The Langston Hughes poem, The Dream Keeper, was engraved on a large glass panel in the lobby of a building I lived in at one time. It was a delight to read it each time I entered. It too, has the message to treat dreams gently/with care.
Jan 22, 2023·edited Jan 22, 2023Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
My early recurring dreams were always of encroaching waters, not waves, but tides. But over more recent years since our big-boned cuddly, sweetly expressive but non-verbal son (with Fragile X Syndrome who cannot tell you his name or address) was born, my dreams are of losing sight of him in a crowd, waking in great relief, never having found him in sleep. Terrifying. I suppose these dreams are conversations for me about the anxiety of loss of pieces of myself and loss at the very heart of life.
Last night I dreamt a conversation between myself and Ru Paul, about Elton John. I like to think of my dreams as absurdist artworks in the gallery of my mind.
Good morning! And thank you for the prompt. I love hearing about people’s dreams. A few days ago I dreamt that the sun was a hippo. I tried to point this out to several people but they didn’t have any reaction which was very frustrating to me and they looked annoyed with me for making such a fuss about the hippo sun.
As a very young child I had a recurring dream that has stayed with me. I am hiding in bushes at the edge of a forest clearing. In the open space, witches circle a large fire. They are chanting, cackling, dancing and waving their arms. I am terrified they will see me and throw me into the fire. I remain frozen. It took me many years to ask those witches what their intentions are. Now they tell me, "warming, melting, refining, shape-shifting, animal pleasure."
When I was a child, I always had to be sure my sliding closet was shut tight or else the Paxman (or Packsman, never was sure what spelling) would watch me. He didn’t feel malevolent, wanting to hurt me, he just watched me from the darkness of the closet. Years later when I was climbing out of the wreckage of a relationship where I’d given myself away, I dreamt I coaxed some “higher self” out of a room beneath some basement stairs. When he came out, he was sort of an animal/human, covered in hair, wearing a cap. He sat and listened expressionlessly as I apologized for how I’d treated myself, that I’d never do it again. And then he stood and started shimmying up a rope. When I asked where he was going, he said, “I’m going to talk to your higher self.” And just before he climbed out of sight, I said, ‘Are you the Paxman?’ And he said, “Yes.” And was gone. Taking in the idea that you’re everything in your dream and wondering if the Paxman might be about to make another dream visit. Every 30 years sounds about right.
Just woke up from a nightmare, which I hardly ever have, and your post was here, welcoming and soothing as if I had run for help. Archetypes that are parts of me? Yes. Thank you for helping me say “hello” rather than ruminating. At the same time, I wish others peace if they are actually experiencing or hurting from traumatic loss. Change can sometimes feel like it too. But it is morning, and I awake, thankful, knowing words have saved the day again.
After my now 38-year old son's father passed away suddenly when my son was aged 6, we went through a difficult time. My little son was grieving and was, for a time, expressing his anger through his relationship with me. Whilst I understood and tried my best to bend with it and help him, at times I wasn't able to keep my distress at the situation to myself.
One night after a difficult bedtime, he must have heard me crying. The next morning, my son came out to me and said "I'm not going to be like that anymore Mum. I've had one of those teaching dreams."
When I asked him about the dream, he indicated it was not something he would be talking more about. He had spoken of it as if it was a familiar concept, and one I would know and share.
I had a therapist offer this type of Jungian understanding of my dreams and it helped me move through what I thought (feared) was obsession with specific people into an understanding that those people represented parts of me that were begging for space to express themselves. It brought me back into writing and music. Thank god.
Tornadoes are the stars of my recurring dreams which I’ve had since childhood. They always signal a time of great anxiety for me. I know that I am the tornado, the loved one protecting me from the tornado, the friend chasing the tornado and the me who is frozen in awe and fear. Each is a gift.
Jan 22, 2023·edited Jan 22, 2023Liked by Pádraig Ó Tuama
a dream ca. 65 years ago... in a cave (!), I come to an old woman with a caldron who gestures to me to go into a small dark side chamber to the left ... I step in and fall down a narrow dark tunnel effortlessly, without fear. At the bottom I emerge, tranquil, into a beautiful, bright room painted and decorated to be a green meadow in summer with trees here and there around. I carry this memory with me, treasuring it.
