Blue_Opossum

Morning of April 4, 1976. Sunday.



There is some sort of strange weather in Arcadia which I become aware of while I am on the high school grounds. It is apparently a mysterious rain that changes people in ways that make them more menacing and selfish. People on a school bus that passes me as I walk east, even the driver, have a menacing countenance. (Normally in my dreams, rain is a positive event which I enjoy experiencing. This dream, however, is dark and eerie, though not in a directly threatening sense.) I see my best friend Toby T grinning nastily at me through the window (on the left side from the front view) of a school bus as it is ready to drive from an area that buses are never actually ever parked in real life, on the actual school grounds. It is in the area near the covered sidewalks that run north and south. No confrontations occur; just an unusual mood as I wander around, myself remaining unaffected by the “evil rain” and in fact, seemingly the only one in an outdoor setting. (This fact seems contradictory to the idea that the rain is changing people though only in conscious afterthought, as everyone else is out of the rain for the most part, though again, my dream does imply that the rain is somehow responsible) There is a continuous night-like darkness in my dream even during the supposed daytime.

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There is a possiblity that my dream was influenced by the film title “The Devil’s Rain” (from 1975) though I had only seen a few scenes from it by this date.

Morning of September 13, 1975. Saturday.



Somehow, my best friend Toby T—-r and I end up in a very isolated area of Australia (I do not recall any backstory other than the perception of having walked over an embankment), seemingly far inland, with no towns close by in any direction.

It is apparently an isolated place called the “Boneyard” and is seemingly a special archaeological site relating to Australian Aboriginal rituals as well as lost treasures and gemstones, mostly opals. There are rocky hills in all directions when we explore one area. At one point, it seems like a school field trip even though I feel as if I am an adult. We find ancient artifacts which are supposedly very valuable in addition to various smaller human bones. We do a lot of work and at one point, are trying to interpret carvings on old stones. We put everything in the same large grayish green bag. I am not sure of the material. I do not think it is burlap.

After a time, a dangerous snake shows up (I am unsure of the species, but it is perceived by my dream self as venomous, and is possibly a krait). One of us, I am not sure if it was Toby or me, as there seems to be a jump ahead in time at one point, apparently had trapped the snake in the bag earlier without considering it was what we were using to put the artifacts in.

We later gather several more valuable items to put in the bag. There seems to be some sort of argument (non-violent) about possible translations on some Aboriginal dreaming stones or whether certain ones were made by Aborigines or pirates.

Near the end of my dream, there seems to be some sort of ironic special ending about getting to the valuable artifacts. Because the snake is in the bag, we would not be safe if we put our hands in it. This seems to be some sort of O-Henry-like dream climax, but in reality, there would be a few options to getting the artifacts, yet in my dream they somehow ultimately seem inaccessible.

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Familiar dream state components and meaning:

Prescient threads: It is pertinent here to go into the precognitive dynamics of this dream before the usual core symbolism. Although my “mystery girl” (dream girl) is not present in this dream, it does take place in Australia. Not only that, Zsuzsanna, when I learned many years later that she was a real person, had not only been to an area to find opals when she was young, she also has an Aboriginal Churinga dreaming stone of the same appearance as one which featured in this dream. This is especially curious as I had no viable knowledge of such things when this dream occurred (and did not really know much about it until after coming to Australia). Additionally, this dream took place on her birthday, though “mystery girl” dreams certainly were not restricted to literal markers.

RAS symbolism: This dream amused me with the nature of its intriguing ending. There was no real threat, as I had started to enter semi-lucidity in the final stages. A snake is often the core RAS dynamic (likely the oldest waking trigger in all primates, including man). Toby is present for preconscious mediation with only mild conflict relating to reading (translation) skills, which symbolize the emergent consciousness factor (as critical thinking skills normally do not function in dreams). The bag with the snake inside is likely associated with waking space and RAS - analogous to a pillow case, as it was about the same size as one. As such, the bag could be typified as a second-level dream state indicator, that is, residual subliminal memory of having fallen asleep (as it is biologically impossible for the mind to not be aware it is sleeping and dreaming, which is why much dream content is based on the dream state itself in the inherent nature of waking from sleep).

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Morning of July 6, 1975. Sunday.



In my dream, I am with my best friend Toby on some sort of excursion of which I am not sure of the nature of. I believe the word play, “Safari, so good” (so far, so good) is suggested by Toby. We actually seem to be in Africa (or a reconstruction of certain features of one area) at one point, but I do not have a clear memory of how we got there, although the idea of a school bus having taken us there comes into mind very briefly, which suggests that we got left behind on some sort of field trip, perhaps to Busch Gardens at Tampa Bay. Somehow, as we walk around with no particular implied destination, we end up going into another world through an unseen or unrecognized portal.

After a time, we end up being chased by several mythological creatures, including a minotaur and a centaur. We are not caught or directly threatened at any point, but the landscape and the creatures become more unusual over time.

Eventually, without realizing it, after being chased by surreal mythological beasts on several different occasions, we seem to be back in our own world in the same area from where we started, just prior to entering the other world.

Nearby, a lion watches us from tall grasses and soon roars with the idea he may start to chase us. Even though we start running to escape from the potentially threatening situation, Toby starts laughing, saying rather loudly and somewhat happily under the circumstances, “A good ol’ Earth lion!” which means he is glad to be out of the other world, though he lags behind me. There is no fear at this point; but almost a strange sense of relief and appreciated familiarity of the potential to return home.

This is a fairly straightforward dream-as-a-dream event (as many are, even many of which people try to “interpret”, which in the first place, is something only the dreamer can do, as the dreamer is the only one with the relevant memory of the previous experiences and associations that build the dream in the first place). The lion in the last segment is my emergent consciousness rendered as the waking transition’s symbol of coalescence. This is because a lion in the dream state represents the ability to consume the dream self, since that is always the ultimate fate of the dream self (to coalesce into whole consciousness) even after being in the “alternate world of mythology” (the dream state itself). The implied swallowing is not seen in this dream (and in fact, is not even needed to be rendered since the transition has already developed). Waking transitions of this type are often achieved without any need for disturbing imagery (and again, it was even amusing in this case, which happily colored my mood for the day).