Attack Cat: A Nightmare Dreamgate

Rocking my 60's has been off to a slow start because I've had to deal with unaccustomed bouts of blues. Having grown up with a mom, goddess bless her in every way, who was subject to these late life blues, it's "My Mother/Myself" all over again. Remember Nancy Friday's brilliant book by that title published in 1977?

I've been listening to Pema Chodron's talk, "True Happiness", which does help; she's a wonderful Buddhist teacher. I'm not a Buddhist, though; I'm a dreamer. Sure enough, last night my dreams gave me the key I needed to unlock my missing inner resources. I'm so grateful for the beauty and the wisdom in my dreams. Here's how it happened.

Last night I had a nightmare. I went to bed early, tired out from weekend responsibilities and so happy to snuggle into bed. I woke up around 1:30AM from a dream I titled, ATTACKED.

I’m not ready to share it in its entirety, just that it involved an axe murderer and an attack cat. If you find this funny, so did my husband this morning when I shared the dream, and so do I now. But it wasn’t funny at 1:30AM.

If there’s one thing I've learned over the years, it's that your garden variety (non-PTS) nightmare is your best friend. My first rule is to write down the dream before I start searching around for it’s meaning. I padded off to the bathroom, because, of course, at this time of night I also had to pee. Taking my journal and pen with me, I put on the light and sat down, opened my journal to May and entered the dream with today's date. Doing this was important because, until I began to write the dream as a detailed report of my experience this night, I had forgotten a significant part. I remembered the attack cat, but had forgotten about the axe murderer.

Although in my dream I’d escaped the one and bagged the other one with the help of my entire neighborhood, when I woke up as we were about to drown the cat, I felt unnerved and dismayed. With my beloved cat sleeping next to me, it felt awful that a cat would actually attack me or that I would have to kill one in a dream.

The feeling you wake with is very important. From this two part dream drama, I woke with the icky feelings I mentioned heightened by a slightly agitated state closer to the terror and alarm a Big Nightmare can give you. Remembering the first part of the dream as I wrote it down certainly explained my feelings.

I knew there was only one thing to do. Brave up, as Robert Moss puts it, and face the terror, with an ally, if I need one. Dream Re-entry is one of the brilliant tools of Active Dreaming. Based on shamanic journeying practices from many indigenous and ancient cultures, it’s a practice of going back into the dreamscape of a dream and dreaming it forward.

Returning to bed, even though I knew this was what I had to do, I wasn’t enthused about doing it because it felt like something I didn’t want to know, an illness maybe? But I trust my dreams to give it to me straight, but with hope, so I did brave up and I did go in. Keeping my neighbors with me, I confronted the cat with the classic Senoi dream practice questions: “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”

It never fails to amaze me how my dream re-entries can completely surprise me. When the cat answered I called on more protection; from what the cat said, I knew it wasn’t earthbound protectors I needed. Again, I was amazed at who showed up; their presence helped me feel completely safe. I finished my conversation with the cat, who was the axe murderer, and realized this dream holds the key to my personal puzzle about my blues. Hallelujah!

I've found that the best time to re-enter a dream is right away, with the energy of it still pulsing in my heart and head, (although, I can and do re-enter old dreams regularly with great results). I don’t go back to sleep to do this; I’m wide awake, but relaxed and ready to launch back into the dream scene with the props or protectors I need to feel safe. All it takes is a willing suspension of disbelief, same as when watching a movie. Jump in and daydream it forward, the less you let your judgmental mind interfere, the greater the rewards when you finish. I then record my dream journey on the following page of my journal, indicating it's a re-entry, the sequel, to my dream.

I’m writing this post to honor the power of my dreams and the value of their spiritual, emotional, and physical gifts to me. I'm forever indebted to my friends, guides, teachers and experiences in the dream time because now I know what I have to do to be wholly myself, and also my mother’s daughter.

