I probably wouldn't have noticed this had I not moved away. I don't think I noticed it after the first move, or even the second. After several moves I realized the dreams of the first few days were more vivid than usual, and they always occurred in the new location. By the end of the first week in our new home, my dreams returned to their usual settings. Only rarely do I dream of my current home.
The most interesting thing about where I grew up is that we lived on a lake. My dream map started as a topographic map of the lakebed and surrounding areas. I bought it from the state for $4. It's worth far more to me. It's heavily annotated now.
In a sense, it's a map of my head. Unusual things have happened there. There are huge abandoned barbecue pits in the woods where human sacrifices once took place. Up the trail is a shack full of Japanese gold coins. Further along is where I found the secret star map. In front of our house the road is flooded, full of ice chunks and huge golden choi. Along the shore, dozens of old tape recorders lie just beneath the water. Further out is a large hole with a submerged bed in it.
It is in the lake that the most interesting things happen. Ten-foot sunfish swim side-by-side with equally huge tropicals. Prehistoric lungfish eat eggs in the shallows. Coelacanths haunt the deepest water near the center. At night the water drains out of the lake, exposing its bottom to those who can "see." A secret island usually appears, the local Atlantis.
Across the lake - the Other Side - is where we find danger. Devil-worshippers romp in the woods where wild hogs the size of elephants hunt humans. I once found a huge Osiris skeleton half-buried on the bank of Dream Creek. Fish die by the thousands and float to the other shore. The stench is overpowering. A stalled train blocks the way for those who would leave.
Sometimes my dreams happen in the winter. I find myself standing on the frozen lake looking out across the white plain. Once I saw a vision of the Celestial City hanging high above downtown. It was beautiful. That's when I found the giant barbecue pits in the woods - on my side of the lake.
Here's where I hit golf balls into the lake. There's where I saw Halley's Comet. Further down is where I spent the entire night swimming while I lay in bed fighting fever. And that's where our house secretly connects to our neighbor's.
I've found baby alligators in a pond, and dinosaurs in the yard. I've seen the sky go dark to reveal the ultimate nothingness behind the facade. And I've seen the blood-red foundation beneath the waters of the lake revealed time after time as it drains itself empty.
Where does a lake sleep, the old joke asks? In a lakebed, of course. My dream map spans decades. I'm still adding to it - not as often as before, but I still spend my nights there.
I'm making a dream map.
When all was said and done, they flat lay on the ground like empty balloons. Lifeless husks, if you catch my drift. With this sudden realization that I was in a dream, I could feel my control--just as I'd become aware of lucidity--slipping away. I caught a glimpse of my hands and remembered the Castaneda method that John Carter had mentioned; the one where you look at your hands to preserve the lucid state. Paul said when he tried this himself, he saw ten to twenty fingers on each hand, then immediately afterwards faded out of the dream, into the black. Anyway, for some reason, I thought I'd give it a spin. When I looked at my hands I saw six spooky fingers that glowed with an iridescent sheen. Things were getting progressively weirder with the air around me now resembling a Van Gogh painting, as I then began to fade from this lucid state of 'dreaming awake.'
Upon waking a few scattered thoughts crossed my hazy mind. Was I in some way related to the race of creatures associated with the Alien Autopsy film? I chuckled inwardly at the premise, but took more seriously my following thoughts which questioned the possibility of a psychic war taking place behind my closed eyelids in the misty realm of sleep. When I had gazed at my six-fingered hands I felt the presence in my dream--or, I should say, in this dream plane--of another psychic force intervening, just as I had awakened to the possibility of Lucid Dreaming.
The battle, it appears, is to keep us asleep, in the dark, unaware of the possibility of controlling our own realities, whether asleep or awake. I attempted, in the dream, to see my hands as they are, and was interrupted in this process by an intervening force which added an extra digit in an attempt to wrestle away my 'dream control'. The actual battle in my dream was not with the deflated gangsters; they were just a convenient metaphor. The true battle exists with forces residing in the astral/dream plane, who tried to blow away my control--like I did re: the gangsters--with swirling Van Gogh winds that mesmerized my mind to the lucid possibilities of my own dream-plane dominion.
By what I gather from the dream journals of Jeff Lewis, he is likewise involved in a similar psychic battleground for the mind. His battle is one waged against the biblical gods of old, who through the ages have maintained a stranglehold upon our collective dreams and visions, both asleep and awake, influencing history in the process. In some recent literature I received from Joseph Kerrick, he wrote in--what seemed to me--a similar vein in regards to a man "...Seizing his autonomy back from the gods."
So, is this our great challenge as we plunge headfirst into the apocalyptic millennium? Is our only true means of salvation and surviving The Rapture by destroying the gods of yore and reclaiming the power that is rightfully ours? By rebuilding the Throne of God in Man's own graven image?
After all, it wasn't Eve's invitation that initiated Adam's naked fall from grace; it was the fear of unleashing his own untapped powers, when he tasted of the fruit plucked from The Tree of Knowledge.
Does this sound crazy?
I think it appropriate I respond immediately to your letter, piece. Thanks for sending it, by the way.
Two nights ago I had a dream--vision in which a person with multiple fingers beyond 5 figured. I never got a precise count--but as many as 8 and up to five joints (pun) on some of them. I was engaged...rather reluctantly with this person in a form of “Olympic athletic” competition involving track and field events. It reminded me of the contest between “Pan” and “Ruffio” in Hook. Mostly I found it unimportant because not real.
In any event, fellow I was contesting with had up to 8 fingers. Some of which resembled tree roots. I wondered has this person “uprooted” himself? Ever see Blake’s pictures of Tree people in Hell? So, maybe I was seeing your lucidity work--you uprooting yourself from the unconscious slave work (in Egypt, sold into slavery--Joseph) that is required of all dreamers to support The Kingdom, Pharaoh?
Seems a good guess. If so, keep it up. I find “lucidity” less important than an ability to re-enter dream space consciously, with complete consciousness.
The Van Gogh landscape is an important element and would probably be "Hell." The elements of mental illness, madness there--yes? "Inspiration."
I'm delighted you’re aware of my work.
Keep up a correspondence if you wish.
Best,
Jeff Lewis
P.S. R.A. Lafferty wrote stories featuring multiple fingers. It was an indication of some form of talent.
Because it’s on TV?
9/11/98
