vogelein

Dream of: 11 January 2014 "Making Up Stories"



surrounded by lies, preach the truth

My father is giving a party at the Gay Street House (a stately Victorian house in Portsmouth, Ohio in which my father lived from 1964 to 1997). About twenty people are present in the large living room (the floor plan is somewhat different from normal). One bottle of liquor is sitting on a table, but no one seems to be drinking. That seems strange because I think most people would have come to the party because liquor would be abundant. Its almost six o'clock and I have the feeling that at six o'clock the liquor bottles will be brought out. I'm thinking that many more people will show up because they know that they'll be able to drink as much as they want. This seems like the kind of party that my old friend Mark Tindal (1952-2013) would attend.

I recall that I used to go to parties like this when I was younger. I would go to several parties in the same night, one after the other. Now, however, most people who come to this party will simply stay here all evening and eat and drink as much as they want. This should be a good party.

My father (around 50 years old) is standing over in one corner. He has short black hair and I can hear him talking about his life when he was in the Marines. I recall that someone had told me that my father had been telling people that he had served in the Marines. His story-telling chatter seems quite odd because I know that he was never in the Marines. I wonder if he has wanted to be in the military all his life and if he is now simply making up stories as a way of fulfilling that desire.

The room finally starts filling up with people until probably a hundred people are present. It looks as if its time for the party to start. I notice that my sister (around 30 years old) has arrived. I walk over to her to speak with her. I know that she also is aware that my father was never in the Marines. She says that she has heard the story and that she was the one who in fact told me that my father had been propagating this story.

I'm just simply astounded that he is claiming to have been in the Marines. I catch his eye a couple times as he's telling the story, but he quickly glances away.

A few minutes before six o'clock, my father puts on a long black robe which falls to his ankles. The robe resembles ones he used to wear as a preacher when he was a young man. Apparently he's going to give a little sermon at six o'clock. This reminds me of how he was when he used to be a preacher.

Everyone is sitting around the perimeter of the room on what look like bleachers. One man who is apparently a singer stands up and someone asks him to start out a song. Walking around the middle of the room, he begins pointing at different people and sings out, "Praise father! Praise mother!"

I think of other phrases which might be sung, such as, "Praise the womb!"

As the man walks around the room, other people begin singing along with him. The party is starting to kick off.

Dream Commentary

Publishing dreams on the internet is an event which may radically affect one's own dreams.

Paradoxically, the dream-writers whose dreams I read on the Dream Journal web site seem disinclined to acknowledge this truth. I see little inclination of other dream-writers (slogging through their personal histories) to look for the effects of dream-publishing in the dreams, although when I read these published dreams - especially of regular dream-writers - I see what appears to me to be clear evidence of the internet-dream-publishing seeping into their dreams.

For myself, I look at all groups of people in my current dreams as potential metaphors for the group of dream-writers whom I've encountered on the internet. The idea that we're all at a party has occurred several times. I can imagine many other metaphors: a choir of singers, a team on a space ship, passengers on a cruise ship, students in a class, lodgers at a hotel, a masquerade ball, a banquet, a séance, etc. One of the best dreams I saw on the Dream Journal featured a group of kids who had telekinetic powers which enabled them to hack certain types of computer technology and who entered a group dream together in order to perform their hacking. Yet I'm not sure that that particular dream-writer had any concept that her dream might have been influenced by her dream-publishing.

I look at the people at the party in this dream as other dream-writers and dream-readers. I guess I just want to party.

On the flip side of seeing dream-writers in my dreams, another sort of party game which I play is putting myself in other people's dreams when I read them. If I think this person has been reading my dreams, and if someone in the dream reminds me of myself, I imagine that I am that person in the dream. If people are reading my dreams, I suspect that they are dreaming about me, whether they can see it or not.

And guess what - its usually fascinating and fun to imagine yourself in other people's dreams.

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