Dreams

Also many years ago, I dreamed that I will meet and become the old man again on the snowy peaks of deep time, at the end of my trail. My dreams keep me going when nothing else is able to.

Dream memory is an interesting phenomenon. I can remember approximately when a dream occurred by the general circumstances of my life at the time, but not with precision. The conscious mind resists recording dreams because their logic and sense of time defy quantification; it only records the most impressive and quantifiable dreams. The subconscious mind has its own memory, though, as I experience every time an event in my actual life triggers the memory of a dream I had forgotten.

It's true that one can learn to summon the conscious mind from the subconscious simply by frequently thinking about the idea of being awake in one's dreams. When I want it to happen, I remind myself before going to sleep to notice the discrepancies in space and time that signal the dream state. I do that every day until it happens. If you're interested in trying it, it works better during naps when one is genuinely tired. It's difficult to do in deep sleep. Also, keep in mind that you might experience what is known as sleep paralysis: instead of being in a dream, one's mind is where the body is, yet unable to rouse it. That can be scary, but it can also be a starting point for experimentation in what is also known as an "out of body" experience. For starters, try to separate yourself from your body and notice how you're attached to it like a magnet.

When I was studying at the Slade School of Art in London during the late 80s, I became conversant with the subconscious mind over a period of about a year. Often high on hashish and tired from walking everywhere, it was easy. I started by exploring the environment of each dream, always involving doors to go through and steps to other levels. Naturally, it seems, I was more disposed to exploring foundations, so I found myself eventually in tunnels and caves. One dream in a tunnel, presumably at the center of my being, I found a cave inhabited by an enormous being with the head of lion and the body of a snake. Its head was big enough to swallow me in one gulp. As frightening as it was physically, the most frightening thing about it was its mind, which had mine trapped magnetically in its orbit. In mortal fear at first, I learned that he didn't mean to harm me and is actually my benefactor. I found out years later, on the Internet, that he's well-known to humankind.

Chnoubis, the Demiurge

In the last dream that I remember about the tunnels, I followed a passage that led outside, to a meadow at the base of a towering cliff. As I watched, the rocks split and crumbled and gave way to a deluge of water that swept me up and delivered me on a wave to the ocean.

After the tunnel dreams, I began to experience sleep paralysis and did my best to explore the state, but it's very difficult to get any distance from one's body without falling back into a dream. My intention was to make it outside from my first floor flat to get a "view" of the ever changing details that I could verify a moment later after waking myself. With much effort, I eventually made it past my door and down the tall hallway to the front door of the house, where the strangest thing happened. The light coming though the frosted glass on the front door sent me into what appeared to be a dream, but in a similar space. There was an unexpected doorway to my left, leading to a room where an older woman sat still on a chair. I approached her and asked her where I was but she didn't answer or even look at me. I felt frustrated, and knowing that I was dreaming, I decided to shake her gently to get her attention. As I shook her, a piercing scream woke me from the dream. I ran outside to the hallway where the scream had come from and saw that my landlord had fallen off of a small table he had been standing on to hang a picture. He had broken his leg and was in much pain. As his wife ran down the stairs to help him, there was a knock on the front door and she asked me to see who it was. I opened the door to find an older woman who told me that she had lived in the house as a child, and she wanted to come in and see it.

Then life changed, as it does, and I developed new habits that changed my focus on lucid dreaming. Now, based on what I have learned from 56 years of life, I understand the meanings of my most impressive dreams, and I marvel at the mind's ability to perceive and create meaning in seemingly magical ways.