Monday, December 12, 2005
It's Gonna Be A Bright (briiight) Bright Sunshiney Night
Took a nap today and had an interesting dream sequence. I went to visit my sister at college, who had tons of work to do and didn't have much time to hang out. At one point, it was nighttime and i went outside and all of these stars started to appear in the sky, and then all these colors showed up and these geometric patterns and stardust-contoured figures and massive shapes began to burst and shower the night sky...i think there were alien space ships whooshing around too.
now, dreams involving the sky are traditionally terrifying for me. when i was young, around 5 or 6, i had a recurring dream that i was sitting on the back seat of my parents' Oldsmobile station wagon, parked in our garage. the hatchback door of the car was open, as was the garage door, so i was just sitting on the bumper basically, looking out at my driveway and lawn and dead-end street, and up at the night (more like twilight, actually) sky. then all these colored stars would start to appear, along with this incredibly crushing sensation of dread, and this presence would fill the sky and start to speak to me. i don't remember what it said, or if it actually said anything. all i remember is waking up, terrified. i always thought of this as The Dogstar Dream. (i don't know why. the constellations of Orion's hunting dogs, Sirius and Betelgeuse, are sometimes each referred to as "the Dogstar", especially Sirius. but i don't see how i could have known that at 5 years old, nor how it would have tied in to the dream itself. then again, i can't be totally sure that i didn't come up with the name "Dogstar Dream" at a later date. but it's definitely been since i was at least 10 or so.)
more recently, every year or so i'll have a dream in which this same dread fills my experience, usually it's accompanied by the arrival of some terribly powerful, malevolent (or at least frightening), and omnipresent presence. often the presence is unseen, but there have been several times when the presence is either an alien craft coming down from the sky, or an actual alien appearing in front of me(*). the latter instance only happened once, to my recollection, and just before it appeared i saw the sky from my parents' kitchen and it turned red and orange and i felt the presence's arrival. then the basement door flew open and the alien was standing on the steps, beckoning to me. only once can i remember a "dread dream" occuring in a situation where the sky wasn't involved, and in that case i was in a dance/yoga studio and when the arrival occurred, all the ceiling lights went out and i was left in blackness. so again, in a sense we might see it connected as ceiling = sky.
the alien dream i just mentioned ties in with my just-took-a-nap dream in two additional ways.
1: the alien itself looked like a typical Grey (from South Park to Communion, this is probably the most popular anatomical model for reported alien sightings).
2: it was standing on the stairs leading down into the basement.
in today's dream, my sister's entire college environment was accessible only by an elevator which went a few stories underground. so coming and going, i'd trudge through the snow over to the end of the "scenery", get in this industrial-looking dull steel elevator, and head up to surface level or back down to her college level (where there was an entire indoor/outdoor world which unfolded as soon as i stepped out of the lift chamber).
now, underground worlds and basements are fairly obvious, as far as symbolism goes. also interesting, though, was that one time when i was heading up to ground level, i remember holding the door for this one guy who had a bunch of packing boxes with him. i think his name was Michael, but i'm not too clear on that. it looked like he was moving out of the college world. and then, as i was about to let the door close, two Greys came from around the corner, both pushing small trolleys with boxes on them, as well. i held the door for the first but didn't see the second...it was sort of funny, the doors were closing but he just walked right through them and into the elevator anyway. didn't know they could do that -- although while image-hunting a moment ago, i found that ability listed on one of the numerous "Grey science" websites as common for their kind. anyway, what was of pretty major importance here was a) that the aliens looked like they were moving out of the sub-basement, and b) i didn't feel at all afraid or terrified when i saw them. in fact, the entire scene with the lights in the sky, which happened prior to the elevator incident, felt joyous and thrilling for me. maybe just for a moment i had a twinge of anxiety when i saw it all start to happen, but that was quickly erased by the delight i felt at the beautiful spectacle. (i should note that this heavenly display was much more bright and animated than any of my old childhood sky-star dreams. in those, the stars simply turned all rainbow colors and then the fear would kick in.)
so? the aliens have apparently moved out of my basement, where my skies are now vivid and encouraging. why now? i have no idea. this was a relaxing weekend, nothing special. i lost my cell phone. i hosted a spoon-bending party where nothing happened. i ate a lot more junk food than i normally do. i didn't go to the gym. this morning i didn't get a lot of sleep, as i was up late with my roommates last night, and i went to work, same as always. i have had pleasant-but-not-particularly-earth-shattering meditations recently. who knows? at any rate, it was a strong and meaningful dream which gives me confidence that even the aspects of my person i'm not consciously aware of are changing for the better.