What I want to share with you most is the certainty that your own dream path has the same healing, helping potential for you that mine has for me. Dreaming is as ancient and universal as we are; it's an intricate part of our existence that we’ve shared from the beginning of time and beyond, as we dream our future, personally and as a world community.

I’m also grateful to Robert Moss for developing and teaching this simple, powerful approach to playing with our dreams.

I photographed to share with you an old leather banner that now hangs, out of sight, in my shed, but many years ago, hung near our back door. I was relieved it wasn’t my cat that attacked me in my dream, but a big scruffy tabby. While telling Jim my dream, I realized the "Attack Cat" looks a lot like our old “Protector Cat." I love the humor and irony of dreams.

Soft Attention

"Soft attention" is the approach I take to remembering my dreams. When I cross back from sleeping to waking, I try to linger in dreaming consciousness as long as possible and replay the dream in my mind as I'm waking. Whether I get an image, a person, an action or a complete dream story, I write it in my journal.

It helps not to be startled awake by an alarm, etc. Soft attention is easiest to practice on those mornings when you don't have to set the alarm and can claim some personal time.

Soft attention is right brained, image oriented. Instead of asking myself the left brain, analytical question, "What did I dream?" I ask myself, "Where was I? Who was I with? What was I doing?" - questions that recapture dream experiences in images with feelings attached.

My advice on dream recall is stay as long as you can in that "in-between" state, between sleeping and waking. Open yourself to the adventures you've just had and write their story in your journal, honestly, unselfconsciously, just for yourself, the dream as you experienced it.

Here's a beautiful love poem I found in my favorite calendar, "We'Moon 2011", (a women produced calendar/journal filled with beautiful art, poetry and prose, all by contemporary women artists); it evokes for me soft attention on waking in an intimate, shared way.

"Forgotten Seeds"

the dark shape of your body in this bed
adds substance to the fast approaching dawn.
while planets tread their courses overhead,
my hands make out the landscape of your form.

there's something pure about this time of day.
dreamspoken, truths pass lips and settle deep.
molded tight, our bodies bend and sway,
following the orbit of our sleep.

fresh from your underwater wanderings,
you wake at once both sleepy and surprised,
and slowly slipping, disentangling
you turn to kiss the valleys of my eyes.

the night uncloaks a pure thing in the mind
dark curtains of forget that have been parted,
and close to morning, in the dark I find
you've been revealed to me as dolphin-hearted.

as long as we can lie here the whole unniverse is ours.
I'm unfolding all my secrets, once encoded in the stars.
it's too early for pretending that there's nothing that we need,
your dreams and mine are mending all of my forgotten seeds.

by Danielle Rainville, quoted here with her permission.

Dream Warnings

Yesterday, while leading a dream workshop for a group, a young woman spoke of how she had dreamed about a tsunami devastation just before Japan was brutalized by one this week. She cried telling it.

It's such a weight on one's shoulders to prevision a great disaster, but we do dream outside of our own concerns and personal psyche. Maybe we all are one soul after all, maybe that's what the collective unconscious is.

Robert Moss writes and teaches that we dream the future all the time; I recommend his book, "Dreaming True", as well as his DVD series, "The Way of the Dreamer". I've posted the youtube clip from the program "Dreaming the Future" before; you can find it on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yrlrxMuH1o

I know I dream the future all the time and hundreds of people have shared their dreams of the future with me. What does it mean to dream something that later manifests in waking? That my dreaming soul took a peek up the road and thought I might be interested in what soul saw? Why? A head's up? Just a report about it?

My experience is that dreams of the future run a huge gamut. I dream of having a ring and see it the next day in waking life and buy it. I dream of a person I later meet or I dream of a disaster that befalls many, many people and breaks my heart to see it happen in waking. The gamut of what to do about it is just as vast. It depends on the dreamer and the dream.

