In the past I've had epic dreams of situations so far outside my own that I feel they come from somewhere else; they thrill and blow open my life experience! I'm often simply a passenger/analyst, but sometimes I play some subtle yet pivotal role by offering a perspective set or even a single thought or idea, as what happened last night.
Now fair warning and apology: In my past, these kinds of dreams have spawned entire novels, or just been so illuminating that they have shaped and stuck with me, but the last time I had one was more than a year ago, and I assumed that in my advancing age of having to get up multiple times per night that they were done with me--apparently the workaround was to drop me into a semi-coma after my last bathroom trip, far into the day, and have me "sleep" 3-4 hours beyond when I would normally get up! Still, I am very much out of practice at remembering and understanding dreams like this, so what I'm going to recount is far less than I have already forgotten or not been able to bring back with me, and I only witnessed a fraction of what I know I could have (had I stayed in better practice, "dreaming-shape"). Sorry for the mess, but I am committed to another novel project and just so excited to share that I thought to blurt out what little I remember and suspect. For brevity's sake, I will use the first person, though there was never any doubt, via circumstances or actions, differing motivations, that this was not me nor my projection, but someone else who I only met-knew for a brief time.
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I am a driven and clever investigator, perhaps for a religious organization (like the "Holy See") or a rogue element of that, more interested in uncovering truths than in analyzing and hiding them. This personality entanglement (conflict) was woven all through the experience. I am having to be cautious in a foreign area that feels somewhat like South America, rural area of farmers/herders and indigenous peoples mostly hidden away and uncaring of the greater world. I have to thread my way carefully among them, interviewing, sometimes struggling with translations, and working on a puzzle that has brought me to these parts. A hint in ancient scripture, a snippet of local lore, coincidences too great and too seemingly-on-purpose revealed to ignore. Hence the perseverance as I duck local law enforcement and risk talking to a local priest (I don't remember him being all that helpful).
When the breakthrough comes, it also alerts people who wanted to stop me (I think I might have known I was being watched/followed but really didn't care, in an uncharacteristically brazen way). The local police were going to make up some b.s. charge to justify holding me, and I wasn't going to accept their manipulations. I foil a trap, mostly because of a borrowed motorbike and daring/skilled riding (both of which I would never do); there was a joy to the effort, but mostly a determination and a *rightness* to my quest. At last I find the abandoned structure I heard about, being part tiny church, part shrine, and part tomb--definitely the place where old secrets could be hidden!
It takes me some searching to find a gap in the paneling that wasn't sealed up, and it swings open just enough to allow me in (with suspicious ease). It hurt my heart to see this place so filled with decay, though I am not sure of all the reasons why, only that the abandonment of this memorial felt personal and also like a sacrilege. In a very narrow passage, I (literally) run into a dwarf-like (guardian?) skeleton that either moved on its own or was suspended in such a way to seem so, because when I jump and yank it from close confines, it clatters to pieces that try reforming as small black scorpions! Before they can sting my feet and ankles, I lift myself out of the way--it's unclear whether stamping on them turned them to powder or they were doing that on their own or because of some other factor, but this was hazy since all my focus was on finding what I suspected to be here, and knowing my time was short.
Almost hidden among the dusty stones and designs of the altar (or like an area underneath a raised platform that at one point might have been for sermonizing), I see the outlines of a coffin drawer. The dream-me knows how to deal with this, knowing it won't open safely from the outside, and so I belly-crawl (all test-of-faith-like) into a narrow stone tunnel the leads behind the sarcophagus to the latching mechanism holding it closed. Once detached, the "drawer" can be opened and the contents exposed.
I am hurrying now because i heard someone coming inside the shrine. I push it completely open and see unmistakably the writing on the inside (there was no adornment on the outside, only the inside): "Maria Madre" (I think I remember that, but it was fast approaching the time my consciousness separates from this sequence). A cop is approaching, wary, hand-on-gun. I beg him for peace, and to open his eyes and *see* this body had been murdered, a woman, clearly, and wrapped with devotion, even love, so that all would not be lost (or forgotten). He says, "This is a matter for police investigation." But again I beg him: "Police will not see or know all that needs to be known from a spiritual investigation." Then I had an insight as I faded: "It would be best to have both, working as a team, to discover everything that happened here."
