This post is the first of two free-content offering from Chapter 2 of Unfolding: Awakening. In this, the first subchapter, Drew tells of his dream journal, building dreamscapes, and dreaming with others. A second free-content post continues these themes in shared dreams and will be published Friday.
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First Dream Contact
(Drew’s Voice)
– SINGAPORE, Parkroyal Hotel, March, Sunday –
I lay down on my bed about noon, for what I hoped was only an hour’s sleep. I had planned to stay up the entire day but jet lag was demanding I close my eyes. Maybe I could turn it into a light meditation and have a dream or two to add to my journal.
I keep a dream journal and carry it when I travel. It is interesting to review the dreams I am able to remember upon waking. I have been writing them out for years now.
Over time my sets, or dreamscapes as I like to refer to them, have stabilized into three standard structures. The one I actively cultivate has a large room hewn from the living rock of a mountain. The hall is bathed in the ample natural glow from an ever–present full moon beyond the bay window. A field of stars glitters in the night sky. There is a dais two steps above the main floor with large cushions strewn about. From the dais, one can see the night sky reflected in a river–fed lake below. Two comfortable chairs on the main floor face the dais. I begin most of my lucid dreaming here; it is a place of comfort for me.
Sometimes people show up in the room or on a terraced patio above. I am sure almost all visitors, except Candice, are simply my own projections. At special times, though, another person will join me.
I thought of the hall as I dropped off to sleep, beginning a series of short dreams that took place there. In the fourth dream, I found I was working on a wooden–cutout puzzle. It was difficult lining everything up, there seemed to be white–cottony gauze between the pieces and me. After what seemed like hours, I nudged one piece and the rest fell into place. As soon as they did, I discovered the puzzle pieces were silhouettes of people.
While I sat pondering, I noticed one of the portraits showed a man and a woman in overlapping profiles, neither of whom I recognized. Pondering the dual image, I became aware of someone else in the room. Turning to face my visitor, I found a silent Tyler staring at me.
“Normally people don’t stop by here. Do you know what brings you?” I asked.
“No,” he quietly replied. “Where are we?”
“You are visiting a place where I work at night,” I answered. “I suspect you have taken a redeye flight back east and dropped off to sleep. It’s very rare for someone to gain access. I suggest you try to remember what we talk about and record it as soon as you wake up.”
As he cast his eyes around, I told him, “Try to move your hand and point to something. Let’s see if you can do that much in this place.”
His arm rose slowly and moved in the direction of his gaze. He asked, “Why is this room so big? What do you do with it?”
“It’s for future use,” I said. “Let’s go to a more casual area.” I took his arm and led him to a spiral staircase on the left of the dais, near the front of the room where, side by side, we ascended.
The staircase leads to a small bar and serving area styled after a real restaurant I had visited in Spain while attending a Grand Prix event. The empty bar has room for a dozen closely packed patrons. The double doors in the outer wall contain a set of large sidelights and open onto the patio.
Taylor asked, “Where is the alcohol? You can’t have a bar like this without drinks.”
I guided him through the doors saying, “There is not much need for food and drink tonight. If it’s ever required for one of our meetings, it will show up.” Gesturing to one of the two tables on the patio, I said, “Please have a seat.”
Laying the puzzle on the other table, I noticed one of the profiles in the dual silhouette was his. Turning, I joined Tyler taking the chair across from him.
“I enjoy sitting at this table, seeing and feeling the light of the moon touch my body while taking in the unlimited night sky.” After a few moments of celebratory pleasure, I looked directly at him. “When I called Andrea, I heard you decided you didn’t need me anymore. Have you changed your mind?”
“No,” he said. “Why are you in my dream?”
“I am not in your dream,” I laughed, “you are literally in mine.”
“Drew, you’re not making sense again. That’s what I hate about you. You always know something I don’t, or are saying something utterly fantastic is real and, when you explain it, it sounds more absurd than before you began.”
“Tyler, you continue to attempt to fit the facts around the perceptions you were taught. By this time, you should have figured out that you need to expand your perceptions to fit the facts.