* i'm not saying there are actually aliens whizzing around us, or in our dreams, nor am i saying that they look like Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to think they do. in fact, i'm sort of meh on the alien issue. to be honest, i don't really care enough to put too much effort into worrying about it. are there other life forms in the universe? probably. are they coming to me in my dreams to move cardboard boxes out of my basement, or, alternately, to scare me shitless? seems a bit more suspect. (but i'm not one to rule things out, out of hand.) the fact that they look like the most popular alien depictions of our time lends equally unverifiable support to the ideas that a) i'm seeing them like that along with everyone else because THAT'S WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE AND THEY'RE HERE TO TAKE US ALL AWAY!!! or b) that's the most common image that my brain has stored for "Alien", and for whatever reason at this point in my dreams i need to call up "image_of_Alien.jpg" from the archives. following b), i'm more than willing to accept the idea that, whatever the cause of the overwhelming dread in my dreams may be, it's not actually an extraterrestrial intelligent entity. my awareness instinctively is trying to put a face to a name, so to speak, and it's seizing upon one of the most obvious visual emblems for "The Unknown or Un-nameable" which i have stored in my memory. so, whether energy demon or repressed memory or undigested dinner, it's not an alien at all but for lack of an acceptable visual representation, that's what shows up. as the correct answer to this issue doesn't really change my interpretation of the dreams i've had, it gets remanded to an asterisk.
back
When Did You Actually Read This?
sparked by my mild puzzlement over the fact that i had such a positive and meaningful dream on a day during a time when i haven't noticed any major breakthroughs correlated in my conscious awareness, i've been thinking (again) about how limited our ability is to maintain an accurate chronology for our lives. we're essentially relying on our memory, our sense of time, and our 5 phsyical senses to correctly structure our recollection of days, months, years, and what happened when...but better-studied folks than myself have written volumes on just how fickle and unreliable these three aspects of our consciousness can be. when you throw in remembering dreams, of all things, things get questionable real fast. i mean, how do i know that i haven't been having this dream, every time i fall asleep, for the past 2 years, and this was simply the first time i remembered it? or maybe i've already remembered it, and forgotten it? how then could i possibly trace the import of this dream to the actual event (assuming there was one) that triggered it?
memory and sense are such arbitrary things to put our faith in. that is all.
Took a nap today and had an interesting dream sequence. I went to visit my sister at college, who had tons of work to do and didn't have much time to hang out. At one point, it was nighttime and i went outside and all of these stars started to appear in the sky, and then all these colors showed up and these geometric patterns and stardust-contoured figures and massive shapes began to burst and shower the night sky...i think there were alien space ships whooshing around too.
now, dreams involving the sky are traditionally terrifying for me. when i was young, around 5 or 6, i had a recurring dream that i was sitting on the back seat of my parents' Oldsmobile station wagon, parked in our garage. the hatchback door of the car was open, as was the garage door, so i was just sitting on the bumper basically, looking out at my driveway and lawn and dead-end street, and up at the night (more like twilight, actually) sky. then all these colored stars would start to appear, along with this incredibly crushing sensation of dread, and this presence would fill the sky and start to speak to me. i don't remember what it said, or if it actually said anything. all i remember is waking up, terrified. i always thought of this as The Dogstar Dream. (i don't know why. the constellations of Orion's hunting dogs, Sirius and Betelgeuse, are sometimes each referred to as "the Dogstar", especially Sirius. but i don't see how i could have known that at 5 years old, nor how it would have tied in to the dream itself. then again, i can't be totally sure that i didn't come up with the name "Dogstar Dream" at a later date. but it's definitely been since i was at least 10 or so.)
more recently, every year or so i'll have a dream in which this same dread fills my experience, usually it's accompanied by the arrival of some terribly powerful, malevolent (or at least frightening), and omnipresent presence. often the presence is unseen, but there have been several times when the presence is either an alien craft coming down from the sky, or an actual alien appearing in front of me(*). the latter instance only happened once, to my recollection, and just before it appeared i saw the sky from my parents' kitchen and it turned red and orange and i felt the presence's arrival. then the basement door flew open and the alien was standing on the steps, beckoning to me. only once can i remember a "dread dream" occuring in a situation where the sky wasn't involved, and in that case i was in a dance/yoga studio and when the arrival occurred, all the ceiling lights went out and i was left in blackness. so again, in a sense we might see it connected as ceiling = sky.
the alien dream i just mentioned ties in with my just-took-a-nap dream in two additional ways.
