I had a dream an hour ago about being a sea-god in the form of a giant megalodon.
It was my job to protect a band of Pacific fishermen, though near the end I grew angry and vengeful towards modern ships using advanced technology to overfish my oceans. So I began attacking the nets of some really large ships and had to become larger and more ferocious myself. I was coming up under the biggest and most advanced fleet yet and had to transform myself to become bigger than Godzilla as I awoke.
I believe this dream may have been stimulated by watching twitter storm reports closely last week and by a shark-attack report yesterday where an Aussie surfer was cut in half by a Great-White, 1, 2, 3. It was also probably stimulated by watching the recent episode of Ebert Presents/PBS Saturday night where they revisited the film Jaws.
For interpretation I believe this dream was about the Hawaiian shark-god Kamohoali since I dreamed about his sister Pele the volcano-goddess over a week ago after watching a Nature/PBS episode about life on the Kilauea. It might be that this dream God-vision was about some more malignant shark-demon that always attacks humans, like perhaps Kauhuhu. However, I don't think so since I don't remember being originally human in the dream, but I do remember having a sister-Goddess at a volcano somewhere and protecting a select band of mercenary fishermen. My followers were staying out of the oceans near the end of the dream to avoid my more ferocious aspects.
I just woke up an hour ago from a dream where I was leaping and dancing around and over a bonfire with the kittens. The fire would occasionally shoot out a shower of red sparks into the starry sky when a giant tree would collapse. We were dancing to keep the universe alive and moving, so the whole thing was quite ritual and tribal. I would often somersault and spin while leaping freakishly high up 9 feet and across 20 ft the way I used to before landing bowed down face-to-face with one of the kittens ringed around the fire. I initially thought this fiery dancing dream was inspired by watching the replay of this week's Great Performances on WSIU again before bedtime, where the Vienna ballet school admirably complemented Valery Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic Summer performance. I think now it may be because I was made aware of current ongoing Burning Man celebrations from watching twitter the other day and from listening to a Craig Ferguson joke about it just before passing out.
I also think now this ritual fire dancing dream probably was inspired by the Manuel de Falla gypsy dancing piece in El amor bruja. I've been anticipating watching more gypsy dancing on Classic Arts Showcase all week since we're a little culturally starved here from a life of poverty in the Sticks.
Dream diary update. My dreams over the past week have been a little repetitive. In my dreams I am often trapped in a military barracks or a prison. Some strictly regimental existence with cafeteria food lines and communal sleep areas. Friday night I had a disturbing wet sex dream about playing groin-footsie with a redhead. Upon awakening I determined straight away to stop ignoring my sexual impulses. Starting yesterday my dreams became more varied again. I was a village leader in a post-apocalyptic America. We had plowed over every tree and meadow to convert the US into a single giant shopping mall before society fell. I was leading search parties with burning torches into looking for a way out of the dark 10,000 mile mall complex. We had pet shop animals and pets with us throughout our sojourns in the tribal malls.
Late Sunday morning I passed out from a lack of food into a deep sleep where I dreamed about being married to a Goddess again. I was married to Oshun, the Orisha goddess of Love in the Santeria religion.
She had a bit of a spitfire temper but we got on pretty well as a happy reclusive couple in my dream. I have a horrible temper too when I'm cross so we enjoyed playing house together.
Just now I had a dream about being a champion street-fighter looking for my friends in a garden maze. Even though it was a big maze we weren't in any hurry to get out, just to find one another.
Since the heat and humidity returned 2 days ago, my sleep has become more interrupted and sporadic. That makes it harder to remember dream details, but I wake up during more of my REM dream cycles. So without AC my dreams are stronger and more impressive, but shallow. Since I went a week sleeping well but not remembering my dreams before, then I can't complain now that I'm sleeping badly and my dream memories are great. An additional sleep complication is one of the kittens disappeared while I was sleeping deeply last Thursday night. Probably he was skinned and eaten by an animal, or perhaps kidnapped and murdered by evangelicals/satanists for being black-colored. IDK but I feel guilty about failing to protect him. So I wake myself up about 10 times a night to check on the remaining cats now. I also make sure they always have somewhere to run away to like the garage.
Monday morning I had a dream that was most nearly like the ones I used to have as a teenager about Edgar Allen Poe stories. I was a cowled dark figure who lived in a time around 1850. I had special abilities that included growing corridors and stairwells at will and levitation. I figure this was because I was watching animations of The Spectre Sunday night on Veoh. The plot of my dream was much like Will Shakespeare's Prospero character in The Tempest. At the end of my dream I renounced my magics, became ethereal like the Spectre, and awoke.