Synchronicity! I've been reading a poem each morning from your magnificent "50 Poems to Open Your World," and this morning's was "22: La Bota" by Esteban Rodriguez. Here are a few lines from a dream poem I wrote called "Awakening" about trusting my own voice:
Someone else appeared and unrolled a very / large canvas. She handed me a fat piece of pink chalk / and asked me to edit. I told her it was already a magnificent / story with brilliant designs and lots of women. The other voice / inside of me was not surprised, “Of course you are in the story / and it is complete—listen.”
I had a dream years ago after I accompanied a dear friend in a ceremony to remember the death of her mother a decade earlier. She had died painfully after a long struggle with alcoholism and drug addition. In the dream, I was walking in a wood in early spring. All around tender green shoots sprouted and I walked on a carpet of tiny white, blue and yellow woodland flowers. I called to my friend (the one whose ceremony I witnessed). She came and stood with me while I showed her a ring that was growing out of my finger - delicate stems were inter twining around my finger with little bell like white flowers hanging off even tinier stems. They made a tinkling sound. There was an exquisite cupped center of stems and flowers. I thought, this center I am growing is unfathomable. I told my friend, I am married to the woods now. We looked at each other in wonder...
For a long time, I had a recurring dream the instant before waking that I was so close to the face of a bear that the bear filled my field of sensing. The bear’s breath and reek poured over me. I feared this dream and then and anticipated it and then missed it, and now I carry it around like a little talisman or charm.
After my mother died I dreamed of us at a picnic, together with many others. In life she was significantly compromised in movement. In death her affliction was the same but there she was in her wheelchair lapping up the perfection of the day. I asked, “Is this Heaven?” With a glint in her eye she replied “May be”.
I've been dreaming of a funeral- a Muslim funeral- i think it is mine because my point of view is ariel- looking down on the closed casket and people. But i don't recognize anyone........nor do i feel belonging. I leave and go sit with the cemetery dog.
The Langston Hughes poem, The Dream Keeper, was engraved on a large glass panel in the lobby of a building I lived in at one time. It was a delight to read it each time I entered. It too, has the message to treat dreams gently/with care.
The Dream Keeper, Langston Hughes
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
My early recurring dreams were always of encroaching waters, not waves, but tides. But over more recent years since our big-boned cuddly, sweetly expressive but non-verbal son (with Fragile X Syndrome who cannot tell you his name or address) was born, my dreams are of losing sight of him in a crowd, waking in great relief, never having found him in sleep. Terrifying. I suppose these dreams are conversations for me about the anxiety of loss of pieces of myself and loss at the very heart of life.
Last night I dreamt a conversation between myself and Ru Paul, about Elton John. I like to think of my dreams as absurdist artworks in the gallery of my mind.
Good morning! And thank you for the prompt. I love hearing about people’s dreams. A few days ago I dreamt that the sun was a hippo. I tried to point this out to several people but they didn’t have any reaction which was very frustrating to me and they looked annoyed with me for making such a fuss about the hippo sun.
As a very young child I had a recurring dream that has stayed with me. I am hiding in bushes at the edge of a forest clearing. In the open space, witches circle a large fire. They are chanting, cackling, dancing and waving their arms. I am terrified they will see me and throw me into the fire. I remain frozen. It took me many years to ask those witches what their intentions are. Now they tell me, "warming, melting, refining, shape-shifting, animal pleasure."
When I was a child, I always had to be sure my sliding closet was shut tight or else the Paxman (or Packsman, never was sure what spelling) would watch me. He didn’t feel malevolent, wanting to hurt me, he just watched me from the darkness of the closet. Years later when I was climbing out of the wreckage of a relationship where I’d given myself away, I dreamt I coaxed some “higher self” out of a room beneath some basement stairs. When he came out, he was sort of an animal/human, covered in hair, wearing a cap. He sat and listened expressionlessly as I apologized for how I’d treated myself, that I’d never do it again. And then he stood and started shimmying up a rope. When I asked where he was going, he said, “I’m going to talk to your higher self.” And just before he climbed out of sight, I said, ‘Are you the Paxman?’ And he said, “Yes.” And was gone. Taking in the idea that you’re everything in your dream and wondering if the Paxman might be about to make another dream visit. Every 30 years sounds about right.