My husband woke up one morning and told me this dream: (I have his permission to use it.) Here's my journal account of it:

When I asked Jim if he remembered a dream this am, he hesitated and said – yeah, but I didn’t like it.

I’m up in a NYC bldg. 89th floor. I get in the elevator, like a freight elevator, (someone’s with me, not you) and there’s a woman elevator operator. The gates close and she presses the button and we begin to drop at an unnerving speed. I tell her to stop the elevator, I want to get off. She pushes buttons, but nothing happens. I tell myself, I don’t want to be here for this, and wake up.

Then Jim goes for the morning paper and brings back the Sunday NY Post with the front page head lines: “DROP DEAD, Elevators on killing spree” The story is about the violations in the city’s elevator inspections and the number of fatal and serious incidents of elevator malfunctions.

There are some things we dream that are peeks at waking life ahead; yet, it has nothing to do with us. This is not news. Governments like ours and Russia's have experimented with this talent in people for many years; they call it Remote Viewing. They've tested people to find those who are good at it so they can be trained to spy, etc. A very hysterical example is the movie; "Men Who Stare at Goats."

But, to dream of pending disaster is tough and many people dream such dreams, all the time. I've mentioned in another post Jung's dream or vision presaging the war in Europe. Dreaming of mass disaster can feel overwhelming and confusing; it can make you feel guilty that this is happening and you did nothing or there was nothing you could do. Dreaming life is like waking life in this way; there are tough moments. In the realm of dreaming seeing ahead occurs regularly; sometimes it's not something we want to see.

So what can we do when we experience such a tough dream? Be gentle with yourself; you can share it with a trusted friend or not, you can write it in your journal or you can just hold it in your heart and offer your prayers. I'm not responsible for mass tragedy, but how can I not ache about it? Aching is part of life. I can help in some way. Donate to the rescue missions; hold the Japanese in my heart and pray daily for relief for them. Many people will do different things to help; I'm not responsible, but I can be responsive.

Here's a prayer posted on her facebook page by the wonderful Dr. Pinkola Estes, author of "Women Who Run With the Wolves." I don't think she'd mind me sharing it with dreamers who have witnessed this event in the dreaming and the waking.

Dear Brave Souls: Prayericito for Sudden Upheaval
by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 6:50am

May all pathways to safety be opened,

seen, and safely taken.

May all who are lost be found

and lifted to safe ground.

May all without shelter be given refuge

May all who are naked and cold

be covered with warmth

May all who are frightened be calmed

by Mind greater

May all who are injured, receive timely aid

May all who are trapped, hold on,

sensing strength of the ancestors near.

May all who are alone and frightened

be comforted by invisible Hands

This we ask, in the name of all that is Holy,

each in her own way, each in his own way...

that all imperiled and saddened be

sealed into vitality with the light of the angels and the saints;

sealed into animating spark with the light of the Bodhisatvas;

sealed into holy and fullest life by the sound of the breath'

sealed into repair by the sound of the stars overhead chanting

life

life

life...

and Aymen

and Aymen

and Aymen

and,

so be it,

so be it,

so be it.

and with love.

From us all:

Tribe of the Sacred Heart, many of us, Scar Clan...

from us all.

and with love too, from dr.e

Erotic Dreams

Once, in a dreaming workshop I presented at a Unitarian Church, an older, very attractive woman, widowed for awhile, came up to me after my talk. She spoke about her loneliness and then about occasional wonderful erotic dreams she has. I shared with her how much I value those wonderful erotic gifts from the dreaming and suggested that since dreaming is another existence to be experienced, we have free rein to do as we will and enjoy. Waking life's physical constraints and moral sanctions don't apply in erotic dreams anymore than they do in any dreams.

I love Dorothy Sayer's quote: "The only sin that passion can commit is to be joyless."

Our dreams befriend us sexually just as they do in every other aspect of our life. They give us an outlet that we can use regardless of whether our dance card is full or whether we are in a committed relationship.

