First nightmare, a food safari, and single again

11:30pm bedtime.

“Alienation Nightmare” © 1996 by Sabu

3:45am – I am in bed watching an engrossing but creepy documentary. It begins mildly enough, but in the first few minutes it becomes apparent that this is not a pleasant video. There is cerebral violence and profound sadness here. I had put this DVD in to watch while following along with a manuscript, which I had in my hand, and in my own handwriting.

The details of the DVD are hazy now, but there is a lot of strong and dark emotion, and my notes, of course, coincide with that same dark theme. As the DVD plays and I read along intently, Teresa comes in, apparently having been talking to other loved ones outside about me. She is concerned about the content of the DVD and about my state of mind.

I point to a place in the manuscript of significant emotional anguish, and I tell her that I am not ready to let go of these feelings. Besides, I have no choice. It’s all here in the script. It’s all here in my life. I can’t escape it. I realize that the manuscript is my dream journal, and the DVD is a recording of my dreams.

This is a nightmare, the first recalled since I began writing my dream journal. I realize, too, that it is a movie I have seen played before in previous dreams. I am drawn to it. Morbidly riveted, actually.

I want to scream aloud to relieve my soul of the bottled feelings, but in doing so I know it will harm those around me, causing frightful confusion. They would never understand. Teresa leaves the room, sympathetic and understanding. She understands. She always understands. I release a huge silent scream of pain. My spine tingles with ice cold terror. This is a lonely journey, I realize. Sometimes terrifying.

[Major life changes are difficult, like divorce and leaving your children at an early age to be raised primarily by your ex and whomever she chooses to remarry. So much regret now that they are grown. This dream is a reflection of that regret, the fear of damage I have done, and for just being slow to commit to the hard work of transformation.]

I am now near a mall, walking on a sidewalk with shops to my right and a small thru-street to my left. I am rejuvinated, joyful, and happy. No weight of the world, no heaviness of heart, no feeling of deep sadness. I am carrying my dream journal.

Two dream characters, whom I am familiar with in real life [Ryan and his partner, David] pull up in their car. David is the passenger. I ask David if he would journal with me, so that I have someone to keep me motivated and accountable. Journaling is hard work, and it takes a great commitment to do it consistently and authentically.

“I would be delighted to write,” David said, “But my journal will be about politics.”

I am happy to hear that he will start to journal too. I am in such a great mood.

The car begins to pull away from the curb when I yell, “Stop!…”

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeech.

“…. in the name of love… before you break my heart….” They laugh and drive away as I sing and tap my fingers to the motown beat. [I know these dream characters in waking life from my involvement with community theatre, so breaking out in song is not necessarily an odd thing to do.]

I am walking around several stores inside the mall complex, the last is a cosmetic store with four glass walls. [Teresa works at a cosmetic store in waking life, so that’s why they have ended up in my dreams, no doubt.] After a few minutes of pacing from one side to the other, I realize I cannot find an exit door. I am starting to feel claustrophopic in this rectagular glass box. Then, the clerk behind the counter, noticing my anxiety, reaches over and slides the door open for me. I thank her and leave.

Teresa is here. I am so glad to see her. She tells me she wants to go to two stores, both of which are upstairs. The clerk of one, another cosmetic store, was rude to her on the phone and refused to let her speak to a manager. She wants to find the manager and talk in person.

Here’s the challenge. Both stores are upstairs, and the only way to get up there is to cross a huge river of vegetable casserole and scale a wall, upstream, through of cascading fall of grean bean and potato soup. I make it across the casseroles to the soup falls without getting my shoes dirty, but this is where Teresa must go alone. I am not as motivated to go with her upstairs now.

Teresa, is covered in food as she attempts to hoist herself, amidst the opposing force of falling chunks of creamy potato and herb-laden green beans. She is a real mess, but she doesn’t seem to mind. I just watch in wonder.

[In waking life, Teresa is all about enjoying the journey of life. I tend to hold back with tentative reserve, while she just dives in and enjoys the adventure.]

7am – I am walking in an alley with a dream character that I don’t know. [I think she is a hybrid of several single women I dated when my fiance lived in Los Angeles, most of whom had children from a previous relationship.] I put my arm on her shoulder and realize that this is the beginning of our relationship. Her daughter comes running up from behind us and holds my hand. I sense that this DC (dream character) girlfriend is shy and nervous.

We make it to DCGF’s house, and by this time I am holding her sleeping child in my arms. DCGF’s parents are there, lying on the floor, apparently waiting for us to get home. I ask if DCGF’s daughter needs a nap.

“You’re so old fashioned,” she answers. “Kids don’t nap anymore.”

There is also a massive manhunt in the neighborhood. Police sirens are sounding, and the neighborhood kids are all outside, shooting each other with airsoft gunfire. Apparently there are fugitives hiding in one of the nearby houses.

[My fiance and I have been discussing, in waking life, the option of either having children of our own or adopting. I had a vasectomy after having four children during my first marriage. My age and the length of time since my vasectomy are factors that will affect the likelihood of success. Teresa has never been pregnant, and we would like to try for a baby. I have been doing research on vasectomy reversals, which has given me some anxiety. This is probably the reason I still dream, from time to time, about the thought of marrying someone who already has children of their own. All in all, I have no apprehension about my decision to begin this stage of life with Teresa. I will go with her to the ends of the world.]

