I've been dreaming in the borderlands a lot lately.
The borderlands are the boundary between the movies my mind makes about daily stuff and intersections with more archetypical things that suggest how energy is moving at, around, or through me. They're usually insightful and sometimes prophetic, but they're also always upsetting. What's unusual is that I had a paired set whose common elements were large buildings and simultaneous states of being close-up and at great distances, they happened on succeeding nights, and I remembered both of them without writing either one down at the time.
In dream one, I was in a large building against a plate glass wall, looking out on a narrow shore. It was dark, and the breakers were moving fast. People were swimming back to shore, in considerable distress, and many disappeared under the water. I could feel their terror, and I heard nothing although I could see them scream or shout.
I could also see something dark, moving very fast, like a cable whipping in high wind, and when I turned to my left, there was an enormous octopus or squid lying against the shore. The fast-moving things were its arms, and they picked people out of the water or dragged them under. I turned away from seeing its mouth, a kind of parrot's beak, and for a moment we looked at each other.
I flew up the stairs to the roof because I thought I could get help up there, but I stood on the roof and could only see the thrashing dark below. Although I am normally afraid of heights, the wind itself held me up and did not blow me over the edge of the building--I was many stories up, and would have died, but the wind held me.
That dream is from the borderlands because it's about working at the job. It's also about how many deaths have occurred there fairly recently, and how confused the environment is. I'm new, and I feel sealed behind the glass, and high above the misery my colleagues feel. The squid is a manager who is sucking people dry. I think I am safe from her now--but the thing that happened to make me safe was a meltdown at work, and I was utterly humiliated to have had one. I wound up having a lengthy talk with one of my four (4!) managers about it. He was more supportive than I expected. I found myself talking about larger problems I was seeing around me but couldn't fix. I was grateful for the kindness.
The next night I was standing in a very large house--or a small art gallery, owned by two members I've met here. They were present but I only saw one of them, very briefly, walking down a gallery hallway lined with windows and green plants.
The windows were large, but the inner rooms had huge, colorful paintings in conservatory or museum-type gilded frames. I wandered around with them, drinking something from a glass as I did. The paintings made me think of the art I might expect to occur if Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollack had studied each other's work and then been coached by Willem de Kooning: thickly impasto color, vaguely figurative like de Kooning's Women series, but less hostile-feeling.
I woke feeling happy.
I can think of a lot of interpretations for this one, but none of them feel as solid as the dream itself felt.
If you interpret dreams, feel free to take a shot at it.
The borderlands are the boundary between the movies my mind makes about daily stuff and intersections with more archetypical things that suggest how energy is moving at, around, or through me. They're usually insightful and sometimes prophetic, but they're also always upsetting. What's unusual is that I had a paired set whose common elements were large buildings and simultaneous states of being close-up and at great distances, they happened on succeeding nights, and I remembered both of them without writing either one down at the time.
In dream one, I was in a large building against a plate glass wall, looking out on a narrow shore. It was dark, and the breakers were moving fast. People were swimming back to shore, in considerable distress, and many disappeared under the water. I could feel their terror, and I heard nothing although I could see them scream or shout.
I could also see something dark, moving very fast, like a cable whipping in high wind, and when I turned to my left, there was an enormous octopus or squid lying against the shore. The fast-moving things were its arms, and they picked people out of the water or dragged them under. I turned away from seeing its mouth, a kind of parrot's beak, and for a moment we looked at each other.
I flew up the stairs to the roof because I thought I could get help up there, but I stood on the roof and could only see the thrashing dark below. Although I am normally afraid of heights, the wind itself held me up and did not blow me over the edge of the building--I was many stories up, and would have died, but the wind held me.
That dream is from the borderlands because it's about working at the job. It's also about how many deaths have occurred there fairly recently, and how confused the environment is. I'm new, and I feel sealed behind the glass, and high above the misery my colleagues feel. The squid is a manager who is sucking people dry. I think I am safe from her now--but the thing that happened to make me safe was a meltdown at work, and I was utterly humiliated to have had one. I wound up having a lengthy talk with one of my four (4!) managers about it. He was more supportive than I expected. I found myself talking about larger problems I was seeing around me but couldn't fix. I was grateful for the kindness.
The next night I was standing in a very large house--or a small art gallery, owned by two members I've met here. They were present but I only saw one of them, very briefly, walking down a gallery hallway lined with windows and green plants.
The windows were large, but the inner rooms had huge, colorful paintings in conservatory or museum-type gilded frames. I wandered around with them, drinking something from a glass as I did. The paintings made me think of the art I might expect to occur if Vincent Van Gogh and Jackson Pollack had studied each other's work and then been coached by Willem de Kooning: thickly impasto color, vaguely figurative like de Kooning's Women series, but less hostile-feeling.
I woke feeling happy.
I can think of a lot of interpretations for this one, but none of them feel as solid as the dream itself felt.
If you interpret dreams, feel free to take a shot at it.