When dream lovers show up, especially strangers with no waking life strings attached, it can make for some fun fantasizing in days and months ahead - IF you write the dream down, that is.

Here's an example from my dream collection that might illustrate several good things to know about erotic dreams:

June 25, 2010
Panties on a Platter

I’m in a place, bigger than an average room, where women, all very attractive in a typical model way, in various stages of undress, all wearing attractive bikini panties, are sitting around a counter, like at a diner.

I place a lovely pair of pink bikini panties on a plate and serve it to a guy sitting at the counter, as well. I’m very flirtatious and confident about my overture.

He’s 40’s, white, plain shirt and trousers. Not really sexy – but I’m attracted to him.

I wake up

When I first wrote this dream down it had a slightly icky energy; probably the panties. What I love is that in a random search through my dream journals for the best of my dream erotica (a practice I recommend to anyone), I find this dream from a year ago and recognize it's erotic potential in a way that had escaped me before.

I decide to reenter the dream and dream it forward:

Panties on a Platter Re-entry 3-6-11

In our conversation, I learn my dream lover's name and what he likes to be called. He's very responsive to anything I say or do; we're very turned on by each other. We have fun... Some dreams make for great erotica.

Personal dream erotica is accessible for personal sexual fantasies to anyone who dreams and records dreams. The brainless, emotionally bloodless garbage that passes for erotica in waking culture can't hold a candle to the customized work of your dream cupid.

Many times culture has tried to convince us that sex is the forbidden fruit; bite in before God gives the okay and you're in for a world of pain, no more Eden for you.

But, among the many things we experience at night in our sleep, we experience opportunities for sexual healing that come in the form of dreams that turn us on and perhaps even give us sexual release. Talk about safe sex!

Hello, dream lover.

Thanks to my dear friend, fine artist, Mally DeSomma, for letting me use one of her spectacular nude paintings for this post. Here's a link to her website:
http://www.mdesomma.com/

Simple Synchronicity

Once again, my dear friend Antoinette Martignoni, posted in her email newsletter, as she did on Christmas eve, a post that drew my dream content to the fore. (http://litadreaming.blogspot.com/2010/12/dream-synchronicity-fireflies.html

You'll remember she loves poetry and many of her daily contemplations are poems she shares along with some of her own reflections. Here's the poem that was part of the email she sent today:


M O R N I N G

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.

Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.

The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.

The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small,
kind gesture.

Then laps the bowl clean.

Then wants to go out into the world

where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason
across the lawn,

then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.

I watch her a little while, thinking:

what more could I do with wild words?

I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.

I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

..........................MARY OLIVER, 1991-1992

Here's the dream I recorded when I woke up today:

I have company, a dear woman friend, so I place a plate of chicken and other goodies on the glass table in front of the couch. Sunny, (my cat) comes up to me while I'm upstairs, away from the guests and the hors d'oeuvres that I've served, and says while stretching his front legs up on my shoulders; "You know that plate of chicken?" I say; "Yes, did you eat it?" He says; "Yes, dammed straight." I love him dearly and think it's very funny. Wake up delighted.

What struck me in the synchronicity of her poem and my dream was the "wild words" Oliver refers to as the cat's (or perhaps poetry's or dream's) language. In my dream, my beloved Sunny spoke to me in a very curious cat/human dialect that I could understand. I've heard my cats speak to me before in dreams, but this was a wild and wonderful way he spoke; half cat/half human.

Wild words indeed.

The Magical Mind of Dreaming

Trish and Rob MacGregor host a stirring blog, Synchronicity. Here's their link: http://www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets/?p=2362#comment-13829

In yesterday's post, "Synchronicity and Magical Thinking", they address the conventional belief, based on some branches of science, that anything but left brain, rational thought is unfounded in "fact" or "reality".

As usual, their post got me thinking about how this prejudice applies to dreaming.