Tuesday morning I woke up listening to Jackie Evancho singing "Imaginer" in my dream. PBS is replaying her music special again this week and I heard part of it again Sunday morning. I had a feeling the dream was very surreal with colored cubes and rainbows. I had no sense of time or my location when I awoke.
This morning (Wednesday) I didn't remember my initial dream upon awakening, but I drowsed off again after listening to cspan's Washington Journal. Around 1020 I had a very quick dream about a giant centipede that I rubbed all over my face for its venomous virtue and then draped across my shoulders like a python before awakening. I was face down on the couch.
Dream diary update. I fell asleep with Skanky kitty on top of me around midnight. I had a dream about water. I was playing an amphibian war sim God game that involved my forces taking tiles of atolls that an enemy kept building technology on. Eventually I phased out of my God game role and opened my eyes to a watery marble ceiling. I was floating around on my back in a heated pool. Eventually I began picking junk and signs up from the bottom of the pool to toss them out on the tiles. A couple of middle-aged white male swimmers like myself finished swimming and got out as a hairy black fellow showed up. He didn't seem to like what I was doing. After a while of me clieaning and him treading water and glowering another black fellow showed up. He appeared to be a younger male relative of the first fellow. They both embraced treading water as I picked up a sign on the bottom of the pool underneath them. The older fellow told me to knock it off to which I responded that it was my duty to clean the pool. I looked at the last sign I had finally retrieved. I could almost read it through my watery eyes and vapor when I awoke. Stinky cat was purring on my chest and looking into my eyes while touching noses. It was about 0430. I drifted off to sleep again
My next dream wasn't about swimming but was more surreal. It was like I was in a dimensional tunnel or wormhole with lots of cosmic strings and threads whipping around me. When I awoke the closest analogy I could think of to describe this dream is an amalgam of a hi res Nature film about non-vertebrates, the climax sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the opening credits to the Bryan Singer 2000 X-men film.
I know those are dated movies but I'm an old movie fan. It was 0615 and Skanky kitty was still cuddling on my chest, purring, and meowing to me. I put her outside and fed the kittens.
I've been having lots of wild dreams over the last 9 days, but I just didn't bother to write about any of them. This morning I woke up from a dream where a goddess had me bound up with my arms bound above my head in sexual torture. I don't really enjoy submission games, so throughout the dream I begged her to tell me her name. I felt her pale and delicate handhold my face as she hissed in my ear "Trivia." The darkness about my rack lifted. I then had a fleeting vision, flashing images of a crossroads, a graveyard, and pale nymphs laughing and leering at me as I awoke. I figure this dream has something to do with digging up one of my erotic music video links last night. I thoroughly enjoyed Rammstein's "Pussy" video uncensored, Embedded below is the censored version for youtube:
This particular Rammstein video has a similar sexual torture sequence and culminates in a series of flashing images. That doesn't explain the "Goddess of Ghosts" aspects of my dream, but it does explain the sexual context. Significantly in waking life I have been a submissive before though not for decades now since I didn't really enjoy it much. Though I'm an agnostic I frequently have dreams of deity, but this time the Goddess character seemed to particularly want some kind of recognition from me. I interpret this part of the dream as a reminder to myself that I had sworn to honor Bastet again this month with candles on the hearth. I haven't blogged about it until now since I wasn't sure how to, but I think the dream diary is the correct place.
After I awoke the cats were begging at my bedroom garage door to come inside and visit. I let Skanky the cat in and she wouldn't leave me alone. That was hours ago. She's still hanging around. Its highly possible that these two coincidences accounts for the urgency and imploring Goddess command aspects of my dream today. The reason I had promised to honor Bastet is that when my 17-year-old calico cat Fluffy began having seizures and pain a few months ago in April, I prayed to Bastet. I don't know why I prayed to Bastet since I'm agnostic, but I did pray to God for her brother Pepe when he was dying in 2005. I prayed to Bastet for three things: 1. I wanted her to make Fluffy's passing as easy and happy as possible. It was. 2. I prayed that she would receive Fluffy and watch over her in the Underworld/Afterlife. 3. I prayed to Bastet that another steady companion would make the transition as easy on me as possible. I needed a tabby who enjoyed being held for hours and liked hugging my neck with her paws.
