A more memorable dream

Today’s dream upon awakening I can remember. The theme was one that’s common for me. It’s about trying to get outside, yet door after door doesn’t lead outside but into another room, from apartment to house and back again, mostly on the same level, but sometimes going down a flight of stairs. Some rooms were poor. Some were middle class homes. In those there was food everywhere, sweets, both cakes and candies. The candies had so many frosted lines decorated into the tops, some chocolates, some jellies. It was a cross between a See’s store and some Japanese presentation where there were so many colors and patterns in these various lumps of food. The cakes were also of many patterns and colors that I’d never quite seen before. I didn’t eat any of it. I wanted to, but my inhibition against stealing kept me from that. Also my mission was to get out, not to stop for food. So the few words I exchanged with people were about the way outside. They might have said it was OK to eat, but I didn’t ask about that, and they didn’t offer.

At the end there was an explanation for some of the food. It was someone’s birthday and everything within a few feet of the outside door was decorated in golden ribbons that spelled out “Happy Birthday” in an artful way, many ribbons making up each letter. I was jealous of how much effort was directed at the birthday boy. I didn’t grow up like that. It was an obvious chore to raise me, as it is for many children. Joy was for someone else.

One aspect of this that wouldn’t have been there when I was young was when the last door closed. The lower half of the outside of the door was covered in ads, between those one can see on websites and those one can see on the cover of a telephone directory. There was much fine print listing websites, many underlined as if these were links. I wonder where the mouse is or the pointer in the image? I wonder if my finger would have worked to change the whole door to another site.

It is a dream of discontent. I want to get out, but all these places are more of the same, filled with things that attract me, but are meaningless. I’ve had this dream in many ways, so I know this theme well. Still the process fascinates me. None of it is memory. All the intricacies of the rooms, the food, and people of all races, genders, and ages were newly created for this dream. None were that different from things I’ve experienced, but they were all somewhat different. Where does this come from? If it’s from me, it’s certainly nothing I control directly. I have to dream first. Nothing I can imagine while awake comes close. Could it be from outside of me? How might that be?

Now where is the door for that?

I don’t remember if I used to have these dreams and couldn’t find my way out. I know in recent years I always find my way out. It’s just a matter of time and persistence. I wonder if I learned that from real life, from exploring so much to know there is a way out. I do it everyday. I close my eyes, let go of this world and say “Lord?” or “Spirit?” or “Father?” or a few other names I’ve learned. In recent years there’s always an answer in words. There’s someone who tells me that there is an outside, outside the falseness, hatred and indifference of this world. It’s wonderful there, a place with its own physics, with no need for rules, for those who have life there as well as here. So many people would object to my saying anything about this. It’s OK to have dreams, but to claim there is something real from a similar experience is a threat to all sorts of people. It means they might not have perfect beliefs as it is. Many people can’t have that.

That I know is a fact. I know other facts. The world of my senses is something I can’t make up. So are the intricacies of my dreams. So are the details I hear from God. Maybe those last two are related. Maybe everything I’ve experienced spiritually is a waking dream, no more believable than that. Yet I still get direction, strength and comfort spiritually, even if that is the case, just as dreams can point out my discontent or other things within me. I wish people could accept the gift in this without fighting about religion telling them what to do or the devil trying to steal one’s salvation. I know for a fact that there is a way outside rooms with such fighting, even if I have to climb out a window.

Just as one can find some love and some truth in this world, there is hope of a better place beyond this world where there is only love and only truth. Maybe it’s false hope. Maybe it’s true hope. I certainly wouldn’t trust ancient beliefs from a time when people didn’t even know that moonlight was reflected sunlight, but those who call all spirituality insane aren’t people I want to be with. They don’t know love. Nor do I trust people who say their prescription to get outside this world is correct, but are full of falseness, hatred and indifference in their own behavior. Nor do I trust people who say this world is for nothing, that everyone goes to heaven, and everyone’s beliefs are correct. That’s not what I hear. There is redemption, but not remedial training in how to have a spirit. Physical death isn’t so bad. One life is long enough for those who can’t find a way to make theirs useful.

My dreams do tend to stop once I’ve gotten outside. God gives me many metaphors about what it means to be with Him. Time will tell if some aren’t metaphors at all, but until then the outside is unexplored for me, just how the outside reaches into us in some ways. Few believe that. For all those who believe in ancient stories about how the outside world reaches into this world, few accept any modern experiences about that. People are so afraid of being wrong that they guarantee they must be wrong through their rigid beliefs. Yes, that’s what this world is like. People follow their nature, and that can be exactly the wrong thing to do. It takes willingness to be different from that, or cakes and candies are as good as it gets.