Agapito

I was in a glass house, or enclosure, or a restaurant. I saw a big bear in the distance, and it ran toward me and smashed into the glass. The bear was injured by a mass of glass that had wrapped itself around its nose and mouth and formed a muzzle. I carefully peeled all the glass off from around his nose and mouth, then he gave me a big warm bear hug showing we were not enemies but friends. Shortly after waking, I turned on the radio, and a song I had never heard was playing, "Hold on tight to your dream" by ELO, and I took as wonderfully related to that hug. A few days later, there was a helicopter circling around my house, and someone asked me "Have you seen the bear? They're looking for one around here." I've heard reports of coyotes in the area but never a bear. Before he was tranquilized and moved to western MA, he hung out in a tree for a few hours.

I was noticing that by pointing my right hand at objects in the kitchen, I could make them float. It then occurred to me that I could also float, so I sat Indian style and floated into the living room where my sisters marveled that I was floating, with a shadow underneath me showing there was nothing holding me up. It felt really good to levitate, and I said I had been feeling down because I felt far from Jesus, so God had given me some supernatural candy.

I was looking for some place, I'm not sure where, on foot as I had parked my car off at some unknown distance. The place was very desolate with old concrete buildings, and I couldn't find what I was looking for. I came to a hill that became a cliff as I approached it, such that there was no way I could climb it. But as I walked along it, I was able to reach an area where I was able to go up the slope. But I felt lost in that desolate place and asked my friend Amy over the phone if she could use her phone GPS to find me. Night was falling, and I told her at some point, I think in a later dream, that in my dreams nightfall represents my awareness of the approach of death, not necessarily right away, maybe years from now, but approaching. I said something like, "the place is awful" but then I came up to some kind of ledge where I could see the beautiful jewel-like lights of a city, and corrected myself, saying "Never mind. It's awesome!" Shortly thereafter, I found her, and we followed white paint on the sidewalk to the place I had been looking for, where some kind of marathon was beginning, at a place with glass doors called "Cycle World."

While walking on a forest path, I came to a cliff that was part of the path. I could see that the path continued below but felt that it was much too steep to be a part of the path. Even so, I began scaling the cliff, and I held onto a rounded protrusion of firm brown ground to help me down, saying "God of the East, God of the West, I feel like I'm holding the Earth's breast."

I flew last night over trees with my sister, Maria, and it was exhilarating. I saw someone walking far below, and flew behind leaves so they wouldn’t see because I thought they might wonder how someone is flying, unless the person was Maria. At that, Maria was flying with me, and I said “Flying in dreams is such an important life skill which I had lost. You have no idea how hard it has been.” Then I came to a golden pillar, as of a temple, and held it as if the substance of the temple understood.

Later, I was walking under a tree that was full of lights. Someone pointed under the tree and said “Your bulb is there.” I hadn’t seen it, but there was indeed a large bulb, which I picked up.

That last part of the dream reminds me of what Jesus said, “I am the Vine and you are the branches.” The feeling of having fallen from the vine is an anxiousness sensation that I have had at other times in life, but then I remember the other parable, of falling, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

When I awoke, I set the dream in verse:

My bulb had fallen from the vine of lights,
but I recovered it beneath a tree,
within a dream realm, after joyful flights,
when someone pointed out the bulb to me.
The bulb will do no good, though, in my pocket.
For it to shine, I have to find the socket.

I thought of the candlelit mass on the night of Easter vigil, where everyone lit their candle with someone else’s flame, and I recalled the words of a hymn we sang that had made me think of Maria and brought me to tears…

I will hold the Christ light for you
in the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you,
speak the peace you long to hear.

I walked up the stairs in an apartment building. At the top of the stairs there was an open corridor with a long balcony and a woman at the door of one of the apartments. She seemed to have spilled something like coffee on her cheek. I told her, and she said, "That's not possible. It can't be." So I said, "Maybe it happened in a dream." She replied, "Dreaming, that's what you guys do isn't?" I said, "We might be dreaming now, let me check." So I raised my hands and concluded this was a dream, but the realization was not euphoric but of wanting to do something, but I didn't know what to do in this corridor. Then it occurred to me to start calling Maria, to meet her in a lucid dream, and I called her loudly, at least 5 times, and the calls reverberated through the complex with an indescribable other-worldly echo. This, I believe, is the first time I've called her, or anyone, to try to meet in a lucid dream.