Now number 3 is the curious part, since the night of Fluffy's passing this Skanky wild tabby showed up out of the woods in the backyard. I found her sitting nose-to-nose with Fluffy under the picnic table at dusk when her strength was failing her. She started like she would run back into the woods when she saw me. Instead she spontaneously tamed herself. I picked up Fluffy and carried her inside to rock and to talk with her. I left the wild cat outside and all of our cats inside, since there were so many wild animals about. After midnight Fluffy got worse and I threw the other cats out and moved her downstairs. I don't know how but I found the wild/tame cat had somehow followed us inside and hidden down in the basement. She touched noses with Fluffy again and I gently threw her out at midnight. The new wild/tame cat started calling and sighing in the garage all night. I found around 0327 that Fluffy had passed away. The skinny wild cat didn't leave but instead became immediately as possessive of me as Fluffy had been. The other cats didn't know what to make of her since she avoided them and ate many of the mushrooms in the yard. In the past few months I named her Skanky since she always wants 10 hugs from me. The only other person she lets hold her yet is my biologist nephew. The curious thing is that I prayed to Bastet for my longtime cat companion and my prayers were answered even though I'm agnostic. When I prayed to God for Pepe cat years ago the results were awful. I guess that's another reason why I plan to stay agnostic.
Dream diary update. My dreams lately have been quite strong and memorable. However I awaken from them so energized I'm recording them tonight as sort of an afterthought. Early Sunday morning I had a typical University classroom dream. I was back taking Introduction to Linear Algebra from the Australian prof who hated me. I suppose I only took it from him cuz at least he didn't practice curving downwards. Considering significant money and domestic problems as well as poor drinking habits that summer I thought I was doing rather well. Nevertheless I learned to dread his office hour which I camped out for daily. In my dream I was in his classroom again being made an example of to the other students who invariably whispered answers & other secrets with each other but not with me. I wore the dunce cap for only a short time in my dream which surprised me, usually this particular nightmare is more unpleasant. However at one point in the dream lectures he compared my intelligence unfavorably with Great Apes. I suppose when I am drinking I really am more baboon-like than bonobo-like as most humans usually are. That's why I'm on the wagon. Anyway near the end of the dream the class turned into group projects. As usual with group projects I was excluded by other team members. So Professor Aussie Asshole assigned me textbook exercises and I found my text pages sandwiched in cat shit. Still I awoke thinking about wild math theories and Fibonacci series so I felt rather good after this nightmare.
Monday morning I had a dream about being leader in a telepathic collective that spanned several Midwestern states including Kentucky and Tennessee. Near the end of this dream I became a giant God-monster like in a Jap monster movie similar to Godzilla or Mothra. I met the tiny twins who normally speak for Mothra in my God-shape, which was something between a big Minotaur and a giant bear. They assured me that they would bring my messages to my former followers in the Midwestern tribal collective. As I towered above the Midwest like a hybrid of Paul Bunyon & Babe I felt the dawning sun rise hit my brow and move down my great form as my world stirred beneath as I awoke.
This morning (Tuesday) I had a dream about animal spirits. In my dream I was a regular member of the Illinois Confederation from the Peoria tribe (aka 'Backpack-carriers', which I used to constantly wear as an accessory in waking life.) The dream was a bit like the hybrid literature dreams I used to have as a kid, in this case of The Wind in the Willows and Leatherstocking Tales. I lived alone as a bachelor south of here near the Ohio River, Cave-In-Rock country. I had many friends, all animal spirits, wearing the physical form of humans like in The Wind in the Willows. Throughout the dream I could feel tribal revolts and uprisings with plagues and other human struggles for the tribes as French and Americans colonized and drove away spirits from the frontier country. My animal spirit friends were protected by the river enclave and by being near Ley lines related to Cave-In-Rock. Throughout the dream I could hear the name "Tecumseh" echo repeatedly in conjunction with power and conflicts. I attribute this dream artifact to mom making a poster board this weekend on the breakfast table featuring Tecumseh and other human characters for her church, supposedly to signify a 'retreat of over-consumption.' Anyway in my dream I could feel the heat of human fires intruding and the eventual shrinking of our domain as more and more travelers stumbled through our little idyll. Eventually I myself became one of the animal spirits, a well-dressed Wolf gentleman, and disappeared from the world of Men into Spirit-country with my friends. When I finished my canoe voyage I greeted my relieved spirit friends and looked around, blinked my Wolf eyes and awoke. I had left the TV on upstairs set to PBS while I sat in the recliner listening to see that wild animals didn't pester the kittens outside for food. Nature was playing the end of In the Valley of the Wolves which might explain why my chosen spirit form was a wolf.
