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Morning of October 1, 1967. Sunday.



I am on my own, possibly in late morning, in a drifting canoe, going southward over a river (the Hillsborough River) in a swamp in Florida that looks like a part of Lettuce Lake Park.

On the banks of the river are very tall cypress trees. There seem to be continuous tall vertically stretched faces of which are superimposed against the trees, but are likely not meant to be the trees themselves, more like a ghostly presence or a strange optical illusion, similar to a funhouse mirror effect.

A few of the faces seem wary of my presence, even though I am a young child, with mouths open, though there is no certainty at some points that they are aware of me. There is a bluish green hue on everything at times. The closely clustered faces, as well as being stretched from ground to treetop and very narrow in appearance, also seem to waver very slowly at times, or have a bend near the middle of the face. They are both male and female, mostly all adults. They are only to my right, near the bank of the river. The faces otherwise do not move much. Despite the eerie imagery, I feel no fear, especially as a few of the faces seem afraid of my presence at times.

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Variations of this dream, both lucid and non-lucid, occurred a number of times from earliest memory. The causes behind this dream are fully known. It developed over the autosymbolic rendering of “drifting into sleep” (spoken mainly by my mother in real life when she was describing my status when I was resting in bed) and mixing the association with drifting in a canoe into a recognized form of dream state induction, which of course has no waking life relevance due to it being a factor of the dream state itself. It is still a major factor of my dreams, water being autosymbolic of the essence of sleep. This dream’s setting was an area my family and I visited in real life when I was very young.

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Morning of November 15, 1975. Saturday.



In my dream, there is a small lake near an isolated cabin or as part of some sort of special tourist resort. At times, it is somewhat like a ski resort on the side of a high hill, even though it does not seem to be winter or with any snow around. When I am by myself each time, I see a plesiosaurus swimming about in the lake, watching this from a second-floor window from the south. It is not there when other people are around (and I do not go down the hill or go near the lake at any point) and so I am the only witness.

Eventually, after other people report seeing a caveman (a possible influence from the movie “Dinosaurus” from 1960) in the area (and yes, I know that cavemen and dinosaurs never coexisted - and in fact, most dinosaurs shown together in movies never coexisted either) it is decided that there will be a full investigation, including a “draining” of the lake (as if it were a large swimming pool). The lake is very old and it seems rather sad that they will drain it. When all the water is gone, it is seen that there is a skeleton (not really a fossil but a recent skeleton of one) of a plesiosaurus - as well as the skull of a caveman, so it then turns out that the lake was somehow haunted.

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Water in a lake getting shallower over time represents rising consciousness (with less dream self consciousness or “immersion”) and the dream ending. This dream state metaphor appeared in my dreams way back at age four. However, in some cases, there were precognitive revelations associated with the event. This one even has the implied draining, as the bathtub draining when a relaxing bath has finished (which may actually be the original childhood prototype for this metaphor).

The ski resort is a setting that represents the dream self’s acknowledged potential to quickly return to “ground zero” (or the waking state) though in this case, the focus was more on the lake as the indicator of possible control (or direction of thoughts within the dream, though I do not become lucid, only more focused). My dream seemed extended relating to the “haunting” (vague conscious awareness in the dream state). Ski resorts are quite rare in my dreams but always represent the same thing - a way to slide to “ground zero” (almost like an “escape route”) rather than just “falling” into the real self (though in lucid dreams I often deliberately jump from a cliff to increase awareness in lucid flight). It is similar to “skiing” quickly down a flight of steps to shift consciousness rather than walking down.

The plesiosaurus represents potential conscious imagination being active in the dream state (or even “above” the dream state) without being “lost” in the dream (or below the water’s surface). I mostly see this creature swimming at the lake’s surface level. The long neck above the lake’s surface is a hint here.

A skull is often an incomplete conscious thought or subtle focus. The nature of the conscious self is only vaguely perceived - not enough for the dream self to see as “reachable” for integration.

“Haunting” says it all. The very nature of this particular “haunting” with all the other elements seems like a sincere attempt to focus on both dream self and conscious self in the dream state at the same time and an interest in how dreams themselves “work” from a third perspective. Even with the different features, it seems very basic. (The cavemen represents the beginning of potential consciousness but does not complete its emergence in the dream.)

Morning of October 11, 1970. Sunday.

Dream #: 1,392-02. Reading time (optimized): 1 min.



“The Visitor” is my original dream journal title from childhood.

There is a house with a supposedly haunted kitchen. I am unsure whose house it is or where it is, though it could be a sister’s house even though there is a commercial venue association at one point, vaguely causing me to think of the Coney Island restaurant in La Crosse where I had not been since 1967, though the rest of the house seems residential. (Houses with commercial features are not uncommon in my dreams.)

People believe in the haunting due to reports of a ghost drinking a glass of root beer from a straw. No one saw a ghost, but other people and I saw root beer lower in a glass until it was gone.

I eventually see that the “haunting” is the result of a daddy-long-legs spider at the top of a drinking straw. It is somehow drinking a full glass of root beer but never grows bigger. Seeing this amusing event creates a cheerful mood. There were resets of my dream, but this final scene was silly. (At one point, the spider seems to have a cartoon face.)

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My dream has subliminal associations with perseverance (as with the “Eensy Weensy Spider” song and fingerplay, the drinking straw being analogous to a water spout). I was unafraid of looking more closely at the presumed haunting. “Out came the sun and dried up all the rain” is another association with water (melatonin) lowering over time (though root beer in this case).

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