Gather unto yourself gentle memories filled with love and grace, or wild and harmonious moments filled with the beauty of the earth, so it is of these things you dream when you are old.

As I lay down briefly earlier today in order to rejuvenate myself while I waited for my sugar 'n' spice rolls to rise, I was listening to a particularly beautiful classical piece, first with guitar and violins, culminating in cello and harp. It tripped softly through my mind, elevating it to the ethereal while my consciousness swam.

I have been examining my subconscious through my dreams of late and am learning a lot about dreaming and about myself. This was stimulated by recent watchings of some of David Lynch's offerings as well as of the 2010 movie, "Inception."

But this desire to understand my subconscious has another motive. A while back, I spent about three years working as a certified nursing assistant. I worked with many elderly people, often some with dementia, and/or medicated with strong psychoactive drugs. One very predominant thing I noticed was that their subconscious most often projected fear.

The men with whom I worked, were often at the age to have been in combat in WWII or Korea. Not surprisingly, their projections were often from combat related scenarios. Surprisingly, though, even more often, I found them projecting what I would describe as a secret mission/spy/conspiracy theory kind of scenario involving aliens, covert ops, stolen nukes, etc.

Women's projections were very different, almost always involving children, and more often than not involving being separated from their child/ren and worrying for the child/ren's safety. Many, many times, this was a waking subconscious projection in which they felt they (the women, themselves) were being held against their will and not allowed to protect or find their children. One woman was so convinced that I was keeping her from her children that in her panic, she beat me about the head and shoulders with her cane.

No matter how lightly I describe these things, please know that they were very real and very frightening to the person experiencing them and very haunting to me observing them. I remember thinking that I wanted to cultivate pleasant memories and lay subconscious fears and failings to rest so that if I come to that stage in my old age, my projections will be more kind and harmonious.

And so it is that I have embarked on this quest to plumb my subconscious and to heal my memories. I will share it with you from time to time, when I think perhaps I have touched on something universal. But in reading what some psychologists have to say of dreams, I know that some of it does not apply to me.

I surmise that everyone dreams differently, and that the metaphor often would apply only to one's own experience. However, I have learned some eye-opening things from these same psychologists that have proven very useful. I suppose it's like when I search online for a recipe -- I look at several recipes for the same thing, gleaning what others have done, and doing what, from my own experience, I think will work best for me.

But I am resolved to cultivate pleasant, unstressful experiences in my life, and I vow to heal those things and let go of those things which might cause me to feel guilt or fear. As far as societal things I can't control, I will remedy what I can, prepare myself as far as I can, and refuse to fear that which I cannot. As far as the past which cannot be changed -- it is important to amend those things which we can, forgive and let go of our own hurts, let go of judgments of those who have hurt us, and to move on when others cannot forgive us.

Clinging to fear and judgment, projecting them onto those different from themselves, surely comes from our/their own unresolved hurt and resentment over very personal things which, when we cannot deal with them, we cover over, and the sentiment surrounding them becomes a projection at large.

Many look to God to heal our nation -- we must begin by healing ourselves. To  heal ourselves, we must understand what lies within. Examining our dreams is a way to begin.

Holy Wild Dreams, Batman!

I have been having the strangest dreams all week, all with religious connotation, but last night's was the wildest, and I just have to put it down. I'll put the rest of them down in subsequent entries.

I suppose I must have been thinking about all the fish and birds dying of late and subconsciously recalling that that is part of Biblical prophecy. (Am I out of the loop? Probably people have made that comparison already.)

I was walking with a childhood friend, and we were walking to school together. There were a lot of other students around us. We were chatting heartily and we suddenly realized that it was quiet, and that we had walked way too far. She immediately made the decision to go back, but as we were looking for different buildings, I continued on my path.

For a while the neighborhood was at least familiar, but as I walked farther, I began to see different signs of familiarity and realized that I was in Athens, Greece. I looked at my watch, and instead of it being shortly after 8, which I expected, it was past 10. I became a little more urgent in my looking because I had missed both my 8:00 and 9:00 classes. (Forgetting, I guess, that I had changed countries somewhere in my walk.)

I started seeing signs of displaced people, hundreds of them, as I walked. I continued to walk and look, and it seemed everywhere that people were either in a dither or acting resigned. Finally I stopped and asked what the deal was. One woman said "Tomorrow is the Sun in Krakatoa!" I didn't recognize the reference, but her near hysteria caused me to ask, "The end of the world?" She nodded vehemently.

I started looking around. First, airplanes went overhead, dropping this lavender liquid. Some people were running from it, others were bathing in it and making a mud with it and spreading it on their skin. When I asked the reason, I was told that it would make white people invisible when the end came, so that they would not die. But I knew they were deluded, and the majority were running from it.

Suddenly the streets began to flood. I was at a vantage point to see the beach and the Mediterranean. The waters were roiling and encroaching on the city. Some were just running around crazily, others were trying to get to higher ground.

All of a sudden, I was being chased by a growling reptilian monster which I called a kraken*. I eluded it at some point, and kept moving to higher and higher ground. At the last, I was on a promontory, looking out over the city which was being destroyed by the high water. There were people marooned in spots and many up near where I was, just waiting in horror for the waters to overcome them.

As I looked out, there was a guy out over the water in a boom with a megaphone, preaching repentance and doom. I shouted to be heard above him, and I said, "You are a fraud!" Then I looked up to heaven, and plunged my fist into the air and shouted, "God! You promised not to destroy this world by flood again!" Immediately, the sun shone behind the clouds, and then through the clouds. The clouds dissipated, the waters withdrew, and everyone started to cheer.

I awoke.



*Upon waking, I was thinking a kraken was something I had seen in Clash of the Titans, but when I looked it up, it is actually a sea creature of Nordic legend, more like a giant octopus.