Just woke up from a nightmare, which I hardly ever have, and your post was here, welcoming and soothing as if I had run for help. Archetypes that are parts of me? Yes. Thank you for helping me say “hello” rather than ruminating. At the same time, I wish others peace if they are actually experiencing or hurting from traumatic loss. Change can sometimes feel like it too. But it is morning, and I awake, thankful, knowing words have saved the day again.
After my now 38-year old son's father passed away suddenly when my son was aged 6, we went through a difficult time. My little son was grieving and was, for a time, expressing his anger through his relationship with me. Whilst I understood and tried my best to bend with it and help him, at times I wasn't able to keep my distress at the situation to myself.
One night after a difficult bedtime, he must have heard me crying. The next morning, my son came out to me and said "I'm not going to be like that anymore Mum. I've had one of those teaching dreams."
When I asked him about the dream, he indicated it was not something he would be talking more about. He had spoken of it as if it was a familiar concept, and one I would know and share.
Young ones have such clarity.
I had a therapist offer this type of Jungian understanding of my dreams and it helped me move through what I thought (feared) was obsession with specific people into an understanding that those people represented parts of me that were begging for space to express themselves. It brought me back into writing and music. Thank god.
Tornadoes are the stars of my recurring dreams which I’ve had since childhood. They always signal a time of great anxiety for me. I know that I am the tornado, the loved one protecting me from the tornado, the friend chasing the tornado and the me who is frozen in awe and fear. Each is a gift.
a dream ca. 65 years ago... in a cave (!), I come to an old woman with a caldron who gestures to me to go into a small dark side chamber to the left ... I step in and fall down a narrow dark tunnel effortlessly, without fear. At the bottom I emerge, tranquil, into a beautiful, bright room painted and decorated to be a green meadow in summer with trees here and there around. I carry this memory with me, treasuring it.
Synchronicity! I've been reading a poem each morning from your magnificent "50 Poems to Open Your World," and this morning's was "22: La Bota" by Esteban Rodriguez. Here are a few lines from a dream poem I wrote called "Awakening" about trusting my own voice:
Someone else appeared and unrolled a very / large canvas. She handed me a fat piece of pink chalk / and asked me to edit. I told her it was already a magnificent / story with brilliant designs and lots of women. The other voice / inside of me was not surprised, “Of course you are in the story / and it is complete—listen.”
I had a dream years ago after I accompanied a dear friend in a ceremony to remember the death of her mother a decade earlier. She had died painfully after a long struggle with alcoholism and drug addition. In the dream, I was walking in a wood in early spring. All around tender green shoots sprouted and I walked on a carpet of tiny white, blue and yellow woodland flowers. I called to my friend (the one whose ceremony I witnessed). She came and stood with me while I showed her a ring that was growing out of my finger - delicate stems were inter twining around my finger with little bell like white flowers hanging off even tinier stems. They made a tinkling sound. There was an exquisite cupped center of stems and flowers. I thought, this center I am growing is unfathomable. I told my friend, I am married to the woods now. We looked at each other in wonder...
For a long time, I had a recurring dream the instant before waking that I was so close to the face of a bear that the bear filled my field of sensing. The bear’s breath and reek poured over me. I feared this dream and then and anticipated it and then missed it, and now I carry it around like a little talisman or charm.
After my mother died I dreamed of us at a picnic, together with many others. In life she was significantly compromised in movement. In death her affliction was the same but there she was in her wheelchair lapping up the perfection of the day. I asked, “Is this Heaven?” With a glint in her eye she replied “May be”.
I've been dreaming of a funeral- a Muslim funeral- i think it is mine because my point of view is ariel- looking down on the closed casket and people. But i don't recognize anyone........nor do i feel belonging. I leave and go sit with the cemetery dog.