The Dreaming Universe

I've been reading Daniel Pinchbeck's excellent psychedelic travelogue Breaking Open The Head and one of the most profound realizations of his experiences is the depth and reality of the spirit world and the beings which live in the interstices between mundane life and the subtle dimensions of dream and vision. From the machine elves of DMT to the "heavenly ones" of ayahuasca, the ancestors of eboga and the mushroom people of amanita, the plant psychedelics seem to show the vast terrestrial and extra-terrestrial intelligences present throughout nature, like a waking dreamworld shut off by the human species' deadly insistence upon scientific rationality and numeric evidence. This dreamworld seems to be a very real place, and its star-lit landscapes home to many forces.

This morning my sleep found me in contact with some such force or spirit. The realms of dreams and the psychedelic experience are kindred and tap into the same continuous landscape of spirit and imagination. Within this place arise archetypes and patterns, as well as apparently sentient entities common to many visionary experiences and often bound in some familiar way to the agent of invocation. Elvish or alien beings, for instance, are a common experience of those who blast into the DMT space, lending a consistency and presence to their fundamental existence beyond mere hallucination. Similarly, in tracking my dreams I've realized an interior map of places I commonly visit. A rocky coastline, a large grocery store, an apartment complex - these among others recur in my dreams, uniquely altered in each, but consistent as ideals. I've been mapping this internal geography, and in perceiving this fundamental pattern my dreamscape seems to exist regardless of whether or not I'm dreaming.

This morning I met a man of sickly ochre pallor, skin like wet plastic, aged and sharpened yellow teeth. His black eyes captured my gaze as I stared, both mesmerized and appalled by his visage. I couldn't help but marvel at how unusual and menacing he looked. He was trying to convince me of something and it made me uncomfortable. I left only to be pursued by a black-hooded figure in tattered rags, faceless and riding a bicycle. As it neared me I could feel a tangible presence drawing close to my flesh. I tried to maneuver away but my movements became sluggish and labored as the entity circled around to confront me. Shaking and afraid I jacked out and awoke.

The most striking aspect of this dream to me is its uniqueness. I rarely have dreams where I become scared. Usually my dreams are light adventures where I float through them feeling strong and in control. Furthermore I rarely ever meet such dark and menacing characters. The tangibility of fear was the element which lent the most realism to the experience and made me consider its depth. If I adopt Pinchbeck's realization - which I am inclined to do as it resonates much with my own experiences - then I met a malevolent entity of some power intruding on my dream, manifest as the ochre man then as the black-hooded bicyclist. Perhaps I met a demon, or a dark archetype (they are the same, after all) feeding off of my fear. An Archon.

Questions of course arise, least of which would probably concern the reality of this dream and the sanity of the dreamer. What did this entity want? What was the source of my fear? More importantly, what does the vision mean to me? And this is the central crux of the issue and the fundamental element which separates the mystical path from that of rationalism: Meaning. Science and rationalism have stripped meaning from life in favor of material evidence. Mysticism seeks to balance the world of materialism with the world of imagination. Or, more correctly, mysticism seeks to bring spirit into matter to awaken the dreaming universe to its own lucid glory. The kingdom of heaven is on earth. Creation is the dream of god and we are all sleepers.

Posted by LVX23 at May 3, 2004 02:10 PM | TrackBack