---
And then I was awake, feeling the lateness of the hour.
Now fair warning and apology: In my past, these kinds of dreams have spawned entire novels, or just been so illuminating that they have shaped and stuck with me, but the last time I had one was more than a year ago, and I assumed that in my advancing age of having to get up multiple times per night that they were done with me--apparently the workaround was to drop me into a semi-coma after my last bathroom trip, far into the day, and have me "sleep" 3-4 hours beyond when I would normally get up! Still, I am very much out of practice at remembering and understanding dreams like this, so what I'm going to recount is far less than I have already forgotten or not been able to bring back with me, and I only witnessed a fraction of what I know I could have (had I stayed in better practice, "dreaming-shape"). Sorry for the mess, but I am committed to another novel project and just so excited to share that I thought to blurt out what little I remember and suspect. For brevity's sake, I will use the first person, though there was never any doubt, via circumstances or actions, differing motivations, that this was not me nor my projection, but someone else who I only met-knew for a brief time.
---
I am a driven and clever investigator, perhaps for a religious organization (like the "Holy See") or a rogue element of that, more interested in uncovering truths than in analyzing and hiding them. This personality entanglement (conflict) was woven all through the experience. I am having to be cautious in a foreign area that feels somewhat like South America, rural area of farmers/herders and indigenous peoples mostly hidden away and uncaring of the greater world. I have to thread my way carefully among them, interviewing, sometimes struggling with translations, and working on a puzzle that has brought me to these parts. A hint in ancient scripture, a snippet of local lore, coincidences too great and too seemingly-on-purpose revealed to ignore. Hence the perseverance as I duck local law enforcement and risk talking to a local priest (I don't remember him being all that helpful).
When the breakthrough comes, it also alerts people who wanted to stop me (I think I might have known I was being watched/followed but really didn't care, in an uncharacteristically brazen way). The local police were going to make up some b.s. charge to justify holding me, and I wasn't going to accept their manipulations. I foil a trap, mostly because of a borrowed motorbike and daring/skilled riding (both of which I would never do); there was a joy to the effort, but mostly a determination and a *rightness* to my quest. At last I find the abandoned structure I heard about, being part tiny church, part shrine, and part tomb--definitely the place where old secrets could be hidden!
It takes me some searching to find a gap in the paneling that wasn't sealed up, and it swings open just enough to allow me in (with suspicious ease). It hurt my heart to see this place so filled with decay, though I am not sure of all the reasons why, only that the abandonment of this memorial felt personal and also like a sacrilege. In a very narrow passage, I (literally) run into a dwarf-like (guardian?) skeleton that either moved on its own or was suspended in such a way to seem so, because when I jump and yank it from close confines, it clatters to pieces that try reforming as small black scorpions! Before they can sting my feet and ankles, I lift myself out of the way--it's unclear whether stamping on them turned them to powder or they were doing that on their own or because of some other factor, but this was hazy since all my focus was on finding what I suspected to be here, and knowing my time was short.
Almost hidden among the dusty stones and designs of the altar (or like an area underneath a raised platform that at one point might have been for sermonizing), I see the outlines of a coffin drawer. The dream-me knows how to deal with this, knowing it won't open safely from the outside, and so I belly-crawl (all test-of-faith-like) into a narrow stone tunnel the leads behind the sarcophagus to the latching mechanism holding it closed. Once detached, the "drawer" can be opened and the contents exposed.
I am hurrying now because i heard someone coming inside the shrine. I push it completely open and see unmistakably the writing on the inside (there was no adornment on the outside, only the inside): "Maria Madre" (I think I remember that, but it was fast approaching the time my consciousness separates from this sequence). A cop is approaching, wary, hand-on-gun. I beg him for peace, and to open his eyes and *see* this body had been murdered, a woman, clearly, and wrapped with devotion, even love, so that all would not be lost (or forgotten). He says, "This is a matter for police investigation." But again I beg him: "Police will not see or know all that needs to be known from a spiritual investigation." Then I had an insight as I faded: "It would be best to have both, working as a team, to discover everything that happened here."
---
And then I was awake, feeling the lateness of the hour.
