Dreaming the Future . . .or . . . My Life in Dreams

I’ve written here before about some of my dreams.  Here in which I was shown the Manhattan skyline in 1997 and  told that This Will Not Last.  And here in which I was given a glimpse of an American response to the Chinese – I hesitate to say threat, but maybe growth – huge growth – will do.

I apologize if this sounds crazy or if this offends.  These dreams may sound prophetic, and I may sound presumptuous to think them so.  Who am I to receive messages?  But some of the dreams I’ve had have spoken to me, down to the core, and have changed not just how I look at my life and my future, but how I live my life.  And how I see the future for all of us.  Me, you, the Chinese, the Mayans, my grandchildren, my dogs.  We’re all connected you know.

So here goes . . .  I’m going to relate only the dreams that have had a major impact on me. I’ll do this chronologically, and then (if I get to it) go back to talk about what I think the dreams mean.

When I was eighteen, I dreamed that the stars moved around in the sky very fast, a clear blue sky, and spelled out the words “NOW, Be in Rome”.  That woke me up and I had no idea what it meant.  At first, in my Southern Baptist turned Calvinist Presbyterian upbringing, I listened to see if my college roommate was still there, breathing in her bed across the room – or if other souls were ascending to heaven.  I had no idea what this dream meant for years, still am not sure.  But several years later, in talking about this dream with a close friend, he reminded me that I was a lawyer, that the seat of our legal system was Rome, and maybe the dream was telling me that that was where I needed to be in that point in my life.

I did not have another “speaking to me” dream again for nearly 30 years.  Then, in 1994, four years after my mother died, (killed horribly in a car accident – my father was driving –  when she was just 72), I had a long involved dream in which I was in a house with lot’s of folks, sort of camping out.  A friend came in saying “Did you see them?”  I go out and see arrows (spaceships?) headed to the earth.  In spite of this impending threat, there was a feeling of, even giddy, anticipation by some of the folks in the house (including my friend the Mad Kossack, sitting on a couch in a bright yellow shirt, with two other musicians).  In going around talking to others in the house I stopped by three people who had a little board with a spinner, (like a Richard Simmons diet wheel?)  saying “We’ve got to get back to the diet three cycles ago.”

Then the phone rang and my mother’s voice was there (in the dream), very strong, saying my name and “You know that I am here don’t you.”  It was the first time my mother had appeared in  my dreams since she had died.  But her voice was unmistakable and shocked me so much I almost woke up.  But the next thing I knew, in my dream, was that I was in my bed back in the room I grew up in, then the covers pulled me very fast under the bed and there I heard my father’s voice, in a very small feeble voice, calling my name, over and over, as if asking for help.  Just a few months later he had a series of heart attacks, and then a massive stroke.  I spent the next year of my life taking care of him, helping him to learn to walk and talk all over again, and then going with him into his death.

I write about that year with my father some in This Will Not Last, which is the next dream (it was really a vision in a meditation) chronologically.  For a year or so after this dream/vision, in my hour long Quaker meditations, I would receive messages (from my spiritual guides) about the future. “Save the Seed.” “Buy a Boat.” were the first two.  I had about 12 or 13 messages in all. I wrote them down in a little yellow notebook that I have somehow misplaced, but am confident that I can find.

Then the Chinese blurb.

Then, about six months ago, I had probably the strangest dream of all.  I dreamed I was in a graveyard at night.  Deep dark night, midnight.  I had the feeling that it was a graveyard in Central America, probably Guatemala (I’ve been to Guatemala.  We’ve got a good friend who leads a tour to Guatemala, which he calls the “Day of the Dead” tour, not the tour I’ve been on though.)

In my dream I, along with other people, am kneeling in front of a small headstone.  We’re all kneeling in front of small headstones.  Off to the left, behind me, in the periphery of my vision, is my son.  In front of me just beyond the headstone and a little to the right is a friend with flowing white hair.  She is telling me “You’re not kneeling down low enough.  You need to go all the way down.  You need to touch your head to the ground.”  This, with me on my knees bowing.  When my head did finally touch the ground, I had the immediate sensation that my head was suddenly wrapped tightly like a turban.  A small Mayan woman had attached herself to my head. And I could not get her loose.  I was upset because, as I said in the dream, I have to take my son for a job interview the next morning.

Next, I was in a bed sleeping, with the Mayan woman still attached to my head.  My son was in the corner of the room.  When I woke up, my son stood up and he was a beautiful young woman, in her early thirties and he/she said on leaving the room, “I can go to the job interview on my own.”

And then the Mayan woman unattached herself from my head and I got up.

So what does all this tell me . . about me . . about the future?

Some is pretty self-explanatory.  (This Will Not Last or the Chinese and the couch potatoes).  The Be in Rome dream I’ve explained and, at least for now, am satisfied with thinking it was a message related to my legal career, as I’ve had the privilege as a lawyer to do a lot of good stuff (class actions establishing rights to certain benefits under federal Medicaid statute, due process rights for welfare recipients, rights to equal protection for domestic violence victims, saving a wetlands).

Throughout my career I’ve felt the tug of the law and at other times the tug away from it.  I talk about this some in This Will Not Last.   I’ve spent the last seven years or so learning and doing environmental protection law.  I  think the message from the Mayan woman is that now I need to get back to the Earth.  And I think this is a message for all of us.  We need to go back to simpler ways of living, a simpler diet (3 cycles ago?), appreciation of the Earth, and not this civilized construct we’ve imposed upon it.  (Live more like the Mayans?).   Understand that we are all of one, a part of nature, not separate from it.  And I suspect there may be something more of the female than the male in this future.