parable and allegory. It appears, at times, that they construct entire dreams as the sound stages of their lessons. Other times, they seem to exploit whatever dream is currently running. This is certainly true for me, but I believe that it is also true for others who simply don’t expect it. They have bewildering dreams and they shrug them off. This blog post is intended to alert its readers of this phenomenon.
Parachute tent dream
One of the earliest dream guide dreams I can remember found me inside a tent that was something like a parachute that had been inflated on the ground. As I can to awareness, I was simply standing in this bright and colourful environment, wondering how I’d got there. I felt an hand on my shoulder. I turned, but no one was there. Then I felt a hand on my other arm. Again, no one was there, but I could still feel the hand. I was very agitated. I pulled it off.
Then came another hand. I pulled it away. Then another. And another. I pulled them off frantically. When hands began to land on my face, I began to panic; I could not breath.
The hands came faster and faster, out pacing my ability to remove them. At some point, I realised that the hands were familiar. They felt like my hands. I realised I was dreaming.
I knew that I could not suffocate because there is no air in a dream. I had nothing to do. And yet, I could not ignore the panic. I struggled desperately with the hands until I convinced myself to try again. My calm lasted only a few seconds, ceding once again to the panic. I tried several more times.
Finally, I was able to stand still for ten seconds. This seems like a very short time, but when one is panicking, it is an eternity. I opened my eyes.
I was standing at the foot of a sweeping marble staircase of a mansion. Before me stood the front door. Accompanying me were a young man and a twelve-year old girl. To my left were two middle aged men, one back and the other native American. They were wearing the casual clothing of day-labourers. They were talking about how well the girl had done. She had a natural talent.
They notice that I could see them and they smiled. It made me wonder how long I had been standing there, and indeed, whether I had been anywhere else. One of the men said, “We thought that you had become so in love with yourself that you were never going to finish!” They laughed, but we students did not.
Bunker Study
I dreamt my dream companion and I were to do a psychological study about bunker living, where all participants in a given bunker were stooges, except one subject. There were 4 sleeping places in ours. In it was a woman who went to bed early and a Italian man from Saratoga. I immediately looked up Saratoga on my (dream) laptop. He showed me where his kids’ daycare was — in some desertified region. In reality, there is no Saratoga in Italy. ‘Saratoga’ is an Iroquois word. A little waking-world research shows that it was a 19th century resort town in upstate New York.
The man next recounted his history as an artist. At one point, his mouth came uncomfortably close to my ear; it gave the impression of untoward sexual interest . According to his tale, he ended up making sculptures using pee to dissolve away some soft material. There was never an explanation as to what the substance was. He showed us photos of a museum installation of his work, and then began making a new piece, about fist-sized, right there. Urine splashed everywhere, including on me. I said, “Dude, that’s enough.” I left to clean myself. I awoke while wiping myself off in the WC.
I was not angry, but annoyed enough to qualify as ‘irked‘. I had gotten irked.
I thought I was part of the staff, but it turns out I was the subject. I love the subtle irony of announcing a study centered on a naïve participant, knowing that the arrogance of the dreamer should obscure the obvious truth. I recognise this as dream guide humor.
Zone Crossing
I dreamt of a group of 6-8 young people living on the border where the German, French and Italian language zones meet in Switzerland. (That does not exist in the waking world.) They spoke all three plus English fluently.
They were just shopping and clubbing and pursuing intrigues among themselves, as you might expect people in their early twenties to do. They were changing zones two or three times per day by train. No one else could keep up with them so they were very exclusive and tight-knit.
I did not interact with them, but overheard them talking to others when about 4 of them were on the French side. I had the impression that they were former and current lovers, and that the constant flux created ambiguity. They were beautiful, and Switzerland was beautiful.
I took this to be another message about the lives of dream guides. Each of us is trapped in his own dream (language zone), but they are free to cross borders. Because of that, they keep society amongst themselves, only occasionally interacting with locals for practical reasons.
Here is another dream, which differs only superficially:
I dreamt of an underground city, or rather it was a city of many canals, but the sky was obscured by buildings or steel works. It was rather steam-punk looking, with loads of mechanical bridges spanning the canals. There were walkways that were blocking the canals, which could be retracted when a group of dolphins arrived. There was a religion regarding these dolphins which would periodically arrive from the sea. At this point, all traffic is brought to a standstill while all walkways are retracted to allow the dolphins to progress into the city. What was special was that these dolphins could take human form. I saw this as a musical intro to a child’s television series. The dolphins would arrive, swim through the canals, and emerge from the water in human form. They never continued to be playful and they pranked each other incessantly.
Bewildering Breakfast Invitation
I dreamt of being in a village that was in the form of a shopping mall. People were gathered to watch some performance or to attend some meeting; I don’t remember because I was immediately approached by a husband and wife pair in their 20s who spoke with a heavy Slavic accent.
“Do you want to come with us?” the woman asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “Who are you?”
She began to lead me away by the arm, and I immediately resisted. Then she grabbed me forcefully; I beat her back forcefully. The escalation continued, and at some point, a knife entered the fray. I don’t remember from where it came, but once I got control of it, I stabbed her; she fell, mortally wounded.
This whole time, the people in the mall ignored us, as though we were ghosts.
Then the woman stood, as though she had merely checked her wrist watch. Her husband grabbed me from behind. He broke one of my arms. While I was screaming in pain, his wife stabbed me, then began cutting and slashing with a fury. It was a painful, bloody, nightmare.
He let me go. I thought I would fall to the ground, but I did not. Instead, I looked at my unharmed body in wonder. I realised that I had imagined the pain as a response to what I perceived was happening.
“Now, do you want to have breakfast with us?” the woman asked.
“Yeah, okay.”
Without transition, we were immediately in the kitchen of an uncoloured artificial apartment. The furniture was very simple — for example, the kitchen table was a flat 3D rectangle on 4 tall 3D rectangles. The whole kitchen was comprised of very simple, featureless white objects.
I was somehow convinced that we were in the apartment of the man’s mother. I don’t remember seeing food, but I nevertheless had the sense that she was serving us breakfast. I also do not remember seeing her, but her presence was completely obvious somehow. The man and woman were trying explain something to me, but I can’t remember what it was. All I can remember was the woman, who was seated next to me, blossomed into a scaffold made of many arms and legs, without torso or head. This was part of what was being explained to me, but it was beyond the limit of my comprehension; I awoke.
The Alligator Test
I dreamt of French actor Alan Delon, who died recently. A movie was being filmed on his estate. There was a pool and play area immediately behind his chateau where alligators loitered. In the scene being shot, an actress had to walk naked among them. She had to train first to not feel fear, for that would otherwise excite them. Her being nude must have enhanced her sense of vulnerability.
As it was, she was entirely self-possessed. Her tall, lithe form sauntered among them as if they were so many beach balls. They took no interest in her.
I understood that I was being shown a fact about the dreaming world I already know. I have done similar tests personally dozens of times. However, I have had a set back last spring which is evidently so complete, I must start over from scratch, with the dream guides patiently showing me what is to be done. How discouraging.