It was night, and I had parked my car beside a bridge. As I walked across the bridge, I thought I should go back and park the car closer to the city, because it was too far to walk. So I returned to the car and saw it as a silhouette against a sky I felt looked gorgeous. With that feeling, I flew above the car, into that sky, exhilarated by the flight and the sight of scattered lights below.

Dream Note: In this dream, as in others, the car appears to symbolize the physical body, and I took my wanting to park it closer to the city as a desire for more community. Maria pointed out that the city can also be a stressful environment, and thinking I should to park it closer to the city could represent the pressure of things I think I should be doing, while the flight could express a coming back to my own soul.

I was trying to convince some people that "A ladybug can feed us!" I was pointing to a particular ladybug which flew and landed on my shoulder and started walking around me on my neck. When the ladybug was on the back of my neck, I heard the ladybug meow twice, and I told everyone that the meow was adorable. Then the ladybug moved from my neck to the lower part of the back of my head and began flapping, lifting me up above the shore of a lake, and it was exhilarating, and I thought that it has been a long time since I flew in a dream, but I woke up almost immediately.

Dream Notes: after the dream, I found: The name ladybug has its roots in the middle ages, when it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and called the beetle of our lady. I interpreted that "feed" as "help" but after having found out that ladybugs had protected crops by eating bugs that eat the crops, the word "feed" makes sense, and I thought this was really neat, because my waking consciousness did not possess this information about the role of ladybugs in protecting crops, yet my dreaming self knew to use the precise word.

May, 2014

Before the dream, I was having insomnia, so I imagined myself sitting on Maria's living room couch waiting to go hopefully lucid dream with her, but instead of the coffee table there, I pictured an apple tree growing to the starlit sky without a ceiling in the room.This stemmed from a Carol I heard years ago (see link below with the lyrics at the bottom).

When I finally was able to fall asleep, I was in an auditorium in an acting class, and people were doing short improvisation performances. I was also supposed to do one, but I wanted to tell the teacher that I would not be able to as I had not slept enough. Then, without trying to move, I started sliding across the floor as if skating. I thought that this was odd, and I said to myself 'I better check if I am dreaming.' So I grabbed onto a desk to stop myself and I think look at my hands, but what ended up happening was that I felt my awareness was split with one half aware of my sleeping body unable to move, and the other watching myself do a forward somersault, and as I was thinking that I was going to have an OBE, I woke up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVlcOOB81iQ

Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
Siberry Jan


The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit and always green
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree

His beauty doth all things excel
By faith, I know but ne'er can tell
His beauty doth all things excel

By faith, I know but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see

In Jesus Christ the apple tree

For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought
I missed of all but now I see
Tis found in Christ the apple tree

I'm weary with my former toil

Here I will sit and rest a while
I'm weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest a while

Under the shadow I will be

Of Jesus Christ the apple tree

This fruit does make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive
This fruit does make my soul to thrive

It keeps my dying faith alive
Which makes my soul in haste to be

With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

March, 2014)

Nearing dawn, I accompanied Maria to the townhouse where she was living. I walked with her to the door and saw from outside that it looked like a luxurious interior, but I only saw the stairway leading to the upstairs. She said she would be at the house until 4 when she would be going out. As I left, walking on the steps surrounded by open green space and other houses, I thought, 'I sure am glad Maria lives here.' Had I thought of what I meant by 'here' I might have woken up in the dream.

In a related fragment of another time, I had seen that there was a small window and we squeezed our faces side by side to both be able to look out the window at the same time. I said, "We must look really cute from outside." Then, I saw us from above and outside, pressed against the window, looking up, as kids, cute as I had expected. That window represents to me the window to the world beyond the physical world that we sometimes glimpse in dreams.

