I dream of dying.

I don’t mean that I “wish” for death in the physical realm. I mean that I actually have dreams, where I die, almost every single night.

I’ve been recording, studying and analyzing my dreams every day for almost one year now. And this study, in combination with the books and my mediations, has become one of my most powerful tools for navigating both my personal subconscious and the collective unconscious that I, in agreement with Carl Jung, believe underlies the history of all humanity

Consequently, I have come to consider the dream realm a direct channel to the Source of Creativity, which I happen to also consider the Source of All. The artists, the musicians, the poets, the magicians, the healers and the alchemists know this channel well. For it is where they dip their paintbrushes, pens, wands and fingers. And any person who creates something really beautiful, knows better than to claim personal credit. They know that they are only knocking on the door of a mansion, and they are a guest in the house of Creativity, and that if the door opens and they are given a flower from the garden inside, it is not to be called their own, but be respected as the gift that it is, in understanding that there are miles of magical gardens inside from which this small representative sprang.

It is this flower that I call Inspiration.

It is this flower that I dedicate my life to seeking and sharing.

And it is this flower that is left on my bed every single morning when I wake.

I am in complete agreement with Don Juan (“Journey to Ixtlan” Carlos Cansteneda) when he advises:

“Dreaming is real when one has succeeded in bringing everything into focus. Then there is no difference between what you do when you sleep and what you do when you are not sleeping.”

If there is such a thing as enlightenment, I imagine it to be as such: The merging of the conscious, the personal subconscious and the collective unconscious. This definition is only my own, and it’ll probably take me a few dozen more lifetimes to see if there’s any validity to it. But if we are all still together, it sure would make a good blog wouldn’t it? *laughing*

So there is no better piece of advice I can offer to those who want to begin their own internal quest of exploration than to start with Dreaming; To make sense of the sleeping reality, and make dreamy the waking reality. To level the sub and conscious worlds, till you find the one where they meet — where metal itself is enlightened to its own potential, and suddenly changes to gold. To walk the bridge between the reflections of seemingly alternate realities, and realize that they are one.

No tools necessary, aside from perhaps a pen and paper. A new creative case to be assigned each night. A whole new world to explore, no boarding pass needed. A free ticket to travel, and you’ll be back in time for breakfast.

(With what great taste Life has been designed!)

I had my first absolutely lucid dream two weeks ago. It only took me eleven months of dream study and practice to finally, in a dream, fly into the air and shout, “I’m LUCID DREAMING!!!” Eleven months of setting the intention every single night in bed before lucidity actually came to me. (I’m the slowest learner of all! And I WILL love that about myself.) In the lucid (conscious) dream, I felt myself not “out” of body, but within the “inner” body; Confined, but at the same time free, or as I realized while in the dream, “it´s like being peeled away from the physical…why does this feel so familiar? Ah ha! Because I feel just like I do — in meditation!”

Why of course there would be a link between meditation and dreaming! I shake my head now in the obviousness of it all. Quite clearly Meditation and Dreaming are parallel paths to the same Channel of Creation. My exploration of the bridge between the two, however, has just begun. And as if in confirmation of this exact (personal) fact, I had this dream last night:

I am kneeling on the ground. There is a tall, regal looking man standing over me. He holds a beautiful silver sword that he gracefully swings over my shoulder and head in a manner that I accept as a blessing. And then, wordlessly, he pronounces my death sentence. A single tremor of fear quakes through my body, but as soon as I recognize it as so (“This is fear.”), it stops. And then I slowly bow, sit down, cross my legs, lay my open hands on my knees, and pull my upper body and neck erect. And in this position, I lift my face to the man, gently close my eyes, softly go into mediation — and surrender. And when I close my eyes, the king and the sword disappear and a darkness falls over the dream. And there I wait – suspended and buoyant – on the secret bridge between meditation and dreaming – until I wake.

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