“Night and Sleep,” by Evelyn De Morgan, 1878.
Dreams? What do we make of our dreams?
We fly. We talk to the deceased. We visit strange exotic lands where animals speak, and doors fly open to reveal amazing sights. We are entertained, intrigued, sometimes frightened, and often left hanging upon cliffs when we wake suddenly, pulled back into our normal world.
While we may not understand them, we must agree that dreams break through our waking barriers of time and space, propelling us into magical realms where anything is possible. We relive the past, and we contemplate a future where infinite possibilities open before us. Most confine dreams to nocturnal experiences where the body sleeps and an inner director orchestrates a variety of scenarios, some impossibly weird. We can pay attention to these inner experiences, or we may simply ignore and dismiss them.
Are dreams merely the stars of an emotional clearing house where our experiences are sorted, stored, and/or shredded, all compliments of a mysterious network of cerebral neurons?
Whether or not we pay attention to dreams, they- like the pronouncement of the Oracle of Delphi informing us that the God is present whether or not called for- dreams are likewise present, whether or not we acknowledge them.
“Vocatus Atque, non vocatus, Deus aderit.” Called or not, God is present. Proclamation of the Oracle of Delphi, Temple of Apollo. Dreams too, are present, whether or not we acknowledge them.
For me, dreams are important. From my childhood when dream journaling was confined to sheets of cardboard taken from my father’s laundered shirts, through the years of carefully writing dream notes in black and white marbled notebooks, to my present-day electronic dream journaling, dreams have entertained, intrigued, and opened worlds far beyond my waking landscape. There is much I learn from contemplating my inner dream experiences.
Early on, I discovered that I could dream not only at night but also while I was awake. It began quite accidentally. I found I could empty my toy closet, slip inside it, close the door, and travel far from my childhood bedroom. As I outgrew the closet, I slipped beneath my bed to continue these waking dream experiences.
It would be decades later when I discovered shamanism, the intentional shifting of consciousness to enter non-ordinary reality, AKA, (as known as) dreamtime. While there is so much more I could say about shamanism, and shall in another post, at this moment, experiencing dreamtime while awake is something I would like to focus upon.
Dreams can manifest when we are awake, when we, like the shaman, intentionally shift our focus to see something beyond the waking physical environment. We expand our consciousness, and we connect with the amazing world of the beyond. I do not speak of empty daydreams where we see ourselves winning a lottery, or dating a famous person. While daydreams may provide entertainment and escape from a dreary moment, they are not the dreams that expand our world and offer us guidance and understanding about ourselves and our incarnational journey. True dreams do this.
While the frivolous daydream might be pleasant, it can be considered rising from an inner personal director who wishes to paint a sunny story. Homer, the Greek poet credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, once spoke of the two portals of dream: the Gate of Horn, true dreams, and the Gate of Ivory, deceitful dreams. When we create our daydream of winning the lottery, we are deceiving ourselves, hence it is a false dream. A true dream rises from the inner voice of wisdom, what I call the Soror Mystica, presenting us with a message, like that given by the Oracle of Delphi at the Temple of Apollo, puzzling, often veiled, and many layered. We need to ponder and contemplate its meaning, digging for its treasure.
Ace of Cups from “The Tarot of Dream and Vision,” by J. Piedilato. The image can be seen as the marriage of the Soror Mystica, the voice of dream, with waking rational consciousness forming the perfect marriage, each benefitting from the other.
Both waking and sleep-generated dreams present us with the opportunity to learn more about ourselves and our true nature. What rises first to consciousness is only a doorway to what is hidden. Hence, what appears initially incomprehensible, eventually opens its doors to something wondrous and helpful. The time we spend pondering our dreams is richly rewarded with the discoveries that ultimately appear. It is time well spent.
My waking dreams, initiated decades ago in my little toy closet, have continued through the many years of my life, through happy and sorrowful times. I live in two worlds, navigating the between, expanding the ever-shifting limited view of my eyes. I have spent a lifetime exploring my dreams, continually seeking to better understand myself and the world around me.
