The New Church
Perhaps the strangest way I ever went Lucid in a dream.
It started as I sat in perhaps one of the rear most pews of a Church. I was sitting with a young lady with whom I felt close, but I remember there being a young man. During the Mass I remember that the young man was eating a large sandwich, for which I gave the young man the kindest and most good natured of reprimands, not intending that the young man stop eating, but only wishing to convey the knowledge that one was supposed to fast, that is not eat, prior to celebrating the Eucharist. But then I recalled that I had just eaten a sandwich myself.
Then I was up and around for whatever reason, and the young lady was in an adjacent room, and I could see her sitting on the floor through the open door. As I passed by to go back to Mass, I looked her way and asked if she was also ready to go back to the Mass, but the look in her eyes told me instantly that she was not interested in the least in going back with me. I think I even said “Oh”, in acknowledgment to this new understanding, and I turned and walked back into the main church.
This was when something happened that never happened before. It was as though I spontaneously Astrally Projected, but it was into a state of Lucidity, no, not that I knew I was dreaming, but that I had much of my lucid consciousness and knew I was in some kind of altered state. I was concerned about the dream body that I had seemed to project from – I wondered whether my body had fallen down, and looked back, but could not see for all of the people, but there did not seem to be an undo commotion.
At first, in one sudden moment, I shot forward from the back of the Church to about the middle and then floated more slowly toward the Altar, and I wondered if I would encounter any special and powerful Holiness as I approached the Altar and the Eucharist. I felt an ambiance of White and Golden Light, but no overwhelming Holiness enraptured me. And then I went through the walls and beyond the Church to a new Dreamscape.
I must have flown for a while because I became aware of being no longer able to fly. I was at the top of a high level, and felt that the scene was very similar to, but not exactly a place from T_____, at the Factory where I had worked, as the outside landscaping seemed that familiar, and yet I was conscious of discrepancies. I came to a ledge, and as I was aware that I could no longer fly, I at once had the insight that I could run down the almost vertical drop and not be hurt, and so over the edge I went. I was able to run down and manage to turn the corner at the bottom, from vertical edge to horizontal flat without being slammed. But it did involve my becoming very flat to the ground, as though I was running and lying flat at the same time. But when I came to a stop, I looked up and forward and saw what impressed me as a large Church Building. It was backed by a forest, and the Building was up on a knoll. The Building was large and rectangular and had a steeped roof, but had no bell tower, steeple or cross or crucifix. But still it ‘looked’ like a Church. Its most brilliant characteristic was a rounded convex projection of windows billowing out from the front of the Building – not stained glass but the well lit glass shown with a golden-amber light. During the day, the sanctuary would be well lit.
I moved toward entering this church. Their were three steps leading up to the Church, and, strangely enough, the steps were made of tall bundles of wheat stalks, as though the wheat of a harvest was cut and bundled and stacked, with the stalks still oriented vertically, into three levels of stairs. With some effort to stretch I climbed the stairs of wheat. There was a car piled into these stairs of wheat, as though the car had arrived also.
I walked into the front doors but found that I entered only into a kind of foyer or air lock, and there was another set of doors into the sanctuary itself. But they were closed off. There was construction work going on, and the inside of those doors were draped in preparation for painting. But one of the workers answered my knock, and from peeking inside I saw that the entire huge sanctuary was being spray painted thickly and completely – not a spot was to be missed. The paint was not purely white, not bright white, but a mellowed white without glare – an eggshell white that complemented the golden-amber color of the glass in the convex rounded projection of windows in the front of the Church. I asked when the Church would be ready, and the Worker assured me that it would be open soon – I think he said a Thursday toward the end of the month.
Recently I had stopped going to Catholic Mass, both the Cathedral on Sunday Mornings and the parish church in the evening. The incense smoke during the Easter observances had bothered me, and when I complained to the Archbishop and the Parish Priest, they both used the occasion to laugh at me. On top of everything else, that was the straw that broke the camels back, and I felt it time to break with the Church of Paul… a break that had to come sooner or later.
I see this Dream as something of a vindication and an assurance that there will be another church to replace the old.
