Within this book, I go to a psych hospital, almost become homeless on an aimless road trip alone out west for a month, move back in with mother, move out, psych hospital again, and have a very severe long episode of psychotic dissociation. I am abused by a narcassistic boss and horrible job. I am sexually taken advantage of by two different people, both of whom I thought were my friends. I meet Nilly, and our relationship deepens. I have a dissociative psychotic episode that gives me spiritual visions.
I am floating through space in a room. Someone else is there too, holding Kris, who is asleep and bound in string. Then I am holding him. I don't want to, but feel I must push him out of the window, toward an island of green and trees below. He wakes and doesn't want to go, but finally does, and lands in the water peacefully as a goose.
I am with my brother, following an unexplainable old feeling from childhood. We cross a river to the place, but the forest was destroyed, and only holly trees remained. My brother said he understood, but I get angry at him because I knew he didn't.
My father, brother, and a feminine figure, and I are watching from the porch a catastrophically intense storm. We see an enormous dark mass within tracking across the horizon, with a rainbow reflecting within. We realize it is a ferocious tornado heading for us, with no escape. We panic and quickly give up, hugging each other and saying goodbye. The storm just misses us. The dream follows with an interlude dream, with me telling others the experience, but it soon becomes aanother version of the first dream. In this one, we get in the car and race to town, with the sirens and every light blaring and spasming as we escape.
I am with my childhood friend, trying to ride draft horses, but having a hard time getting on them. My brother is riding an old, worn down horse, and I insist he get off and walk it.
I am a baby, trying to escape with another. He leaves me and says he has a plan for me too. An old man and younger woman find me, and bring me to a basement that looks like my grandparent's basement to give me a new name. There are empty canning jars with names on them in rows on shelves. The people seem kind, and I am confused if they are good or bad.
My brother is blowing smoke into the fire alarm at my grandparent's house, trying to set it on fire. In a following dream, we are in a mansion that is on fire. I am afraid. We try to escape but I wake.
A man is walking along an enormous highway at night, as if he is balancing on a line. I tell him to get away from the road, and it starts to pelt down a saltlike or hard snow pellets, and the wind becomes stormy. We flee and are chased by creatures that aren't actually dangerous.
In waking life, I am currently on the island Dominica, and had gone to visit native petroglyphs that day, and had this dream based on a talk I had watched explaining the glyphs. The natives had carved eyes above the only source of freshwater on the island, so the souls would forever be reflected from the pool. Dream: I dreamt of these petroglyphs, the reflecting eyes, and I wept, and shoved my brother aside to climb into the water, almost like a baptism.
I am sleeping, feeling myself become a liquid, sinking gently into the rest of the earth and everyone in it until I am wholly, completely at peace.
My teacher is above me chanting, and I am below him, listening. I start to do some form of divination and the spirits begin talking to me, and it feels sublime. In another dream, I am very weak and can barely stand. My teacher tells me to kneel and I say I am too weak, but I try to walk, because I want to do some sort of spirit work that day.
I feel a powerful need to leave my old life for a new one, because I feel a spiritual urge to do so.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a mysterious key.
The second of this dream. An imposter, evil snake is in Alyosha's tank. In the first of this dream, he gets out and I chase him. In the second dream, he is there again, a large, disturbing snake. He escapes again, but I catch him. He bites my hand.
I am in my shamanic outfit, and a beautiful woman says this: "Be strong and love and MANIFEST THE BEAUTY OF THE UNIVERSE." Only the caps is certain what was said.
A bridge with a river along its length, where a road would be. Boats are floating toward it, and I as well, but decide to turn around and go upstream.
The dream feels like a story. Jason and I live in a poor apartment in a city, with bad jobs and other relationships. One day I am talking to a girl who also lived in our flat while I was feeling unstable. She asks if I am going into town with Jason to get supplies for his big project. Curious, I asked about this. He tells me he is going to build the greatest carving the village has ever seen. I remark, "Oh, you can carve wood?" He said yes, but only ordinary wood. He had never tried with BLOOMWOOD, that was like the marble of woods. I suggest he start smaller, but he disagrees.
In waking life, this is the last day with my therapist, and the last day before I depart on an indefinite trip across the united states, potentially to live somewhere else. I have no plans other than to get to the coast, and follow a spiritual shamanic longing. I need to find a teacher.
All I hear is a poem.
'MOTHER, WHY DOES HE HAVE WINGS? THE FIRST TIME I SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW, EVERYTHING WAS NEW.'
I am in my shamanic outfit, standing in awe on a bridge over a highway. I pick up the bracelet of a shaman, with leather and tassles. I later meet him in my outfit, and am embarassed that he thought I was insincere(fake). He shows me his tattoos.
It has been several weeks since I returned from out west. My mother had bailed me out, or I would have truly been homeless. The necklace is a token related to my Greek friend, Kris, who has disappeared.
I am at grandma's house. In waking life, she had recently died. I am going through drawers, looking for something to replace my necklace. Grandpa translates some, in Greek. Then I am in my room on the ground by my closet with someone. He has black hair, maybe Kris. I am happy, and he strokes my hair as I curl up with him. Suddenly I see a human figure in my brother's room and am terrified. I tell Kris that they are back. He stands and I hide behind him as he fights many animals. Eventually it is too much, and he picks me up and we flee the house into the snow toward my car, fighting dogs. I beg to know where Virgil is.
Kris comes to me as a firefly. I accidentally bury him in soil, but uncover him. He sends me a message and call him. He answers; I have never heard his voice before, even in dreams. He says my name τωβ. It is summer, which is rare for my dreams. Normally it is winter or seasonless. He has a thick accent and sounds cheerful, switching between Greek and English. I want to ask why he was gone so long, since he seems okay. Instead, I tell him I had dreamt of riding joyously on a colt. He asks me what it might mean. I reply 'Something like a goodbye.'
I dream I am pregnant and afraid of the pain of giving birth. In waking life, I am trans ftm.
In waking life, I have recently made a new friend, Nilly. I dreamt I am leading people to safety, escaping from a disease(?). My childhood friend, brother, and I are all tied together. In another dream I am watching a strange fish dance under my flashlight at night. I say it is because he mistook it for the moon.
A particularly sadistic nightmare. Jason messages me, and everything is wonderful. Then I wake into a nested dream. For a minute I cry because it was just a dream, but I check my phone and see that the messages really happened. I am shocked and in disbelief. It really happened; I had made it. Relief flooded my soul. I am about to write him of my terrible nightmare, when I get out of bed instead. I sift through a stack of family photos lying in the corner of the room. I am touched, and show some to my brother. From beyond my room, I can hear my family laughing. I want to tell my mother about Jason being back. I had made it... then I wake.
Jason tells me, "WARFARE IS YOUR ONLY FEELING OF LONELINESS IN YOUR WORLD OF CHANGE."
I am in a crowded cathedral for a celebration. A thurible is being hoisted. Then I am outside, walking among some indgenous people during a spiritual ritual. Then I am on my hands and knees, crawling. I look at different people and smile, nodding, and they nodded back. I hold a mini thurible figure of the one at the cathedral. As I hold the little thurible, the real one is being pulled to the top of the rope. The emotion is overpowering.
In waking life over the past few months, I have been at a mental hospital for 10 days, and experiencing intense psychotic dissociative episodes, visions, and extremely severely bad mental health. Meanwhile, my relationship with Nilly deepens.
I am with a group, and we see a boy lost in the desert. I gather some food for him and take a horse to save him. The dream ends before I can save him.