“I have freely offered you knowledge that other people have been willing to work for decades, living austere lives to earn the right to hear — and you reject it outright!
“If you don’t want my help and don’t know why we are sharing a dream, you ought to consider your emotional attachments to me.”
“What emotional attachments?” he demanded. “I can’t stand you! You said you could read my girl’s mind, claim to have been with her in the past and the future, meddle in her life with your ‘help.’ You’re a nut job!”
“And you are the one in crisis at the moment. Here, within the awareness this moon affords, what can you tell me about our lives together?”
He grew quiet studying the moon, “I saw a vision of you and me when I was in the park today. We were in an earlier time. The vision was more real than my dreams. I could smell, taste, and touch, just like here in real life.”
I could not help chuckling inside at this remark, but said nothing.
“Drew, we were married. I was your wife and convinced I was the happiest woman in our valley. We had plans for our farm, a dozen children, but all that was cut short. You were killed when the Civil War came through. I was ruined, powerless. Nothing mattered after that. I was dead, too, before the war ended.”
And so, I surmised, this time you are in control of things. You had to be male, became a cop, and found a woman who suffered emotionally almost as much as you did, so you could protect her the way I couldn’t protect you.
I would have to ruminate on this, to see if we might match up details from that life, which he had not yet revealed.
“I was not aware of any of this until you asked your question, but yes,” Tyler replied to my unspoken words. “Yes, and I can’t stand it now that I know! I never stopped loving you. I am not queer! It’s driving me crazy.”
He reached across the table and touched my hand just as I had once seen him touch Andrea’s, but this time he recoiled with a growing look of revulsion crossing his face as he realized what he had done. It was new, terrifying territory for him, running contrary to his core beliefs.
There are stories floating around saying most of us enter each life with amnesia just for this reason. The few who remember, usually crowd out those memories in childhood. If we knew all the hurtful things that happened to us or all the evil we did; we would never be able to experience the moments of joy that make each trip on the wheel of life uniquely worthwhile and extraordinary.
“We’ll get through it, Tyler. The fact that you are here, were able to make this discovery, and tell me about it, shows we’ll be able to come to a resolution.”
“You’re not angry that I feel this way?”
“No.” I said. “There is nothing to be angry about. Not here, at any rate. You are understandably overwhelmed on multiple levels and have to deal with emotions you were taught to suppress. I am always happy to meet someone I had compassion for in another life.
“Hold your hand up, palm out, facing me.”
As he did this, I raised my hand meeting his in the middle of the table. Pressing against his palm I said, “You are a good man, Tyler Alexander. In this place, I exude power and confidence. In the physical world, I suffer from the same pressures as you, regretting stupid actions and harsh words, wondering if I am doing enough to make a difference, and so on. Know that, for the most part, it’s all made up. We don’t have to live that way. Allow the emotions that you are feeling to flow up your arm through your hand and into mine.”
I could see the crimson–orange light from his chest moving to his arm and through his hand. I felt the warmth as it passed into mine. Tyler made a gasping noise. I drew the light into my chest, swirled it around to mix with the inner light I carry, and sent it back to him. We sat like that for what seemed to be three or four minutes, not saying one word.
When it was time to withdraw, I pulled away and asked, “Are you feeling well enough to continue?” He calmly nodded.
“Your plane is about to land,” I said. “If you remember nothing else, remember, from this time forward — fantasy is your true enemy.”
I leaned over placing the third finger of my left hand to his forehead. His plane touched down at the same instant. I watched his body jerk and his eyes blink once as he vanished from my dream.
I stretched, rolled to a sitting position on the side of the bed, walked over to the desk, and opened my journal.
It took nearly 45 minutes to write down everything that happened with Tyler. Between the jet lag, the dream, and the effort of recalling the events within the dream, I was spent. I returned to bed where I quickly fell asleep and picked up the dream I had left.
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The novel is available for the Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006UOF03W and for the Nook at
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unfolding-jeffrey-limpert/1108321592
– Jeffrey A. Limpert
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By Robert S. Donovan
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Amazon – Unfolding: Awakening