There are people who dismiss dreaming, as they dismiss intuition and imagination, in the service of a left brain only existence. All I can say is, "How's that working for you?"

Remember the yin and the yang of Chinese philosophy? The idea is that all life's many opposites are in a constant harmonic dance that keeps life in balance.

Rational thinking, presumed conscious thinking, presumed sane and ordered and predictable is one mode of our brain function. The other is where the dream mind takes us constantly, into the realm where nothing is predictable, or ordered, but somewhat insane. "I had the weirdest dream" is a common preamble I hear when someone tells me a dream.

The "magical" dream mind doesn't play by the rational mind's rules, nor does it have to; experience shows dreaming to be incredibly effective at delivering personal benefits to the conscious dreamer. Right brain thinking is a different stretch for the old neurons, but to get the most out of our underused noggins, and scientists tell us our brains are under-employed, we need to think outside the left brain box.

As Trish points out, many great inventions, many innovations in thinking that have benefited humankind were the direct result of the magical thinking of amazing people, like Einstein and Jung. I highly recommend Robert Moss's book, The Secret History of Dreaming, for one wonderful example after another.

My point is, it's not, either we're rational, conscious, productive beings or ninnies. We're rational, waking, conscious AND intuitive, creative, dreaming beings. We're both; our mind, when used as a whole, provides both avenues, both experiences. It's up to us to balance that flow of information for personal and communal gain.

Opposites aren't mutually exclusive. We don't need to deny that men are valuable to esteem women just as much. We don't have to have one skin color to know what it means to be human, and we don't have to live just one aspect of our lives on this planet. The waking, conscious life is great; but so is the dreaming life with it's windows on the unconscious, or as Ursula LeGuin would call it, inner space.

Now given all the information and all the images out there, it's my personal soul mission to judge for myself what I think, feel and do; I don't need an authority to tell me what to think. Science is a wonderful profession full of great practitioners, but come on, it is no final authority. In order for it to be successful, it has to be in flux, in discovery mode. We can assume that what they proved yesterday will prove different tomorrow. It's up to each of us to make choices about truths based on what we know from our own experience and what we believe from others. So who died and left anyone in charge?

I write this blog to offer others what I've learned by playing in the magical thinking realms of dreams for so long. This type of thinking may come easier to me than to someone stuck in a rational paradigm, but that doesn't mean that I can abdicate my need to exercise left brain judgment. It's both, we can do both. Isn't that wonderful?

Animal Buddies and Spirit Guides

Thoughts live in the brain, images live in the heart. Much of waking language is left brained, rational; most of dreaming language is image, right brain stuff in waking.

This is why dream totems, animal spirits, can be such a tremendous psychic help to a dreamer, regardless of their age. I have many wonderful animal visitors in my dreams; I'm sure I'll share more about others in the future. Number one on my dream totem pole is Elephant. Elephant was first introduced to me in a dream my first husband had of me. I grew up with the image but his dream sealed the deal for me; Elephant became my totem. I often wear Elephant as jewelry and have images of her everywhere in my house.

Elephant has visited me in dreams for many years. My banner on this blog is one beautiful example. In that dream: I'm watching these wonderful mother and baby elephants dance on the beach. I hear the music. I wake up filled with joy.

Here's an Elephant synchronicity I love. In the 70's, when I lived in Rochester, NY, I met a young man at a community event who loved to draw. We sat down at a table to talk and as we spoke, he drew on a small piece of paper. I wasn't wearing anything to give away my totem and we hadn't touched on that subject at all. At the end of our chat, he handed it to me. I've posted it for your delight and mine. (Just don't call me Addie, not a nickname I prefer.)

Totems are like rock star body guards you carry in your heart. They jump out and protect you by giving you of their spirit; who's going to mess with an elephant; yet, most people like them. I think they're wise and kind and beautiful.

Many Animal Spirits have manifested in my dreams; each has given me an energy I've used in waking life.

So who are you're totems?