.
Dreams
and Edge feelings
26 April 05
Most
of my dreams are like low-grade movies, uninteresting and implausible.
Yet occasionally, perhaps once every few years, I have a dream
that is altogether different. These ‘powerful dreams’ always involve me waking
instantly and the entire dream is present, I remember every sequence and
nuance, the mood of the dream permeates me completely and I find it
difficult to concentrate on anything else for a few hours.
My
most recent powerful dream began with me walking the streets of London
near to where I used to work. The
atmosphere is flat and dull, my usual dream mood.
At least the sun is shining.
Then I am up on the 18th floor of a building very like
the one I used to work in. I
am looking out the window at another tall building quite close by.
This building is covered in builders’ scaffolding and there are
workers moving on them, talking and laughing.
Suddenly,
there is a loud noise. The
scaffolding has started to give way.
Three men are flung off the collapsing right hand side.
They scream loudly as they fall.
Their screams combine into an intensely loud, terrifying sound
that pierces me to the core. The
sound is primal fear of death, it is cold, shrill, brassy, metallic
- it twists my bones
and penetrates my eyes. I
can taste the brass and metal as it fills my throat, tangible, physical
and undeniable.
The
central portion of the scaffold begins to collapse, the workers there
and on the right hand side try frantically to adjust the fixings.
The central portion collapses and as the men there are hurled
off, instead of screaming in fear they continue to shout instructions to
their colleagues as they fall, telling them how to mend the platforms. I am deeply touched by their bravery.
The
remaining left hand portion starts to tremble and despite the workers
feverish efforts, it collapses and they too are hurled screaming to
their deaths.
I
am by now, of course, completely awake, though I can still hear the
screams fading as they fall . . . . . . . .
The
brassy scream is primal, in all of us and unavoidable. The brassy scream
is going to happen to all of us; our bodies will release that energy
when the time comes. How much it dominates, is up to us. It cannot be
ignored, or side-stepped but it can be swiftly recognised and allowed to
flow out, unhindered. The fear does not have to disable or even confuse
us. The deeper aspects of
our physical being know about death. There is fear there, great fear but
it is recognition that is the
deeper driver.
This
is the key quality of Edge feelings, no matter how strange they are, we
don’t learn or acquire them - we recognise
them. We recognise something that we already knew. My brassy dream of
death was not a sign of something for me to learn it was a symphony of
Edge feelings operating within a nest of my patterns.
By focusing on the feeling latent within the dream rather than on
just on its meaning, a deeper significance could emerge.
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