Allright here we go….
I am sitting on a boat, looking at the sunset. I am waiting for that exact moment when the sun slips away and for a brief moment of time a green flash appears. There is a cool wind over the warm air and as I sit there with my feet dangling over the edge of the boat a voice echoes behind me…
“Who are you?” she asks.
I turn around and an old woman is standing behind me. She is little and yet seems strong. Lines give evidence of her age but her flashing, vibrant eyes contradict that. She sits down beside me and dangles her bare feet over the edge.
“Well”?
“I am Rachel.” I reply
The sun is nearing its decent for the day and the clouds are now illuminated beautiful colors of orange and purple.
“I didn’t ask your name dimwit. I asked who you were”
“Hey this is my dream! Are you allowed to call me a dimwit in my dream”?
Seeing her silence I decide to give her what she wants
“Well I am a girl, I am a girl who likes music and baseball and shopping and pretty things and writing…”
She stops me cold and replies, “I didn’t ask what you like. Damn you really don’t know do you.”
“Well, since you think I am some ass monkey who does not know red from green why don’t you TELL ME WHO I AM” I reply angrily.
“Watch the sunset.”
I look over and at the moment the sun disappears behind the ocean. A green flash emerges and then quickly dissipates and all that is left is the bright colors of the orange sky.
I sigh. This is some fucked up dream.
“Rachel. What you are is what you desire. Desire makes you who you are. Think about that and I will get back to you.”
With that she is gone and once again I am on the boat watching the stars emerge.
Suddenly, I am in the city. The big city. How did I get here? Oh yeah, this is a dream.
The streets are completely empty and I find myself sitting on the stoop of a pre war building.
I notice a man walking towards me. He is, also an older man. He is tall and distinguished with a head full of gray hair. His clothes seem outdated but he walks with a confident step.
“Hey Mister,” I shout at him, ‘Where did everybody go”?
“’Fraid it is just me Miss. But I am here to help you.” He smiles a warm smile and I notice his laugh lines crinkle a bit when he does.
“I don’t need help though.”
“Yes you do. You want to know the meaning of life.”
“Ummmm, doesn’t everyone”?
He hands me a box and asks me to open it to learn what the meaning of life is and then walks away.
I stare down at the box in my hands and turn to open the lock.
It is empty inside. Empty? The meaning of life is empty?
“Hey Old man!” I call after him. “I don’t get it. How can the meaning of life be nothing”?
He stops walking and turns around. His lips curve into a smug smile and he throws his hands up in the air.
“This is your dream, little one…why don’t you tell me”?
I hate mind games!
“Life is meaningless”?
“Well duh!” he replies. Do old people say “duh”?
“Then what is the point of living?” I say, getting a little upset.
“Good question. But then again if life were meaningless, then the point of living is what you decide to put in that box then huh”?
And, with that he walks away again.
Once again I am sitting on the boat and am alone. It is nighttime now and the only sounds are the gentle lapping of the water against the base of the boat. I hear a noise behind me and look to see a man. Not just any man. It is HIM!! He is here!!! Damn better than two old people! HE came!!!
He sits down beside me and grabs my hand. I look him over and smile.
“So are you ready?” he asks eagerly.
“Ready for what”?
“To fill that box with what you desire of course! You think I sent old wise people for nothing?!”
Ohhhhhhhh….now I get it!!
“Well what do I have to do”?
“OK grab my hand. Don’t worry I won’t let you go, cross my heart,” he says as he gives a slight wink.
I grab a hold of his hand and we stand up on the ledge of the boat.
“You ready”?
“I am ready.”
“Ready to get everything you desire?” he says softly
“I am ready damnit now tell me what to do”!!
Patience is not my strong suit. Obviously. Plus this is like the weirdest dream I have ever had.
“All you have to do is let go.”
And with that he tightens his grip on my hand and we jump into the dark sea below us.
37 comments:
This sounds like that movie that came out a few years back, Mulholland Drive.
That looks like a beautiful dream. I gather the old people are generic, but is HE an actual person, or a dream person? It looks to me like you're old enough to know that there are an awful lot of aspects of life you'd like to incorporate in to yours, and you want to start doing that right away. Actually, I suppose from previous posts that you already do that, so I think you're on the right track.
