Okay, I preached a sermon encouraging people to attend to their dreams.
I meant that in a more metaphorical way, bringing attention to one’s fantasies and obsessions, to the range of what one is.
Now, I have long since noticed the actual dreams I have tend to be the engine racing, either reflective of the general anxiety of the human condition, or just noise reflecting the events of the previous day. Noticing it is a rare dream that conveys more information about my interior life, about my life beneath the waves of my sea of being, I’ve long since lost interest in tracking them.
Then, because the mind is such a trickster, last night I had quite the dream.
It started with the anxious. I’m in a hall that’s supposed to be the church I’m preaching at, but no one has showed up. I mean no one. Then I realize I don’t have socks. And I must have socks. So, I go upstairs, an interesting direction, no doubt, pass another hall where everyone is filing in, quite the crowd. I realize I have to get back quickly. Eventually outdoors, and around the block to a department store, which I guess rents space from the church. I have a key. I go in. Looking for socks. Two police men arrive. It’s okay because I’m looking for socks. They leave but someone steals my keys. About this time Jan, my spouse, shows up. We go outdoors. It is no longer a cityscape, but rather we’re looking out at a rather bucolic scene of rolling hills and small villages, when suddenly a giant looms up from behind the hills, looking rather like Terry Gilliam’s cut and paste scenes with a pope looking out at everyone, except here it’s totally realistic. And the giant, clean shaven, with eyes without whites, which I know to be a deity, begins to spit out lightning bolts which destroy many of the houses, villagers running out as the flames advance.
I think: this is a dream. And a kind of stupid dream, at that.
And, I notice I’m trapped in this stupid dream.
I begin to stomp the ground to wake myself up.
And, I do…
Now, when friends recount their dreams, all too often we find we must avert our eyes. It is all rather obvious. And, slightly embarrassing…
And, sometimes, in them an invitation. To the dreamer. To the hearer.
At some point does it really matter if it is your dream or mine?
What happens when we just sit with it?
Of course, interpretation is hard to avoid.
Here we have some anxiety. Human condition.
Lost socks. Play with that one…
But, then, the god spitting lightning bolts.
Perhaps here we can hesitate. Not rush to interpretation too quickly…
And, there’s that knowing its a dream.
Sitting with that.
And, wanting to escape it…
Sitting with that.
The mysteries of life.
Sitting with that.
The mystery…
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