On actually waking, I was bothered by the number 4 because it is a number that I have come to associate with death because the number four and 'death' sound almost the same in Chinese. Then it made sense, because it seemed the house I accompanied her back to that looked like a house of stone was a metaphor for a house of bone, returning with her there after having been out with her on a now forgotten dream share. Then I thought that although it would be great to dream share, I am glad, as I said, that she is here, in this world that may too be a shared dream, no matter how 'real' it may seem.

Maria's note: The number 4 is actually a sacred and positive number in ancient Egypt. 4 is the number of containment and completion. Maybe in the dream I was telling you that I would be here in my "home of bone" until my life had reached its completion.

March 2014

I was in a dream car, and I had the thought that I was in a dream share with a woman who was driving the car. I told her we were going the wrong way, towards the Longfellow bridge where it crosses from Cambridge into Boston, and she did a quick 180 to head back into Cambridge. The dream car sliced through all the barricades that were between the lanes. Then I detached into 3 versions of myself; one who was in her dream, one who was in my dream, and one who was observing the dreams. In both the dreams, the car had become a little flying saucer, but as I observed the dreams I said, "they don't match" because in one I was hanging on to the outside of the flying saucer, and in the other I was seated inside.

dream archive 12/2013

I stepped out the door of my house and noticed some pickups with construction equipment beside the driveway. A woman in the driveway called out "Hey, stupid." I turned to see her and was amused rather than offended by her manner of addressing that called my attention to a bunch of contraptions in the driveway. I picked up a toy house with little block people and informed myself that I was dreaming.

This time, I felt like I could hold onto that knowledge and just wanted to observe things. With the realization, I was suddenly inside a high rise apartment, its layout the same as the one where I moved after my divorce. I determined that I wanted to fly, thinking that it had been a long time since I flew in a dream. I flew around inside the apartment though I had a large hollow cube strapped to my back.

I noticed there was a sliding glass door that led outside and went there, but when I saw that the view outside was uninviting and featureless with just a blanket of white clouds very far below. I did not want to fly there; I wanted to be able to see the ground, a place where I could land. I backed out away from the glass doors but noticed I was being pulled there, and, in resisting the pull, I woke up.

Dream notes by Maria: Never resist the dream, it is your Inner Self wanting to take you somewhere. Void Space is to be embraced, not feared. Sounds like you ran into one of your Guides out on the driveway!:-) Seriously, I have noted the phenomena that people who are beginning to have lucid dreams (are still in the driveway but slowly pulling out onto the road:-) are aided by Dream Entities who seem to deliberately try and get a rise out of them either by frightening or insulating them. She was getting your attention.*

A toy house with block people is a nice way of portraying waking reality and our physical bodies vs. our spiritual-dream bodies and a realm beyond time, space and solid forms. Obviously.

"This time, I felt like I could hold onto that knowledge and just wanted to observe things."

Excellent! Baby steps. We all initially felt flat on our faces when we began learning to walk, and similarly, we tend to wake almost immediately from our first lucid dreams we get so excited. The next step will feel even more steady and the dream may last longer, especially if you don't resist it.

"With the realization, I was suddenly inside a high rise apartment, its layout the same as the one where I moved after the divorce."

This is very significant. You moved to a higher level of the dream space. And some part of you you have been divorced from is seeking to reunite with you. "I determined that I wanted to fly, thinking that it had been a long time since I flew in a dream." This part of you that deep down knows how to lucid dream. Or so it strikes me.

"when I saw that the view outside was uninviting and featureless with just a blanket of white clouds very far below. I did not want to fly there; I wanted to be able to see the ground, a place where I could land."