Just remember that you can't put life or love in a box. Life is what you make of it. Love is what you give to those most dear to you.
And the answer is 42.
I'll get back to you with a few weird dreams. I write them down when I wake up, so I've got them in the computer somewhere....
I had this dream where I was a lake, resting peacefully and waiting for the sun to set and for the peacefulness of the night to creep over me. A young woman is lingering above me in a boat, dangling her delicate feet into my liquid coolness.
Suddenly she becomes restless and appears to be slightly agitated. I hear voices from above. The sun sets, and suddenly her feet are gone. I wonder if she is ok. Her feet seemed nice.
The boat remains, gently rocking with me. Suddenly it begins to move and rock of its own accord. "God, don't these people sleep?" I ponder to myself. Then all at once, the beautiful young lady, followed by her not so dangling feet, and a young handsome man, sink into my depths. They seem happy.
I can explain this dream only 2 ways...
either...
- There is some reeeeallly good stuff to smoke in Cal...
- You eat to much before you go to bed and you digestion is messing your dream...
LOL
JOKE BTW!
Wow... that was so vivid. I can picture it in my own mind.
I don't usually remember my dreams. The parts that I can remember are silly and inconsequential like standing with a group of friends talking or walking up a wide set of stairs.
There were some years ago that were very vivid, but have faded with time. One that I can remember a lot of was when I was a new mom and I had a dream that there was a car that was driving with no lights on (this was when that old wives tale about the gang's doing this and the first person that flashed their lights they would follow and kill). I of course, flashed my lights and then a split second after I remembered the warning about not doing it. Of course they turned out to be gang members and started chasing my car.
My son was in the backseat strapped into his carseat but the strange thing was that I was driving the old beater that I had when I was in high school (a 1980 orange Datsun 210)not my current vehicle.
After a while I had escaped them and took my son to my moms house and dropped him off. Then I get back into my car and start driving again. The gang members find me and start chasing me again. I tear into a school parking lot and run into the school with them hot on my trail. I run into a chemistry lab that I knew had an exit to outside. They are right behind me. I go out the door and am running down the sidewalk and they start shooting at me.
I feel the bullets hit my flesh and I fall to the ground in slow motion. I realize that I am going to die and my last thougth was "Thank God that I took my son to my mom or he would be dead too"
Then I woke up.
I have no idea what that dream meant, but it is really the only one that has stuck with me.
About half way down in this post was the last dream I had that I vividly remember like what you are describing.
I think that you need to read the book "The Way of the Peaceful Warrior" I am pretty sure that it will speak to you.
I am weird, I don't really remember dreams very often. I wish that I did though.
Scott
I don't believe I've ever heard of a dream with someone using the word 'dimwit.'
mannmotion - I am going to have to watch that movie again, I have not seen in a couple of years.
2x4 - you make some very interesting points. you are right you cant put life into a box but I think maybe the box was a metaphor for life? I have been working a lot with some people about some of these aspects - older people who have studied this stuff for like 25 years. I have a mentor and everything and it helps. Yes the old people were generic. And the man - is he real or a dream man - I cannot say :)
J - LMFAO!!! hahaha. So we bugged you when we "let go" huh?
Spat - :) Well I never eat a few hours before bed time. and I didn't smoke anything last night. So maybe my brain is just a little "off"? LOL
Rachel - that dream is scary!! I would say it was probably about your fears about being a new mom (I know captain obvious lol) . I also don't have vivid dreams all the time but when I do I remember them years later.
Tiffanie - I am going to go read that :)
Scott - I have read that book! I loved it. I love a lot of Dan Millman's work. Did you know they made a movie out of it?
You seem to have very vivid and complex dreams that also have amazing conversations in them!
I figured that the "box" was life...and I liked that as a metaphor for soooo very many reasons...! Fascinating Rachel. And yes, sometimes we older folk can be helpful to younger people...and then again, sometimes, NOT! (lol)
I believe "tranquility" is the midpoint between constipation and diarrhea.
I know I'm a couple posts too late.
ahhh... i love the green flash when the sun sets over water. if i get lucky i'll see it this weekend up by Lake Michigan.
i don't have any good recent dream stories. i haven't been practicing my lucid dreaming exercises like i should.