When my firstborn beautiful daughter passed, it was natural that I sought to connect with her in a waking dream immediately after her passing. Surely with my strong dreaming experiences, I expected to accomplish this. Yet a year passed, and I was unable to connect, neither in sleep-generated nor waking dreaming. The rational me understood this as an important message: My desiring communication did not generate an imaginal visitation. It confirmed my belief that when I did connect with the beyond, the communication would be authentic, not of my orchestration. Time passed, and I trusted that if a communication was to manifest, it would do so in its time, not mine.
Thus, when I least expected it, when I had not the slightest inkling of seeking such communication, the following waking dream manifested at a shamanic workshop where together with eight strangers in a teaching location, we journeyed to the Isle of Ancient Elders in search of wisdom. I offer the following waking shamanic dream :
I was in a small craft, the water below me, still as a mirror, reflecting the full moon sitting low in the indigo sky. I was not alone as there were two other passengers with me, strangers, a young male and an older female. We sat in silence as our canoe moved along with the guidance of some unseen force. None of this seemed strange to me as I sat in awe of the beauty of the night and our approach to the mysterious island that radiated an aura of green light. It was not until our craft pulled itself onto land that I noticed the light came from thousands of fireflies that danced in a fairy circle on the shore.
It was an awesome sight and I found myself mystified. For a moment, I was transfixed, spellbound by its magic.
“Midsummer Eve,” by Edward Robert Hughes, circa 1908.
Slowly all shifted and my eyes adjusted. The fairy circle had disappeared, and in its place I found my daughter standing before me, greeting me. Although I had unsuccessfully attempted to communicate with her since her death, now a year past, I was confused by her presence. Instead of reaching out to hug her, I asked her what she was doing on the Isle of the Ancient Elders. In my mind I had a task which was to meet with an ancient one and retrieve a message to bring back to the shamanic group. She, a youth of ten, did not qualify as a wise elder. I was strangely filled with my need to accomplish my assigned workshop mission, ignoring the significance of seeing her, something I had desperately desired since she passed. My reaction made no sense, and yet, it was my reaction at the time.
“Why are you here?” I asked, rather sharply.
She understood my confusion, this child of ten, far wiser than her mother, decades her elder. She pointed to herself and smiled.
“This is not who I am,” she began, “I look like this so you can recognize me. You would not know me, unless I showed you what you expect to see.”
In a flash, she disappeared, reappearing as a beautiful young woman, taking on the image of what had never been and what would never manifest.
In my confusion, I watched her disappear before a gentle breeze caressed my cheek.
“You cannot see me. Yet I am with you.”
I stood there, on the Isle of Ancient Elders, completely confused, my heart beating quickly in my chest. Where were the fireflies? Where were my companions? Where was my beautiful daughter? And where was the elder I sought?
In silence I remained, alone, isolated in my thoughts, before suddenly all shifted. The earth beneath me opened, and I fell into a whirlpool of racing water. I gasped.
In the blue depths of the sea, I saw the green light of thousands of tiny shimmering fish. The water was alive, and I was soaring upward, my lungs expanding as I broke the surface. My eyes adjusted quickly to the brilliant sun that now turned the surface into a sea of sparkling diamonds, light radiating in all directions.
Swimming and singing near me were beautiful young nymphs, reminding me of The Awakening of Adonis, the famous painting by John William Waterhouse.
“The Awakening of Adonis,” by John William Waterhouse, 1899.
“How can this be?” My voice ran out, loud and clear.
“Youth all around me when this is the Isle of the Ancient Elders!”
Like radiant Venus, rising from the foam of the sea, my beautiful daughter, my child, answered my question with one of her own.
“What did you paint on the wall of my bedroom? Do you not remember?”
“Of course, I remember. How could I forget!”
It was long ago and yet could be yesterday. I felt my hand holding the brush as I put the finishing details on the mural. Why had I not painted Cinderella or Snow White? Why were there not fairies or ballerinas upon the wall of my firstborn and only daughter?
I cannot answer that question, not now, not ever. For I had no inclination to paint any of those beloved fairytale characters.
I painted the Little Prince from the beloved story Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” “Le Petit Prince,” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943.
