Sunday, November 18, 2007

BEWARE: Dreams to follow . . .

WARNING: to those who don't enjoy hearing or reading other people's sleep stories: skip this post! For those who enjoy the mental tumble a dream brings, I invite you to continue:

Last night Rivulet was sick, meaning I got up with her and her not-breathing-ness every two and a half hours. So I was blessed with not one, not two, but THREE very interesting dreams.

1. I was on the top level of a school (the top being, like, level ten). The school had many students and many stairs. I was so tired, sleepyand worn out, but I needed to exit the building on the ground floor to go home. The top level, I tried moving people out of my way by being gruff (thanks to the Leemur's new story reminding me of the word). It didn't work because it didn't make a big enough impact on enough people to actually clear my path.

Then I heard music. It was like Glen Miller's "In the Mood." Suddenly I was in a twirly skirt and realized whatI should do. I channeled all my efforts for gruffness into dance. I was swirling and spinning; until I was past the "I'm smiling so much my face hurt's" stage and was simply breathless with joy. It worked amazingly well. People not only cleared my path, they stood to the sides of the halls to watch me in wonder. Some weren't too keen on me expressing myself this way, I could tell . . . but there were others whose faces lit up by my passing.

I knew I was still exhausted, and yet I was energizing my way past it. I got to the door, and did a whole big dance number with a guy who was standing there. I tried to exit when it was over, but the faces of some more intrusive theater friends blocked my path and said things like, "You are so talented, just do it one more time!" I was so tired, though. No one listened. And the music wouldn't play again. I needed rest. Finally I gave up the being nice and said with calm, "I'm tired and I need to rest. Move out of my way." They did.

Moral: My journey does not need to be taken in happiness, it is happiness. Anger hinders my progress and my process.

2. I saw my sister on the steps of a huge school where she was the new principal. Together we talked and laughed and began leading music. She told me she was the one playing the music in my last dream that let me dance my way out.

3. A possible road my life could have taken had I made different choices at age nineteen. Sure there were good things like weeks at Lake Powell with friends, lots of theater, graduating college and being payed for my talents. Oh, and James McAvoy fell in love with me . . . but in the midst of it, I felt an incredible longing. I saw Muad'Dib on a house boat that we passed in LP,(in the dream) and thought (with McAvoy's arm around me) "That's a guy I'd like to know."
My father wasn't pleased with my choice in men . . . I wouldn't make time to eat with my parents, I felt ugly, though I was the "size" I wanted to be. I actually spent time in the dream envisioning what i would look like after children and prefered it. It was my "dream self."

And then the Simpsons came to eat with James and I and I found a fly in my creme brule' so I think the meaningful part of the dream was over by then.

I know there are those who say dreams are merely the brain's way of processing excess rigamorola we've accumulated through the day(s). Some of mine are that way . . . but not these. These were like markings on an unfamiliar trail that quietly reassure me: "You are on your way. Keep moving forward." Which, oddly enough to some, is a lesson I have not learned yet. Perhaps that's why i keep creating the situations that will teach it to me.

I feel so pleasently delightful right now. Reassurance does that to a person.

2 comments:

Fedaykin said...

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,
chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages
princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own
instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to
be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own
teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a
hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree."

CowboyBob said...

Thanks for sharing your insights. It helps me.