Crazy Dreams

For years I haven't dreamed.  Call it a casualty of single parenting a teenage boy -- that strange state of hypervigilance where one never completely falls asleep until he's safely home and tucked in, stereo pounding full blast -- but for the longest time, dreams have been a luxury I couldn't afford.  My how things have changed. 

My fifth chakra opened a couple of months ago with a cackle and a cough "Hell .... (cough) Hello?" I answered the phone one Saturday morning, rather pleased with myself.  Not a regular yoga devotee or practitioner -- dabbler might be a better word.  Still the portal has opened and with it a rush of creative energy.  I blog, therefore I am.  I am finally learning to play the piano.  And my dreams are returning as well. 

I have an ambivalent relationship with my dreams.  I love their sense of limitless potential where anything can and does happen.  I love their elusive, dreamlike (sorry) quality, their tempting whispers of other worlds.  Occasionally, my dreams come true, often, unfortunately as harbingers of the death of a family member, or more frustratingly, an instant preview of a snippet I might see on some pointless t.v. show the next day.  Ergo I never know quite what to think of them.  So, unless they are repeating dreams that seem to come with a clear message, I tend to admire them like fine art and then let them go.  No need to analyze a thing to death.  Such a hard Western habit to break. 

I've been having international dreams this week.  Night before last, I dreamed I was in Africa, riding a horse to an unknown destination.  I wasn't aware in the dream that I was in Africa, but there were lions in my dream too so logically (there I go analyzing again -- sorry!)

I rode my horse to the shade of a small group of shrunken trees to find shade from the heat.  Hanging from the trees on the left were the skinned carcasses of three lions.  As I got off my horse, a train came by, slowly.  It was in rough shape.  The windows had been broken out and the train was moving backwards.  A man came and took my horse, because I was finished with this leg of the journey and now needed to continue on by train.  I had no idea where I was going or why. 

Last night, I dreamed I was in India.  I was dressed in a long gown with a pink veil covering me from head to toe.  I was in a temple or other large old building.  There were carved stone sarcophagi in the nooks and walls of children who had died and were preserved.  Other women were present and everyone was being nice to me because they believed I was the reincarnation of the Goddess Patanjali.  One woman told me I shouldn't wear the pink veil, because that was reserved for virgins.  Ha!

Just goes to show you how much I know about yoga.  Patanjali isn't a goddess, he is the father of yoga.  Which I didn't know until this very morning, thank you O Google the Great. 

Wonder where I'm heading tonight.  Casablanca? 

Here's looking at you, kid.