I well remember.
“And that is not all, is it, mother? What else do you remember?”
The water became rough, the foam rising and frothing in peaks all around me. The young nymphs were singing a familiar song I loved, reminding me of my own operatic voice from long ago singing the very same melody from The Bohemian Girl, an Irish Romantic operetta, composed by Michael William Balfe, loosely based on La Gitanilla, by Miguel de Cervantes. The 1936 Black and White cinematic classic featuring Laurel and Hardy was a favorite of mine. Its famous aria, I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls was my theme song. The song told of a life hidden somewhere in the dreams of the young gypsy who sang it. She remembered that she came from somewhere other than where she lived among the gypsies. It expressed my own belief that I was just visiting this place we call Earth, that my name was not Janet, and that the wonderful family caring for me, were not my true parents or siblings. How was I to guess that the belief was not childish at all? It was an early attempt at awakening me to remember my true nature, all generated by my fertile dream life, all rising now in the song of the nymphs frolicking in the waters surrounding the Isle of the Elders.
The Bohemian Girl, classic 1936 operetta. From the gypsy caravan, the song “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls.” fills the air.
I not only sang the aria, but I played the music on the piano, and years later I continue to listen to it playing on a music box, gift of my wonderful husband. I remember more. I remember the music shop my spouse and I entered long ago, wandering among lovely antiques. We stopped before the exquisite music box I was drawn to, mesmerized by its beauty. The salesman, seeing the attention I was paying to it, cranked the cylinder that was in place and slowly the room filled with notes of the cherished aria Tears flowed from my eyes, warmth filling me. The salesman opened the music box drawer to reveal other cylinders with a wide selection of music. I nodded. The only music that mattered was already in place, playing for me, reminding me of my childhood belief. We left the shop, and months later, I woke on Valentine’s Day to the playing of “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls” on that music box that my loving husband had purchased and saved to surprise me. The Laurel and Hardy classic film, The Bohemian Girl, was released on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1936, and here on this Valentine’s Day, my soulmate had surprised me with the music box he had held all those months—also the anniversary of the classic film, along with our engagement anniversary.
“Yes, my child. I remember.” I whispered.
Memories. Life. Dreams. A tapestry, woven of deep meaning, tied together with a rainbow of love. Remembering the hidden truth of the life that dwells in the physical form, for a time, in time, before ultimately returning to the source, awakening to remembering ….visiting the Here, born and destined to return to the Hereafter.
Antique music box in my private collection, playing “ I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls.”
Treading water in my dream, I heard the nymphs singing the aria, remembering what it still means to me this day: That indeed I am merely visiting this life where my body ages and dies. I come from afar, from beyond the seen. As the young gypsy finally returns to her true home in the operetta, a mansion with marble halls, someday I, too, shall return to the “Mansion of Millions of Years,” the great Cosmic Womb, the Hereafter. As my child visited for a while with me, coming through but not from me, she, too, returned home from whence she came.
Like my child, I am not what I seem to be.
“That which is essential is invisible to the eyes.”
“Just so!”
With that, the sea rose in a great tsunami, and like a giant bubble burst open.
I returned to waking consciousness, filled with the wonder of it all.
My beloved child, my Janette, passed at age ten speaking to me, a year after her passing, present when most unexpected.
In waking dream I traveled to the Isle of Ancient Elders.
With my eyes, I saw my beloved child. With my heart, I found wisdom.
“Just so!”
“Dream World”, watercolor by J. Piedilato. Remembering and Awakening to enter the Mansion of Millions of Years, our origin and destination.
Janet Piedilato is a dream analyst, author, teacher, shamanic guide to sacred pilgrimage, divination practice, ancestral mystery ritual, and culinary celebration. Information on Janet and her publications may be found on janetPiedilato.net
Loved reading this dream experience and feeling inspired to keep working with, learning from my own dreams. I also loved the Tarot card and its caption describing "the marriage of the Soror Mystica, the voice of dream, with waking rational consciousness forming the perfect marriage, each benefitting from the other."
Another true, insightful wonderfully written JP story! Thank you Janet.