...and here is your R.E.M. moment of zen:
I don't know, I guess so
I don't sleep, I dream
I'll settle for a cup of coffee, but you know what I really need
I'm looking for an interruption,
can you believe?
=:-)
Quite vivid. There's something here, surely. Haven't had a dream like that in quite awhile. Fortunately enough, as of late, I've had these questions posed to me in a waking silence. But your take was very interesting. Keeping looking at it.
Neil - so since she did use the word dimwit then I guess my subconscious mind must be pretty nutty then huh. :)
OOLOTH - haha yeah sometimes the older ones know better than us lowly younger folk :) Yeah sometimes I have pretty nutty dreams (like this one)
lightening bugs butt - can you please explain that? hahaha. So basically tranquility is really when my poop is flowing smoothly huh?
minijonb - ahhhh I love that song :) Nothing gets me smiling more than another REM fan
Mr. Burns - well waking silence is essentially meditation and when we quiet the mind is when the answers come :)
Pretty strong msg there! lovely post Rach. Got me thinking.
U really dreamt this? wow!
**I sigh. This is some fucked up dream.
lol!
**
“All you have to do is let go.”
And that my dear is the key...key to everything.
U should write scripts for movies...u write damn good.
Keshi.
some literary criticism :):
I would call this text "The empty box" or something like that, instead of "dreams, dreams, dreams". cool dream, by the way. did the old woman look like anyone you know?
Itai
cool dream, its almost like someone from higher above was trying to tell you something. i'm such a huge believer of that stuff.
great writing :)
my dream last night had to do with sex (guess cause of my lack in "real" life???!! LOL!)
if you are ever pregnant....oh man let me tell you those types of dreams are the best! LOL! ;)
m
I would love to know how to interpret dreams. I blogged about the weirdest and scariest dream ever awhile back. I was being forced to sing with my favorite group. I was traumatized, since I can't sing.
Incredibly vivid imagery and descriptiveness O rachel ah that aphrodite were channeling through you..... o wait thats a WHOLE nother deal... LOL Awesome job sharing your dream I tend to have dreams where im being chased and whoever it is has a gun just as they get me in their sights and pull the trigger.... i wake up I think i prefer yours rach..... wanna eat lucky charms before bed??? magically delicious they are li lass thanks for commenting on mine btw!!!
Awesome dream, Rach. I don't think I have ever had a dream that vivid. Mine are like rejected Twilight Zone episodes. Except of course the recurring one where I realize at the end of semester I haven't been to one of my classes for the whole semster and I got the final coming up.
Eating too close to bedtime is recipe for weird dreams too. Lat time I did that I dreamt I was playing tennis with Michael Stipe. I don't know who won.
beautiful!!! nice post and with such deep meaning!
its so true most of us cannot answer the question "who are you". and i guess thats why the box is also empty! the true meaning of life is governed by who you are! and many of us have no time to even think of this simple question!
i think the biggest thing we need to let go is our ego! its always a false impression of who we are!
;-))
I had a great one last night wherein I was in charge of a funeral. Apparently the traditions in dreamworld were different from what I was used to, and the deal was that one person (whoever took the last photograph of the deceased prior to death) would have one year to recreate the image down to the most minute detail.
I had to arrange for all of the people involved to be there in the correct location, dressed the same, tanned the same, weighing the same, hair done the same. The first was a lunch on a train so all the food items had to be the same. The train had to be the same one, and it had to be in the same place at the right time of day. The knick-knacks picked up on vacation had to be rounded up and placed in the scene the same way.
At the end of the recreation everything from the recreation is given to those in the picture, and they return to that site each year to recreate it as best they can. The subsequent years are not as detailed because everything changes, people included.
In my dream I was in charge of three of these having coincidentally taken the final picture of three different folks.
It's enough to make a guy stop taking pictures.
Rachel, can you shoot me an email?
Keshi -thank you hon :) Maybe I should..we will see :)
Itai - no she didn't look like anyone I know. Thanks for the criticism. And here I thought someone had to be dating someone for a long time before they could do that! hahah just kidding. Yeah the title should change if it were an essay somewhere huh?
