The Dreamer's Dream

 I love watching Gai TV. I especially adore Regina Meredith's Open Minds. I have a tendency to binge watch her while designing. The other day she was talking about the dreamer's dream, to live in their dreams and remember them. I don't feel that. I reflected more on my dreaming and how my dreams aren't pleasant, they are very chaotic. They also involve very similar places, events and people. My dreams aren't pleasant. Having a good dream for me is rare. I started evaluating why that is. I am not buying into the notion that this is PTS any longer and my insomnia has derived from a fear or anxiousness to visit these chaotic worlds in my dreams. 

Last night I dreamt of work, my acting work. I dream often of performance anxiety and I don't perform that often, nor feel the anxiety in my waking life that I do in my dreams. But, my work with acting is "home" and I felt it since the day I stepped foot on the Riverside property. In my dreams, I worry too much about what the audience thinks. In real life, I do focus on my performance solely and what the experience means to me. Last night's dream came me further insight into the world my dreaming self lived in. 

I have seen the streets and buildings in my dreams of that life. They are always the same, as if I am only peering into another world, her world, the other me, the dreaming me. In her world she has far greater issues and last night she/I was able to get some insight into her/my dream life. I woke with the question if this was actually a parallel life of some sort. I am almost observing my experiences in that world, as I am this one. Last night there were break through moments in the dream, realizations and some beauty. 

In last night's dream, I was lamenting over a performance. There were missed steps and lots of dancing routines. The performing in my dreams is much more complex than I feel they are in my waking life. All the connections are there, my actor family. We all struggle with our costumes looking perfect, timing and how the audience felt about our performance. We actually felt pretty good about the performance we had in the dream last night, though thinking we could all have been better. Even in my dreams, I want to improve. We are family in the dream, all with a similar focus. 

After the shows in my dream I usually lament over things I could have done better. I often drive around a city, with inner chaos after performances. Often there is familiar buildings I will just park behind and cry. This is different in my waking life. After a show I am typically blissed out, driving home  under the night sky, singing and smiling. It is my charge in life. The road home is long by way, but short by feeling. It goes fast as I roll through the ever changing hills and countryside. In my dreams it is buildings, a dirty city. In my dreams I have relationship issues, that stem from my inner insecurity. 

In last night's dream, I overcame some insecurity and I watched myself shine. I marveled over dresses I was wearing and seeing. Beautiful draping fabrics with sleeves of jewels. They were all so beautiful, I couldn't decide which one to wear. I'm sure more will come to me throughout the day from this dream, but I woke specifically with excitement over the designs of these dresses. I was trying to remember the cuts and styling when I woke. As I thought more about them when I woke, the other parts of the dream began to surface. The familiar parts, the chaos, the inner turmoil. What is this place? Where is this place?

I'm bothered by limitations, especially those put on me by others. That is what I strongly feel when I encounter people who want to limit experience to a 6,000 year old date that everything is defined in. This idea that "we know all there is to know, we are the smartest and so it is." No, none of it has ever felt right and it has felt so limiting. Limiting in interactions, no exploration or openness to ideas. I don't believe we are just random incidents that popped up on a planet and must take full advantage of everything and everyone around us and just die. My inner compass never pointed that way and bumping up against such limitations has created a sometimes fury in me. Which is why I listen to shows such as Open Minds. In my open mind, these dream experiences aren't limited to "You have trauma, therefore bad dreams, take these pills."

When I wake in the morning, it is usually at the alarm of my cat Angel, meowing that it is time to comb his hair and let him go play. I become aware of my CPAP mask and take it off. I stumble into the bathroom, lazily combing Angel's hair, telling him how beautiful he is and how it is going to be a great day. I use this time to collect my thoughts and think about the dream from the night before. This morning I was struck by inspiration and the question, "Is she/I in trouble somewhere in an alternate reality? Or, is this a past life experience?" 

The great limitation to past life experiences is this 6,000 year time frame. It has made me think in the past that what I am seeing must be future events, because this place didn't exist in the here and now. It was "impossible" for cars, buildings and technology to exist outside of this time frame, right? According to all who know everything and have limited our experience and understanding to a very small timeframe which is a blink of a moment in vastness of what we think of as space. This forced limitation had led me to believe I was crazy for thinking outside these lines and think, this must be future events. I am starting to not think so at all. 

My truths have revealed a great deal to me. One is about this very 6,000 year mark. I could care less about most of our history. It feels like an orchestrated ego trip for religion and control. I care about the "ancient past" and make the 18th century. Everything in between has been dark noise. I honestly feel repulsed by most of our history that is taught. Yesterday I got a good dose of disgust when researching the oldest philosophers. One in particular, a female named Hypatia. Reading about her brought about a response to me physically, emotionally and mentally. I struggled for many hours yesterday in revulsion to what had happened to her in the end. My anger ignited and the tears ran hot. Until I moved oddly into the 18th century to another woman, Mary Wollstonecraft. How strange that I would feel such connections. I instantly wondered if this was an archetypal character pattern. How does this all fit together? 

I often get so excited by new ideas and their exploration that I don't know where to start. I need to interpret the idea for myself, but want to know how the very idea came into being in the first place. This has been my revisiting of reincarnation. I believe nothing outside my experience when I am seeking for truth. My distrust of people causes me to research everything that I can on a subject. I dismissed a lot of my upbringing and struggles with spiritual and I rejected religious doctrine. I used to feel ostracized, now I feel tremendously grateful for that skeptical and intrigued point of view. My want to research everything does overwhelm me often. How do I balance this perception of reality? How do I know which is the dream? What can I possibly know at this time, right now?