1: the alien itself looked like a typical Grey (from South Park to Communion, this is probably the most popular anatomical model for reported alien sightings).
2: it was standing on the stairs leading down into the basement.
in today's dream, my sister's entire college environment was accessible only by an elevator which went a few stories underground. so coming and going, i'd trudge through the snow over to the end of the "scenery", get in this industrial-looking dull steel elevator, and head up to surface level or back down to her college level (where there was an entire indoor/outdoor world which unfolded as soon as i stepped out of the lift chamber).
now, underground worlds and basements are fairly obvious, as far as symbolism goes. also interesting, though, was that one time when i was heading up to ground level, i remember holding the door for this one guy who had a bunch of packing boxes with him. i think his name was Michael, but i'm not too clear on that. it looked like he was moving out of the college world. and then, as i was about to let the door close, two Greys came from around the corner, both pushing small trolleys with boxes on them, as well. i held the door for the first but didn't see the second...it was sort of funny, the doors were closing but he just walked right through them and into the elevator anyway. didn't know they could do that -- although while image-hunting a moment ago, i found that ability listed on one of the numerous "Grey science" websites as common for their kind. anyway, what was of pretty major importance here was a) that the aliens looked like they were moving out of the sub-basement, and b) i didn't feel at all afraid or terrified when i saw them. in fact, the entire scene with the lights in the sky, which happened prior to the elevator incident, felt joyous and thrilling for me. maybe just for a moment i had a twinge of anxiety when i saw it all start to happen, but that was quickly erased by the delight i felt at the beautiful spectacle. (i should note that this heavenly display was much more bright and animated than any of my old childhood sky-star dreams. in those, the stars simply turned all rainbow colors and then the fear would kick in.)
so? the aliens have apparently moved out of my basement, where my skies are now vivid and encouraging. why now? i have no idea. this was a relaxing weekend, nothing special. i lost my cell phone. i hosted a spoon-bending party where nothing happened. i ate a lot more junk food than i normally do. i didn't go to the gym. this morning i didn't get a lot of sleep, as i was up late with my roommates last night, and i went to work, same as always. i have had pleasant-but-not-particularly-earth-shattering meditations recently. who knows? at any rate, it was a strong and meaningful dream which gives me confidence that even the aspects of my person i'm not consciously aware of are changing for the better.
* i'm not saying there are actually aliens whizzing around us, or in our dreams, nor am i saying that they look like Trey Parker and Matt Stone seem to think they do. in fact, i'm sort of meh on the alien issue. to be honest, i don't really care enough to put too much effort into worrying about it. are there other life forms in the universe? probably. are they coming to me in my dreams to move cardboard boxes out of my basement, or, alternately, to scare me shitless? seems a bit more suspect. (but i'm not one to rule things out, out of hand.) the fact that they look like the most popular alien depictions of our time lends equally unverifiable support to the ideas that a) i'm seeing them like that along with everyone else because THAT'S WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE AND THEY'RE HERE TO TAKE US ALL AWAY!!! or b) that's the most common image that my brain has stored for "Alien", and for whatever reason at this point in my dreams i need to call up "image_of_Alien.jpg" from the archives. following b), i'm more than willing to accept the idea that, whatever the cause of the overwhelming dread in my dreams may be, it's not actually an extraterrestrial intelligent entity. my awareness instinctively is trying to put a face to a name, so to speak, and it's seizing upon one of the most obvious visual emblems for "The Unknown or Un-nameable" which i have stored in my memory. so, whether energy demon or repressed memory or undigested dinner, it's not an alien at all but for lack of an acceptable visual representation, that's what shows up. as the correct answer to this issue doesn't really change my interpretation of the dreams i've had, it gets remanded to an asterisk.
back
When Did You Actually Read This?
sparked by my mild puzzlement over the fact that i had such a positive and meaningful dream on a day during a time when i haven't noticed any major breakthroughs correlated in my conscious awareness, i've been thinking (again) about how limited our ability is to maintain an accurate chronology for our lives. we're essentially relying on our memory, our sense of time, and our 5 phsyical senses to correctly structure our recollection of days, months, years, and what happened when...but better-studied folks than myself have written volumes on just how fickle and unreliable these three aspects of our consciousness can be. when you throw in remembering dreams, of all things, things get questionable real fast. i mean, how do i know that i haven't been having this dream, every time i fall asleep, for the past 2 years, and this was simply the first time i remembered it? or maybe i've already remembered it, and forgotten it? how then could i possibly trace the import of this dream to the actual event (assuming there was one) that triggered it?
memory and sense are such arbitrary things to put our faith in. that is all.
