by Charlotte Crouch
The theme of what is entwined has occurred so many times in my dreams that it now demands my attention. However, the dreams requests that I view the world from a perspective which I haven't the current intelligence to achieve. And, yet the many different dreams on the same theme repeat themselves, until I am annoyed.
In the dream, I saw the same wilderness where I was camped. I prefer to enjoy the mountains alone and on this particular weekend, I was drawn to San Gorgonio where I camped High Creek. It was an enthusiastic winter with tall snow drifts and I think this discouraged others. Whatever the reason, I didn't have to share the popular campsite with anyone at all.
There in the brilliant silence, I lay down in my tent, but left the door open and lay my pillow and head out where I could see the stars. It was cold with the wind on my face but I didn't remember seeing so many stars in one sky and I couldn't turn in until I seen each one of them. So, I fell asleep half in and half out of my tent. And the dream picked up where reality had left off, showing me a vibrant orange sky which could have been dusk or dawn. The images in the dream were so stark and clear, I could make out the patterns of the bark on the leafless trees. Then the picture began to loose its focus, as if I had been looking through my camera and had moved the lens. Then the colors shifted as if the image had been only an impressionistic charcoal and someone carelessly rubbed against the art.
Crouch 2
Together, there were still great blots of color laid beside each other, the blue overhead, the green where the evergreens used to be, the gray of the rock -- each color like a great collection point for that pigment. There were dark greens, almost black where the stream gone through a collection of undergrowth and shade.
As the kaleidoscope dream continued, the sun, trees, stream and other image colors blended so completely that all the colors became on soft pink peach with a round golden glow, which I assumed was still the sun in the center. The soft yellows pastel of that glow took over the scene, making everything the same color.
Then, either a voice said or an idea formed in my head -- "Everything is interrelated."
Then, amidst the gold glow, two peach-colored lines, looking the same width started before me on either side of me and went forward, until somewhere on the horizon, they met. I thought it might be like railroad tracks, that it was only an illusion that they became one line, but in my mind, I knew as if this were the only truth in the universe, that these two lines were joined and became one.
Then I woke and was greeted by a crowded night sky. I lay there in the light of the moon and wondered what the dream meant. It seemed so powerful, as if I had woken from a Freddy Kruger dream and yet, I couldn't find a purpose to the imagery.
I thought it had something to do with nature, since I had come to the mountains to escape the monotony of the carbon-copy cave I where I work. The mountain snow mountain felt comfortable compared to the steal city and the chaos of metropolitan living. My escape from faxes, phones and pointless, long-winded business meetings had just become equally confusing. But, I had a sense that unwinding this mystery was more important that getting the Smith case done by the boss's deadline.
Crouch 3
Then the thought occurred to me that the two lines were, on one side what is -- simply the way things are and subsequently are meant to be and on the other side, what my understanding represents.
Because this interrelated concept is so abstract, so far from my standard pattern of thinking, it is difficult for me to follow a rational train of thought to the conclusion. I have tried to learn this concept so many times, in so many life events - through so many dreams, but the concept evades me. I think it is the absence of definition that the dream is pushing against me. That the "hydraulic cycle" of rain, run-off and evaporation is not an independent system, but, rather a part of the whole. Too often people (including myself) dissect systems, cycles and events to gain a better understanding of the world. However, to gain the ultimate understanding, I must reassemble the parts -- change my perspective to understand the interrelationship between these events. That isn't something they taught me in school.
I suspect my obsession with logic, science and distinct parameters is the cause of my difficulty with this one dream lesson. This one idea had been repeated in so many dreams over the last two years and I begin to wonder if my imagery tutor has considered giving up on the student. This series of dreams can't simply be brushed aside as an odd sequence of imagination. There is substance, with a sense of doom in the value of this dream, both when I am waking or sleeping, but I can't quite capture the meaning.
From my earliest memories, there has been a woman's voice in my dreams, speaking, explaining, instructing. Usually waiting for the darkness, the point when the dream fades and there are no more images on the screen. Then, she makes a comment, defining, helping me understand the images. I always thought the dream-voice was my own, speaking back to me of things I knew and then forgot. Or maybe the dream-voice was me with access to universal knowledge and teaching it back to myself.
Crouch 4
Recently, however, I've had a pervading feeling that my teacher has other students beside myself. Certainly, she may seem familiar to me, because she's been with me since my early childhood years, but she is not so familiar that she must be a part of myself. Maybe she is a spirit or an angel. Still, who she is remains less relevant than her words.
When she says, "Everything is interrelated" and then the two peach lines become one, is it possible she is talking about relationships between men and women? That the difference between genders is really not as drastic as the multi-media presentations of curvatures and pouty-lipped actresses would have us believe? Is it one woman and one man who will become "as one" as in the bible or is it all of mankind and all of womankind who will finally recognize that we are all one? Is it nature and man or nationalities divided that will come together?
It might very well be that it was just as bad dream caused by the as-yet-unrealized anxiety of one woman sleeping alone in the woods a days hike away from the car, a phone or any police protection. And, I would dismiss it, but the dream persists. |
|
