Waking thought sacrifices completeness for coherence
Dream thought sacrifices coherence for completeness
Precise thought excludes too much
Imprecise thought is not sufficiently coherent
The left hemisphere of the brain linguistically mediates, is sequential and logical
The right hemisphere of the brain is the imagination trying to get a picture of everything, is emotional and incoherent
I once read how sleep makes one look as though they were dead. At the time I didn’t realize the double meaning inside this idea. Now I notice that it is not only from the onlooker’s view that a sleeper looks dead. It is the sleeper himself who can view his soul more deeply like death will reveal and dare to breach a pathway the subconscious mind offers him.
“That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for those who love him.”
Integrating a dream is a distilling process of life and one that can be foreign in certain cultural contexts. It was not foreign to our Old Testament patriarchs like Jacob or Joseph. It was not foreign to Plato or Socrates. It was not foreign to St. Joseph who woke and took Mary and the Infant Jesus to Egypt because of the angel’s message in his dream. It was not foreign to Dante or Dostoyevsky.
So come look again at the idea. Integrating your dreams is a distilling process of life. It is not a thing of the past. It does not belong to witchcraft or evil powers. It is simply a deeper practice of awareness and knowing oneself.
Why am I telling you this? I am telling you this because I want to tell you the story of a dream I had Easter night that is even now teaching me how to integrate myself. I want to share this with you because we all have dreams as common as the air we breathe. I am not anyone special, psychic or someone who can tell the future. Dreams are common and each of us are capable of noticing life lessons especially after a good night’s sleep. Sleep is when the mind, body and soul naturally process our day to day knowledge.
Come with me as I share something I am learning. To share something or in your case to witness offers another kind of learning. I want to manifest a truth that is not me but has touched me deeply and given freedom to my soul. Would you walk with me as I unveil this truth? Would you witness as I hold this reality for a moment in the story of my dream?
My Easter Dream:
First I found myself in therapy laying out my story to my therapist when she suddenly needed to go home to help her husband. She told me I could come with her and we could finish our session in the process. When we pulled up to her house she did not have a driveway but a large parking lot where many cars and people were gathering and bustling about in preparation for an event. We parked simultaneously and went into the house. There was tension in the atmosphere. We went upstairs and found her 2 kids who were upset about something. She told us all to come downstairs and we would watch the train show. In her living room was the coolest setup for watching a show. There was a huge screen and in front of it was a replica of a track and "train characters." As the show played on the screen the figures in front also moved and enacted the story emphasizing elements of the story. I was so impressed and told her how enlivening this experience was. We went to another room as the children's calm returned. I anxiously began our conversation again repeating to her the names of the herbs she offered me as a remedy for my cortisol levels when her husband came in distressed about something. My therapist introduced me to her husband who eyed me suspiciously. He looked nothing as I had imagined and behaved worse. I politely thanked them for the introduction and left the house returning to the parking lot.
In the parking lot several people tried to pull me into their tasks. They offered me a ride home in return for my help. I was tempted to help and have the ease of someone else navigating me home. I felt tired, lost and knew it would be hard work to find my way. Yet I was determined and declined their offers knowing this was the moment of my painful resilience. I finally reached my car, got in and put home in my GPS. I began driving. On my way there was construction everywhere, always leading me more and more East. My GPS became useless. I had to ask locals for help to find a route that could turn me on a road leading west and homeward. What was more, someone was following me. It was a man and he looked like he was waiting for me to get really lost and stuck. He terrified me. At one point when there was no one else I asked him which road to take. He told me if I would have sex with him he would give me a ride home. I resisted, got back in my car and kept driving into more and more dead ends.
Then in a weird shift I was in a large beautiful house, still not home but on foot still looking to get home. There were beautiful tables and people walked around me greeting me in a knowing way. There was something familiar about the place. Off to the far right side was a large ornate confessional. I saw a couple go in the east door of the confessional. They were behaving provocatively, passionately and profanely used the location for some revelry. On the west side of the confessional the door opened and the man who was following me when I got lost invited me in. In deep shame I went into this side of the confessional and embraced him. He took all my hair off my head, stripped me of every covering, then left me.
Last I was in a rocky place covered in a soft black blanket. My therapist came up to me and called my name. I didn't say anything in response. I took the blanket off and revealed my extreme humiliation. I saw myself in her eyes. I was bald and naked, nothing but flesh and bones so extremely myself and uncomfortable.
“The third part of the Good Friday ceremony consists of the unveiling and adoration of the cross. This ceremony was originally connected with the relic of the true Cross, and had its origin in Jerusalem. A veiled crucifix is gradually exposed to view, and three times at the words Venite adoremus the faithful kneel in adoration of the Cross.”
Here I’ve woven for you my dream as words and images blending in and out of Good Friday’s adoration of the cross. This is place where the extreme nakedness and misery of my dream fit perfectly. I find rest here from all the contorted paths I’ve traveled turning away from my emptiness and misery. I want to be witnessed as I am and in this humble adoration of the Cross which frees my soul.
Easter Monday morning I couldn’t forget the uncomfortable feelings and images of my dream. I turned them over as I did the morning’s routine.
I remembered Raskolnikov when he went to the village square and knelt in the middle and confessed his crime like Sonya told him to do. I remembered Dmitri Karamotzov when he said, "I'm guilty before all and for all." And last I remembered something a good friend once told me. She said, "The first act to becoming a saint is to offer your misery to God.
If I could embody these stories in my everyday, what would that look like? What would it feel like? Who would I become?
I am learning to live the opportunities of my vision with a fluid dance-like motion of weaving and waiting as Christ unveils me in Him showing His Beatific Vision absorbed in me and I in Him.
I am discovering the Apocalypse is every day. Apocalypse simply means revelation or unveiling. It is at our fingertips.