Molly - ok, here is what you need to do. take your kids to grandmas or something and grab your hubby and head out of town and get some sex time in :)
shppgrl - I have learned to interpret somewhat from a dream doctor I saw a while back. But here is a jist. Dreams are wither a fear or a wish fulfillment. Also, dreams can be your subconscious telling you what life you are creating. And the way you feel in a dream is most important :)
Robert - I have had a chasing dream many times before. Butthe man chasing me is holding a box not a gun. Lucky Charms? is that a dirty metaphor?
Steve - I bet Michael won LOL.
Deepsat - yeah - as you will see in my belief post I do mention ego. Ego is what makes us feel pride, or put up false fronts, or not say how we feel, the ego is what makes us feel anything bad.
2x4 - that is some weirddd dream. was it vivid? I am going to have to go buy a really advanced dream dictionary huh?
Thomas - is it makeover time :)
My dreams are usually far less involved and exciting. Maybe I could borrow some or yours?
Thanx for the help today, Rachel.
I rarely remember dreams. Except when I take Ambien to sleep. And then I have FREAKY dreams that I remember and blocks of real life I don't remember at all. That fact is probably freakier than the dreams I have.
I had a dream the other night and I wish I could remember what I ate because I never want to eat it again. Ok so here I go....
I was on a train, one that has sleeper cars and a dining car. I was on a train like it when I was in Europe as a child. We took a train from London to Scotland and it was an overnight trip. In my dream I just appear in the aisle of a sleeper car and a woman passes me. I turn and look and I think the woman is my Mother but since she will not turn around I cannot tell so I call after her and she keeps going. I chase after her but each time I get close someone comes down the aisle which is narrow so I have to go through the process of squeezing past them and keep going. I figure I will catch up to the woman/my mom? sooner or later as the train is only so long. After going through the train and chasing the woman I actually get close enough to talk to her but she does not want to speak to me. I am perplexed but figure I need to see if this woman is my mother. After chasing her through what seems like endless corridors we finally come to an area which I think must be some kind of baggage car as their is stuff stacked all over the place and I ask her where she is going and why she does not want to talk to me? She answers me that she is no longer my mother and does not want anything to do with me. Having said this she is off again and I am left standing in this car wondering what happened.
This is where I wake up and I sat up in bed and wondered what the heck was going on as I thought it was real only to realize that it had all been a dream. A very strange dream and it was very vivid. As I said not sure what I ate but no more....
ok, so sermon has been given and nap taken and now i can read and respond to posts longer than 5 lines.
i'm still trying to figure out if HIM is referring to your life partner or jesus. occupational hazzard. mind clarifying?
the clearest dreams i can remember were either during elementry school and involved impossible-to-use toilets or another series that looked a lot like those water comercials where people are float-walking around. those were fun.
glad to hear that you seem to be moving along with life well. laughter and dreams about old people are good.
blogger comments doesn't like me today. grr.
Im serious...u write pretty good!
Keshi.
Interesting dream, and cool that you dream in colour. I can't recall the last time I remembered a dream with such clarity. The last snippet of one that comes to mind was me running along an empty street at night in a thunder storm, but with legs feeling so heavy I could have been running through the sea. And I knew that I was running to something with a sense of urgency rather than away from something in fear.
memphis Steve - thanks, and of course you can borrow some of mine but I doubt you would want to dream of Johnny Depp naked :)
Grins - when I was inj the hospital ojn morphine that is when I had the freakiest dreams of my life. So I think maybe any chemical can alter our subconscious in an odd way..then again maybe it is just the joys of Ambien :)
Thomas - anytime!
Kat - HIM - refers to a a guy not Jesus. I know I know, your job makes you think otherwise :) And yes life is quite good, just goin with the flow :)
Lydia - I find a ot of regular normal dreams are not in color but very vivid ones are full of it. I will have to check and see what that means. Thanks for stopping by my blog :)
good to know, because people i know seem to be dropping into monestaries like flies. ok, maybe not that fast, but it feels like it. hey, at least you can understand my assumption.
While I'm not going to comment on the meaning behind your dream — mostly because 1) there have been many good interpretations already, 2) you seem to have a good idea of the meaning already and 3) I suck at interpreting dreams — I would like to say that as a story this was a great read. I just truly enjoy your writing.
Great post. Life really is about what we fill the box with. :)
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