Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Dream demons, or bodhisattvas?
Had a very nice visit from my dad in dream last night. It took place on Westfield Ave. by Elmora Ave. in Elizabeth, part of an odd sequence of dream events that also involved passing through a cemetary where there isn't one. Dad has always been a likeable deceased man, as he was to many people while he was alive. Being his son was a disadvantage in that respect, & death improved upon our relationship. Which leads me to the conclusion that a lot of issues just don't matter after one is dead, assuming one knows one is no longer living. I live in an area of Elizabeth where dad hung out when he was a young man, & not far from where my mom grew up. But dreams about either of them are not common. Dad looked to be in his mid-thirties, which would make it the 1950's, probably the most physically active & happiest period of his first marriage.
At the dream cemetary, I walked through a funeral home kind of place where a group of men wearing white bowling shirts were having some sort of ethnic funeral, although I saw no casket. Unfortunately, I didn't read what was stitched on the shirts. I just eased a couple of them over & went out a door. After encountering a few frighteningly demonic creatures in a dream a year or so ago, I described them to poet Jim Cohn & asked for his thoughts on the creatures. He suggested that they probably weren't as demonic as they appeared & that I attempt to engage them in conversation. This requires lucid dreaming, which doesn't happen too often to me. I have noticed that some inhabitants of my dreams seem to know they are dreams, while others are not aware of where they are, & so are powerless; that is, mesmerized or psychologically paralyzed, engaging in absurd behaviors as participants in absurd situations, like Alice before she realized the Mad Hatter's tea party was a totally screwball event. So occasionally there are lucid creatures even in my non-lucid dreams tricking or manipulating other creatures that are in a dream state, while I am more or less an uninvolved third party observer who neither joins in nor leaves. Perhaps my unconscious knows I am not awake, but doesn't bother telling me I am asleep & dreaming.
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
At the dream cemetary, I walked through a funeral home kind of place where a group of men wearing white bowling shirts were having some sort of ethnic funeral, although I saw no casket. Unfortunately, I didn't read what was stitched on the shirts. I just eased a couple of them over & went out a door. After encountering a few frighteningly demonic creatures in a dream a year or so ago, I described them to poet Jim Cohn & asked for his thoughts on the creatures. He suggested that they probably weren't as demonic as they appeared & that I attempt to engage them in conversation. This requires lucid dreaming, which doesn't happen too often to me. I have noticed that some inhabitants of my dreams seem to know they are dreams, while others are not aware of where they are, & so are powerless; that is, mesmerized or psychologically paralyzed, engaging in absurd behaviors as participants in absurd situations, like Alice before she realized the Mad Hatter's tea party was a totally screwball event. So occasionally there are lucid creatures even in my non-lucid dreams tricking or manipulating other creatures that are in a dream state, while I am more or less an uninvolved third party observer who neither joins in nor leaves. Perhaps my unconscious knows I am not awake, but doesn't bother telling me I am asleep & dreaming.
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