Dreamsign Catalogue:

1. Inner awareness (0/4)

2. Action (4/15)

• I had put this DVD in to watch while following along with a manuscript, which I had in my hand, and in my own handwriting.
• I release a huge silent scream of pain.
• After a few minutes of pacing from one side to the other, I realize I cannot find an exit door. I am starting to feel claustrophopic in this rectagular glass box.
• DCGF’s parents are there, lying on the floor, apparently waiting for us to get home.

3. Form (2/14)

• I realize that the manuscript is my dream journal, and the DVD is a recording of my dreams.
• …and the only way to get up there is to cross a huge river of vegetable casserole and scale a wall, upstream, through of cascading fall of grean bean and potato soup.

4. Context (0/12)

Lucid dreams for knowledge, improvement, and expression

Lucid dreaming can be a pleasurable pastime or escape from the mundane world of waking, but I’m not interested primarily in trivialities. If I hadn’t experienced such potent and blissful lucid dreams as an 8-year-old child, I probably wouldn’t even bother looking further into it. As stated in an earlier blog, I dismissed my early experiences as something natural that a child “grows out of”. Until recently, I never considered it as a possible means of benefiting the health and/or well-being of the individual.

Now at age 40, I have re-opened the box.

Click photo to read more about “How-To”

The opening chapters of LaBerge’s Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming and Tuccillo’s A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming, both include practical benefits of lucid dreaming. LaBerge’s list includes: adventure, practicing for real life, problem solving, facing nightmares, health, and understanding. Tuccillo’s list is similar: adventure, facing nightmares, creativity and inspiration, problem solving, healing, and self-knowledge. Worded and ordered slightly differently, both lists can be boiled down to essentially 3 things: self knowledge, self improvement, self expression.

Self knowledge

First, can lucid dreaming bring us to a greater awareness of who we really are? I would like to investigate this on 3 levels.

1. Who do I think I am? Can lucid dreams help reveal my self-image in different, more illuminating terms? I am somewhat of a mystery to myself, perhaps from neglect, perhaps from laziness, perhaps from fear. But if lucid dreams can show me, through content, landscape, characters, situations, who I think I am, could they also reveal my deeper self to me?
2. In my investigation is the search for and pursuit of who I really am. By manipulating my fantasy worlds, can I come into contact with a braver, more virtuous and creative being? Are there higher guides who use dreams as a meduim of revelation? Can such transformations come to bear in my waking life whereby I behave differently and get a different outcome?
3. I would like to document some measurable distinctions between the old and new. In short, can lucid dreams be a useful vehicle for the purpose of metamorphosis?

Self improvement

Properly applied knowledge leads to improvement. Can my quest as an oneironaut lead me to a more healthy, productive, and joy-filled waking life?

1. Can my nightly lucid dreaming cause physiological changes that carry over into my waking state? Or can my lucid dreams simply be a spark that lights the fuse toward improvement?
2. Can my explorations reveal hidden wisdom that can be applied to my professional life? Can these applications make a marked difference in my income? Thomas Edison would take cat naps in order to get answers to puzzling dilemmas during his work.
3. And lastly, what do lucid dreams have to offer in the way of lasting happiness? Tuccillo says, “Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Mary Shelley, even Adolf Hitler, were all influences by dream events.” What did they find? How were they enriched or inspired?

Self expression

What does lucid dreaming have to offer me in the way of adventure, enhancement, and advancement?

1. This is probably the most trivial aspects of lucid dreaming. Or is it? Can these escapades to far off and strange dimensions show me how to be a more creative and inspired being? Tuccillo writes about how Paul McCartney found the melody to his song “Yesterday” and the title to “Let It Be” both in dreams.

2. Can these lucid adventures open up opportunities to pick the brains of the likes of Newtons and Einsteins? Can my inner world offer real and life-changing insight? Can this wisdom be applied in my wake life through music, writing, and other creative outlets? For example, where did Carl Jung get the idea during his dream that he should interpret his theories to the lay public? After waking, he wrote Approaching the Unconscious.

3. The bottom line is this: Should lucid dreaming be pursued as a method to grow as a human personality? Will I benefit sufficiently from my pursuits as a fledgling oneironaut (for I have certainly not earned my wings yet!) that my time and energy is well-spent? This is perhaps a question that can only be answered on the other side of the question. Since Lucid dreaming is scientific in principle but subjective in nature, I will have to make a choice to pursue or not to pursue, and live with the consequences either way.

I’m taking Kierkegaard’s leap of faith. I hope to sprout some wings and fly.

With all of our advances in this age in technology and knowledge, no one really understands the full purpose of dreams. But if Freud is correct, and the goal of dreaming is wish fulfillment or conflict resolution, then what would happen if all the accumulated problems of our waking life truly are sent through the filter of our dream state, and instead of dreaming and forgetting, we were to get lucid and resolve them? What would happen then?

This is the key thesis of my inquiry.