Life is but a dream: Desert Stew

Monday, February 4, 2008

Desert Stew

2/2/2008 - Saturday Morning's Dream

I had a series of three or four dreams this night, but I only remember this part of one of the early ones.

I was driving in a desert, possibly with my husband and/or others, but I felt alone. We were in an open jeep-like car, somewhat reminiscent of what Thompson and Thompson drive through the desert in Tintin. We drove and drove, we were somewhat lost I think. It was bare and flat, and somewhat gravelly. We could see the track of another vehicle, or maybe it was our own. Night fell and it started to get cold. We camped in a small shelter, which I think was already set up there. We had no supplies, but I found an onion on the ground and told the others that I was going to make stew. We did not have any meat, but I crawled around in the dusk, in the edges of where the tent was pitched. There were some other dusty vegetables discarded on the ground. I picked up a large thing which I thought was a large potato, but when I looked at it closely I could see that it was the head of an octopus. The legs were gone, there were 8 slightly wet looking pencil-sized holes in a straight line in the bottom of it, where they had been cut off. This is what tipped me off to its true nature. I discarded it with some disgust. I found some other onions, potatoes, and carrots. They were dirty but in good shape, and I went on to make a stew. I was pleased with myself managing to find food for us to make the best of our stranded situation and was looking forward to the hot dinner, although I don't think the others were as keen on my resourcefulness. I don't remember the rest of the dream or the ones that came after, although one of those took place on the bank of a river in a sunny park.

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I have always been fascinated by this other, intangible world into which we retreat, the reality and origins of which are so unknown, so mysterious. It is like a portal into which you can pass into another dimension, a mysterious forest you can ride through to reach Babylon, a lost valley of Brigadoon that comes almost every night, not every 100 years.

Linear time and space are twisted here, analogy is rife but sometimes indecipherable, action often skips to action with many of the boring spots removed, like a fast-paced movie. Feelings and senses are intensified, yet in some ways protected. Although there is no limit to exploration, it is yet not a place where you can choose to do anything you like... you are constrained by certain rules and limits which surely must be self-imposed (we assume, since we imagine we are the only "real" person in this world) but if so, why can we not mold them? This is so similar to the perspective of the waking world that it tests the very nature of reality. And though certain things are clearly connected to or inspired by the waking world, (and perhaps vice versa), there are also those elements, even people and places, which exist only in the dream life... where did they come from?

I know when I write down my dreams I tend to remember more of them, so I choose to do that again now, for better or for worse.

Only in my dreams...

In addition to the dream life being inhabited by persons, places, and memories that don't exist in the walking world, I also sometimes encounter, use and understand words in my dreams that don't exist in the waking world, and maybe they should. Here are some that I both remembered the word and meaning of it upon awakening:

Artigate: verb. To show an idea through means of art, often combined media. For example, a movie might use a scene with with the sun rising and music swelling to indicate to the viewer that a character has died. My sister used this in a dream when talking to me.

Carules: noun (plural). This means something like "love points," all the energy and resources that you use to demonstrate or show love. My cousin and I used this in a conversation in this dream, where he asked hypothetically if I how I would spend 1000 carules (not as in money, as in energy/effort) if I had that many, to show someone that I care for them more than anything in the world. 1000 was an extremely large amount to have, people would not really have that many.