Visions in the Dark

I had a dream several nights ago but I cannot remember when now or what the dream was about, but I woke up with the following image in my head:

I am floating in space close to the moon. It is full and bright and has three feather hanging from it like a dreamcatcher. Beside the moon is a window shaped like a turtle, through which I can see a bright blue daytime sky filled with fluffy white clouds.

This image has stayed with me very vividly for days now, and I am currently trying to paint it.

...

Okay, finished. Acrylic on painting board. It took me four days to paint. Click on the image for a larger version:

This dream starts off with me watching Peter Jackson's rendition of the Lord of the Rings movie, the Fellowship of the Rings. Everything seems like it is in virtual reality or 3D and I am viewing the movie from the inside. I can move myself around and view everything from any angle I want but I am invisible to the characters in the film.

The part of the film taking place is when Gandalf is imprisoned atop the Tower of Orthanc in Isengard and he looks over the edge to view the destruction of the trees and the beginning of Saruman's war industry. Everything feels very real like I am really there and watching a real event take place, even though paradoxically it feels as if my body is laying down on a bed.

As the scene progresses a thick fog rolls in enveloping the top of the tower and making it impossible to see the things occuring on the ground below. Gandalf disappears and there is suddenly quiet, and along the edges of the tower's platform many standing easels appear with painting canvases on them, all facing towards the center where I am. At first the canvases are blank but as the fog swirls around them streaks of grey colour slowly start to appear, as if the fog was being imprinted on canvas or if the fog was doing the painting. The images look like rouge renditions of clouds or of the fog itself.

I can feel the fog as it swirls all around and it is cold and damp, like sheets of cold silk being pulled across my skin, and at first I fear that I am being painted on too but when I look down I cannot see my body because it is either not there or invisible.

The scene changes and I am in a painting studio somewhere in Renaissance Italy. It is nighttime and the room is dimly lit by a few candles and is filled with the thick fog from the previous scene. Men of various ages start entering the room from a door on the west side of the room but it is too dark to see there faces. They all sit or stand at canvases around the room and begin painting in the dim candle light despite the thick fog.

A large window on the east side of the room begins to light up as the sun begins to rise and as it does so I can see the men's faces and what they are painting. The men are all famous painters throughout history, from the late medieval period to the late 19th Century and even though they are dressed according to their specific time period, they are all painting pictures of clouds, under the direction of a man dressed in black Renaissance style clothing whom I think is Leonardo daVinci.

I am in awe of all the painters and am entralled to be able to watch them work. As the sun rises further the fog dissipates even more and almost disappears completely. There are all different sorts of clouds being painted: there are thick, dark storm clouds; fluffy white clouds lit by bright sunlight; clouds lit my the moon, and so on. One of the painters is even trying to paint the fog in the room.

The painting they are creating are incredibly beautiful and I remember thinking to myself "I wish I could paint like that." Everything still feels very real and even though I still feel like I am laying down, I can move about the room to get a closer look at some of the paintings. At one point I stretch out my arm and touch one of the canvases and I can feel the wet paint on my fingers, though I cannot see it because my body is still invisible. (Through all of this I still had the sensation that my body was laying on a bed. I know it is contradictory, but I felt I was both laying down and moving around as if free from my body. I don't know really how to explain it.)

The day seems to go by too quickly and the sun begins to fade and the room begins to darken. The fog returns and becomes thick again as the sun goes down. The scene changes yet again and I am now indeed laying on my bed in my apartment and I can see my body. The images of famous painters creating images of clouds in a foggy room is still before my eyes, projected on the far wall of my bedroom as if it were a vision or hallucination.

My room is suddenly full of the clouds they are painting, lit by the setting sun, and I am again entralled by the beauty of it, though my body lays motionless upon my bed as if paralyzed. As the sun sets and the room becomes darker, the painters themselves disappear though the images on the canvases continue as if painted by invisible hands or creating themselves. The beautiful oranges, pinks and purples on the clouds fades to a dull grey and soon I can no longer differentiate the clouds from the fog because it is too dark.


The light fades competely and everything goes black. The dream ends there because I wake up.