Our Dreamings...

My brotherfriend wrote me the other day about some of his dreams.  This is something we often do.  His writing sparked this conversation between us:

My dreams have been all psychic angst lately.  Last night I took a sports car out for a test drive, and immediately crashed it into a harbor or boat dock or river channel or something.  The night before I had to let Her be gang-raped by a group of nasty, drug-addled urban pirates, because it was the only way to get us both out of the situation alive (if I'd tried to stop them, they'd have just killed me and raped her anyways).  Others have been more mundane - She and I fighting or bickering in some strange, emotionally-amplified way; uncomfortable, awkward, ego-bruising social situations.  In one memorable one, I was living in my office on the weekends for some reason, and as I was laying in my tiny office bed masturbating one Saturday morning, the whole office suddenly showed up for work/a party (it was a party, but people were working - ??) and I was caught naked and furry-handed, as it were, and then fired in the most humiliating manner imaginable.

    So - this may be a dumb question, but how do you feel about these dreams after you wake, is it more of a nightmare response - quickened pulse, hard breathing, kind of thing? Do you take them as expressions of turmoil, or do you see much omen in them?


I don't think that's a dumb question.  When I wake I can usually feel the residual, coming-down edge of adrenaline, the fleeting wake of anxiety.  Not quite a quickened pulse or hard-breathing (it's been a long time since I had a dream that upset me to that degree; what I wouldn't give to have a true full-bore, holy-fuck nightmare), but I can tell that something just happened.  Then I'll remember the dream, and that will lead to a feeling of "ugh, fuck" and then I'll be in a bad mood for a little while.  (Or sometimes longer, depending on how bad the dream was.  The gang-rape left me pretty fucked up for most of the day.)

I don't generally interpret my dreams, or try to divine from them, unless there is something unusual or interesting about the dream; some quality that makes it stand out from the usual nighttime fluff and cerebral noise.  Whether pleasant or painful, if it feels like "just a dream" then I usually treat it that way.  But dreams that are particularly vivid, say - I will pay more attention to those, and go over them afterwards again and again, sifting for relevant or interesting data.  Those dreams where I have an interesting quality of consciousness - where I am more aware than usual, that I remember in more detail upon waking, etc. - will also usually attract my attention and therefore garner greater scrutiny.  I've also learned to recognize certain signs over the years that I know mean something to me.  For instance, whenever a dead person appears in my dream, and does not speak, I know that something different was happening that night, and that was not just an ordinary dream.  (For some reason, dead people never speak in my dreams.  They communicate, but only through body language, facial expressions, and hand gestures.  They never say anything.  And I only ever remember after I wake up, "oh, wait a minute - that person is dead.")  Dreams with multiple layers, dreams with puzzles or labyrinths, dreams where I am lost, dreams where the lights go out, dreams where I display some vulgar magickal ability; these all usually mean something to me.

As for how I interpret those dreams worthy of attention - as coded messages (either from myself or Other), as portents or omens, as communications from or meetings with outside spirits or entities, or what-have-you - depends entirely on the specifics of the dream itself.  It's just a sense of that particular dream.  What did it feel like?  That's probably what it was.

Most of my dreams lately have just been the usual noise.  The fact that they've been less than pleasant is due, I believe, simply to the fact that I've been under more stress than usual lately.  I've been working hard, both at work and home, and not relaxing enough, or expressing enough, and so the pressure-release valve of my unconscious is blasting all that psychic bong-resin out the back of my head as I sleep.  That's how it feels to me, anyways.

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Every night, when I lay down to go to sleep, I perform a Dreamlands visualization.  I see my Astral standing naked on the bed where we're sleeping, and I take my Silver Key off of my bedstand where it hangs, and put it around my neck; as soon as it is around my neck it morphs into the Silver Key (complete with "arabesque" symbols, etc.).  At that point, a hole opens up in my bed, revealing a staircase leading downward into the Dreamlands.  I count out each of the Seventy Steps of Light Slumber, down to the Cavern of Flame, where I then have to perform some feat in order to convince the gatekeepers Nasht and Kaman-Tha that I am worthy to travel in the Dream.  It is usually something gruesome and grotesque, such as flaying myself alive and magickally creating a robe to wear from the strips of my skin; or transfiguring myself into some many-limbed, many-eyed, many-teeted, many-tentacled thing that tears its way out of my body, or burning myself alive in magickal fire until all my flesh is burned away and I am just a spirit of living flame.  Stuff like that, whatever I come up with that particular night.  It's different every time.  If I'm then judged worthy by the Gatekeepers, they will open a doorway in the CoF revealing the staircase of the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber, which lead down to the Enchanted Wood that is the entrance to the Dreamlands, and I will then begin to descend those, again counting out each step as I go.  I always arrive in the CoF naked, but always leave robed.  I almost always make it to the CoF before I fall asleep, and I am almost always judged worthy.  I have made it to the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber many times, but have never made it to the Enchanted Wood before falling asleep.  I often fall asleep in the CoF while performing for Nasht and Kaman-Tha.

      Just curious - is there a particular reason that your feats are all body horror related? Is there any relationship between those feats and the kinds of dreams you have? I really like the path working, and might use it myself - but I wasn't sure if the transformations were something you feel is important to the entire process, or if it is the best way for you to convince Nasht and Kaman-Tha that you should be permitted to descend the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber.



I've never felt any anxiety about these nightly grotesqueries; they've never upset me.  If anything, they're kind of a thrill.  I'll never get to do any of these things in real life, so it's kind of fun to get to do them in my head, and let my imagination run wild.  So, no, I wouldn't say that they have anything to do with the unpleasantness of my recent dreams.  Though I guess it's certainly possible.  I've never kept tally of the number of good vs. bad dreams I've had after passing through the Cavern of Flame.

As to why they are all "body horror" related (which I originally read as "bloody horror"), I'm not quite sure what you mean.  I guess I can see now that the three examples I gave were each an instance of me mutilating my body in some fashion, but that was just a coincidence; I didn't mean to imply that I always need to rend my flesh in some manner in order to impress the Gatekeepers.  I've also often done astral work, or summoned a creature, or something else.  So, the only real requirement is that it be a feat of magickal or psychic prowess.

All I'm really trying to do there, is impress upon Nasht and Kaman-Tha that I am worthy to enter the Dream.  That I am both powerful enough to take care of myself, and that I am familiar enough with the kinds of oddities I am likely to find at the bottom of that long staircase that I am probably not going to go mad as soon as I get there.  Probably.  I am trying to display to them, both the powers of my imagination and an ability to control the dream.  And then no doubt the simple fact that it's a Mythos working must also color my imagination in some fashion, leading to a greater incidence of performances of "unimaginable horrors."  You work with the Mythos, and you're gonna get some tentacles.  That's just unavoidable.

I imagine that everyone's experience with the Gatekeepers would be unique to the individual magickian/dreamer, though.  I'd be really interested to know yours.