** Dreams
Probably not important to you, but I want to remember this.
The first night of the meditation course, I woke up from my dream. It wasn't a serious nightmare. It was just a visceral shock that I wasn't controlling my dreams.
I was driving an old car, something like a model T, but fancier, and I had the brakes applied, possibly exiting a parking lot. The old lady in front of me was having some trouble. So I waited. Suddenly, my car surged ahead and I was in a fender bender with the lady, even though the brakes were applied. In real life, a fender bender is not a huge deal, but I popped awake at that.
It was so shocking to me because normally, I have complete control of my dreams. I hadn't had a dream like that in over 30 years.
As a very young child, I listened to AM radio very late at night when everyone else was asleep. One radio program taught me to lucid dream, that is, control my dreams. I gained the skill just in time as I was having repeated nightmares. I have dreamed lucidly ever since, and I usually begin my dreams in an elaborate space station, populated entirely with people I want to hang out with, doing whatever I want to do.
Subsequently, at the meditation center, I had unusual dreams prominently featuring my fears. I was looking down at the ground, and as I began to look up, I saw the bottom half of a scary character from a horror movie that I was once forced to watch during a movie preview. It was a cold, undead ghostlike lady that lived in a well, I believe. I stopped panning up. Seriously? Am I seriously going to sit here and do this? I couldn't control the dream and make her go away. O.k. then. I'm going to face her. Something in my mind added a huge two-headed axe to her hand. I could see the axe-head and her feet and the lower part of her ratty garments, the axe sweating in the cold and her arm loosley swaying like a pendulum she didn't really care about. I panned up and saw her face, mostly obscured by wet stringy sections of hair. She had no expression. Maybe a slight tiredness.
I reached out, and tickled her hand. She dropped the axe. I looked back up at her face and she had an expression that said, "why the hell are you staring at me?" *I* was creeping *her* out. I suppose adding the axe to her hand was messing with her zen in the first place. "oh, sorry, did I add that axe?" I said and uncomfortably walked around her. I didn't mention that I had also just tickled her hand. Her eyes followed me like a woman would a real annoying but harmless creep. Very awkward.
I thought to myself - "Shit, that was interesting. I can control my minds reaction to scary stuff. Not only that, even the scary people can make sense on some level. Why was I scared of horror movies again?" Note: I still do not like horror movies, but after that dream I feel that I would watch them differently. I believe I that, in my mind, I would rewrite the plot and character motivation in those movies, rather than just accept them as I once did.
By day 8 or so, I was almost back to my normal lucid dreaming. I started my dreams in a space station as usual. However, extremely atypically, I followed the rules of the meditation center in my dreams, minus the vow of silence. But my dreams were actually more interesting. I realized that moderation in my dreams was missing at that point, and I am somewhat more moderate in my dreams to this day.
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