This is what lucid dreamers call Void Space. It is a place between dream scenes. For me it resembles a blue-gray-black starry space like being in the "middle" of the universe that is endless. It's where I find myself when the dream is taking me somewhere. You need not fear it. I know I did fear it the first time, and I called out to Hapuseneb (I was writing Truth*at the time) and immediately a hand grasped mine and then I felt a man take me in his arms and we "traveled" through absolute darkness together as I saw a series of scenes, fully formed, pass by before waking; I never "landed" in one. Next time I encourage you to let the dream take you and show you what it wants you to see. The Dream is a mystery but I do believe it is allied to our most Inner Self.*

dream archive October, 2013

I walked up a flight of stairs knowing I was a character in a sitcom arriving at a new apartment. At the top of the flight of stairs, I could see inside and could tell it was a very nice apartment with large windows facing trees and with a large dining room table close to the door. I reached in my pocket for the key, and when I looked at it I saw that it was my real house key. At that moment, when I remembered my waking life home, it dawned on me that I was dreaming! I quickly looked at my hands excitedly and went into the apartment thinking 'this is so awesome!!..to be awake while my body is asleep!'

But I wasn't used to being aware of myself in a dream, and I started to worry that in this dream world I was a sitcom character but didn't know anything about the character, because I was only aware of my waking self now. I was worried about how I would play the correct role with the other characters. I walked into a room where there was a baby sitter with a child and I had to make like I knew them, and I think in this worrying about playing the correct role for the sitcom I lost awareness of being dreaming.

The dream became so ordinary that by the time I woke up I wondered if I had really had a lucid dream or whether I had just dreamed about having a lucid dream. But that brief sense of being conscious while dreaming felt so memorable and striking that I felt that it well could be a baby step in dreaming lucidly.

Dream Notes: Something illuminating for me was that in the dream I was supposed to be a certain character, in a sitcom, and after I became aware that it was a dream character, I believed that I was still supposed to fit into that role rather than act as a character with a meta-awareness of a reality outside the dream. Identifying with the dream character and with trying to play the correct role led to a loss of that meta-awareness. This is I think too what can happen in life, identifying, naturally, with being a certain character, with a certain role, which may likewise be a dream character, a dream role and there is a mysterious meta-awareness beyond these dream roles of which we only have inklings. I think the startling sense of waking in a dream instills that sense or premonition that this is true and dislodges the sense of self as being a certain character with a set of well-defined, finite traits and corporeal boundaries. It dislodges the lingering notion that logic holds the key to ultimate knowledge.

dream archive May, 2013

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Realizing I had lost my backpack, I phoned the train station where I had been to ask if it had been found. I had been losing then finding many things. I spoke to an Indian woman at the station who said that she had the pack. She tried to give me directions for reaching the lost and found building, but they were complicated, and I got sidetracked in having a nice talk with her, as she was very friendly.

When I reached the train at the summit of Arlington heights (where no trains run in waking life), I boarded what I thought was an outbound train that would take me to the next stop, where I needed to go to retrieve the pack. I told the woman, "I still don't know how to get there, but I'll call you when I reach the station." But then I learned from someone in the train that this was an inbound train so I quickly jumped off. On doing so, I realized that my dog, Cookie, was still in the train. He was comfortably seated, cutely staring straight ahead like one of the passengers. I rushed to try to stop the train, enlisting the help of some bystanders who linked together to try to pull the moving train to a stop. To no avail. I saw some police on the platform standing around reading newspapers and yelled to them, "You're supposed to be policing!" The dream ended with me knowing that the lost and found and lost would continue.

Dream Note: The pack, needing to be found at an outbound station seemed to represent worldly plans, an outer focus on activities and others; the dog representing not just the physical aspects of the self but an inward moving preoccupation with them, on an inbound train.

dream archive 2/2/2012

An elevator I was in with others seemed to be, based on the view out the window, somewhere in the stratosphere. Suddenly, it apparently begun plummeting at an alarming speed toward what would be a lethal crash landing. Yet I remained calm and told a woman beside me, "Don't worry..." Pointing at the 'window' I added, "That's not a window; it's a movie." The plummeting was only apparently happening because of the upwardly moving swiftly passing 'scene'. As I said this, the view out the 'window' changed to a landscape passing below serenely, as though from a plane, horizontally.

dream archive 12/19/2011