Alex Grey: Net of Being

…That was the name of the article I woke up writing. A dream so vivid I could tell you the text of the article word for word… that and another I had written. I laid there thinking and decided I should get up and do something about it. If I was going to dream it so vividly, then I should probably write it down, yes? Made sense.

Of course, in the few minutes it takes to get out of bed, downstairs, cuddle dog and make coffee while the computer fires up, the dream has dissipated, leaving only a tantalising trail of, you guessed it, breadcrumbs. It doesn’t matter that I was entirely focussed on holding on to it, nor that it was so vivid I couldn’t possibly forget it. I did. And that is the second time too.

It is a judgement thing. Poised on the edge of sleep where the dreaming world is so acute and the mind very aware of the dream, it seems entirely feasible that I would remember. Move away from sleep and there remains only a vague and an intriguing trail of feelings, information and a nagging sense of something valuable hovering just out of reach. The dweller on the threshold of consciousness, that part of the mind that can walk the halls of dream can grasp the language of that place, the waking half may know a few words and phrases, but couldn’t hold a conversation.

Yet there is also the assurance that the information contained in the article is now there, organised, somewhere in the dusty recesses of my mind; random thoughts, written into a letter, lost in the postal system but finally waiting in the mailbox for you to come home and open it. It will be there when the time is right.

It makes you wonder though how much the various levels of self speak in different languages, or perhaps dialects that are not always understood between themselves. Some levels of the mind seem to work in symbols and images, while conscious thought presents itself as internal dialogue and dreams seem to use all of those. I wonder if the understanding between the levels is similar to the regional dialects of my own little country, where we all speak the same nominal language but older, more primitive words remain within the regions that may not be understood even in the next county. We may grasp the gist of a phrase through tone and context, but the words themselves may be beyond our understanding. We can end up  being reyt throng fettlin’ a bit o’ sense aht o’ t’ stuff as flummoxes us.

To the part of the self that dwells within a particular level the language is as clear as day, in the same way as dialect is to someone who was raised with it. To someone who has not encountered that particular phraseology or manner of communication it would be, as the saying goes, as clear as mud and it is difficult to remember the full import of something not clearly understood.

So next time I dream of breadcrumbs I need something  tattooed on the inside of my eyelids so the dreamer can see it before I open my eyes and lose the thread…. Write it down!