Sunday, August 09, 2020

I hate writing about dreams...

 

I hate writing about dreams...

...despite doing it obsessively when I was younger.  I don't practice remembering them now, so they're less likely to be sticky right after I get up which means I definitely won't remember them later unless something triggers an association.  But I'll throw one down here for amusement because I actually remember last night.

So I was writing a book.  It was roughly done, but needed an editor, so I traveled to a small town with an editor I was referred to and booked lodging in the upper level of a barn-turned-apartment with what seemed on the surface to be an Amish family, but had vibes of a cult.  I made friends with one of the daughters (sounds like I'm going down a farmer's daughter joke path here, but I very seldom have those sorts of dreams.  My brain is far more likely to use sleep time for unpacking things than for dealing with any sexual repression) at the compound, and she heads off to meet the editor with me.  The editor gives me good feedback and reviews some of the work paragraph by paragraph.  The daughter...her name is something like Celia, but that's not right, it was more esoteric...is excited about the editing process, particularly as the editor is a woman.

Time passes.  Editing.  Hanging out with the daughter.  It's a relationship almost with a montage.  But after a while said cult/compound becomes suspicious and digs around in my things, pulling out excerpts of my novel from the trash and desk.  They decide it's sacrilegious. Not-Celia is whisked away, but not before she has time to warn me they intend to get rid of me as a blasphemer.  I grab my manuscript from under the eaves where I had it hidden and run for it with the cult in close pursuit.

At some point during the chase, I find a path that goes between mossy cave walls, getting tighter and tighter until it pops out into a huge field with various people standing like statues in the meadows.  In retrospect, I crossed into some other world location with deities.  That tunnel was the equivalent of the rainbow bridge or walking around a mound three times before entering it.  I thread my way through the field toward a source of loud noise and general partying.  It is a party.  A party of deities, albeit deities who have other deities as their patrons.  So maybe a party of heroes?  Bit more than that.  There's a group of men who worship Zeus (black), a group that worships Athena (mostly men, one woman), and a group that worships a pantheon of gods.  That last one is vaguely Chinese pantheon, but not.  For a moment, it looks like I'm going to be a problem as a guest, but the Zeus worshipers talk to me and I show them some trick making a puff of smoke appear from their loin clothes and they're greatly amused and I'm in (as a guest).  The Zeus worshipers make a big deal about how I should join them and they can help me find raw power.  A woman with them channels invisible lightning, shaking everything.  But it obviously makes her very violent and intent on using the power to destroy something. 

Eventually I end up by the pantheon folks.  One of them looks at me carefully and notes that the pantheon is virtually limitless and that certain deities are in certain people.  Some of them are willing to manifest.  Some of them want to ignore and be ignored but just need a home for part of their essence.  He notes I have at least a dozen, but I have to accept them.  And, more important, I have to not offend them by doing something they wouldn't have done in their own manifested life once they manifest through me.  So if a deity was celibate, celibacy.  If a deity wrote a lot, write (no problem in this context).  That means any romantic entanglements with Not-Cecelia, who I am obviously here to help save, are off the table.  And there it ends...gotta make a choice.  Manifest some aspects of internal deities or deny it and potentially take the path Zeus offers even if in some ways it's more constrained in the power and desire to use it.

If I had to posit what it means (and I don't deal in symbology), I suspect it's a dream about focusing on the physical (health) versus focusing on internal growth and the benefits to me versus how it might be perceived externally (in the guise of Not-Celia).  Taking it to the base level, should I be exercising as much (see that last post) versus reading and writing.  So it's not treading any new ground, but rather picking apart Coronavirus summer focus issues, and likely triggered by a bit less exercise lately (not much less, but some; no big rides) and a bit more writing and reading.  I'm glad to see unconscious me is trying to work it out, even if it can't decide between Zeus and a pantheon of hit-and-miss aspects of erudition.

(Lamp via Wikipedia under a CC, unknown author)

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