Sweet Dreams

by Dubby Riley

Ah, the sumptuous delight and cozy happiness under thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, kissed by the whisper of a ceiling fan, during a perfect night's slumber in the first days of summer!

Dreams!

Not always sweet. Sometimes they'll shake you to an erect panic or accompany soaking wet symptoms along with various forms of anxiety. But from where or for what reason do these nightly escapades emanate? Are they simply cartoons and little movies our minds assemble from an erratic mix of data? Or are they messages from the deep? Perhaps a way for our brains to file and process stored information?

My oldest brother is a neurologist and for a time he ran one of the most prominent sleep labs in New England. His theories about dreams are vastly different than mine. But one thing we do agree on is that the human brain is so complex and capable, that it is beyond our ability (at this time of our science) to understand it fully.

But this essay won't be a scientific analysis of dreams but rather a mystical approach to the subject matter. I'd say we will discuss it philosophically, although we'll soon be trapped again by the rationality of science and theorem, so I'll stay loose and free by calling these views mystical or "alternative."

First let me tell you about several recurring dreams which have always been part of my repetoire. I love to prove to people I can fly in my dreams. Often I'll be saying, "See, I told you I can fly!" Sometimes I have trouble landing. Sometimes at first I have a little trouble taking off. But always it is me flying, often in a large enclosed space and almost always to show people that it can be done!

Also another recurring dream I have is between certain commercial air flights and fear that baggage doesn't make it on board. I've been on this certain flight over and over, which goes to an exotic place and when I get on board, the plane is huge and the rooms are like big theaters.

Other common dreams are some which I've heard others have often experienced. Not being able to find my locker at school. Finding myself naked or having to get between places in public after I've lost my pants. There have been periods of profuse sweating. During the last few years, in conjunction with some psychic exercise and meditation, I've experienced the sweating to move along chakra points and have been able to wake to take note exactly which part of my body is sweating. This is not always an unpleasant experience and has often seemed almost euphoric. Very profound dreaming accompanies this phenomena and the dreams themselves are extremely enjoyable, but usually I don't remember the content as much as the feeling of euphoria.

Now a little about the mystical approach. Since these little blinking letters spring from the tips of my fingers, and because this is the internet and we all know that at least half of what appears here is utter non-sense, I can pretty much say what I want. We officially have a whole 16 readers now. We suspect that others come and go and that at one time as many as twenty or more people may actually visit! Not a best seller but quite a few folks to be standing in an elevator!

So curious reader, my theory is that dreams are here to help us navigate the SPIRIT world. Something along the lines of "elders" or "angels" or as Carl Jung called it a "collective unconscious," has a voice and wants to communicate with us. I think at the time we're in, in which the world is facing serious consequences because of a severe strain on its ecosystem framework caused by toxic human behavior, there is a chance that more messages than ever before are flooding in.

To put it simply, I've often light heartedly proclaimed, "I've heard the Voice of God. And it is saying--HELP ME." Or another way to say it is that as part of the planet, in the same way that quarks and electrons and neutrons are part of an atom or an element, we as humans are not disconnected from the living organism called Earth. Since we are connected to it, it communicates to and through us on a full time basis. Some people think they know what their cats are thinking. Some people are quite certain that plants communicate with them. I think the only thing that separates us from the planet is a misunderstanding. How can we possibly not be connected to it?

So the only question remains is, do we have a conscious or consciousness connection to it and everything else related and connected to it? In what part of our brain does the human self exist?

Go dream about it and get back with me. Don't let the bed bugs bite!