Synapse (Photo trunews)
Space Nebula (photo pichost)
Loosely understood (by me) our computers 'shut down' and 'backup' and 'compress data' So do we.
Never was this more evident than the other night when I went to bed and dreamed endlessly. I truly could not call it a dream per say, it was more like splices...images that flashed...tributaries that fed an overall deluge...
Fragment: I was in a maze of a forsaken bombed out city. A concrete labyrinth. White washed walls, Dust choking me. Was it a holy war? What was pursuing me as I heaved in hot air? Would I live? Could this be the end of us? and in 100 years it all goes beyond recognition.
Fragment: A lake in a dormant volcano with that cyan blue water one only finds in the deserted coves of far away forgotten islands. But this was New Jersey, high up in a cork screw mountain. Then a plateau before a last upheaval. At the base was a small bait shop to buy ice and supplies for the day, Thin scrub in a patchy path gave way to an open stretch of water. You could feel your breath. Then my fathers voice talking about The Tocks Island project where they were to sink houses, to make a dam, As a child I romanticized this; peoples homes suspended from any further operation underwater and all that energy with them. The heartbreak when the government told them to leave and then did nothing. Left it. An Atlantis that never happened. Ironically a few days before, a friend from work described a lake she and her family had gone to and suggested I bring my kayak. She gave me a round about directional nod. Tocks Island Dam popped into my mind, followed by a 'nah couldn't be.' That stayed in a pocket of my mind and downloaded into this dream. A day later she told me it was in fact called that and that her husbands father was the builder. I am going early Sunday...
Fragment: Remembering a paper I had written more than 20 years ago at my early attempt in college. The professor looked like a dieted version of Santa, carried a cane (which he didn't seem to need) and had the most fantastic New England accent I've heard to date. It was a history class and he hit you from all sides; Art, Music, Social norms, Religion, Language, Writings. In my dream my mind scanned parts of the paper. I smiled wistfully to myself as in my dream I was proofreading an old friend to its readiness. Michelangelo's Spark of Life. I took a risk with this paper based on mere observation and tethered it to the artists life and societies perception of him.
Was Michelangelo making a statement? As God seemed to be in a robe that unremarkably resembled a brain? And why couldn't anyone plainly see this? Was God created by our minds as a bridge to understand our existence? Or was the mind the only path toward understanding God? This had been a bitch of a paper to write because I had so much energy and desperately wanted to convey this concept without seeming unhinged myself. In my slumber I recalled the line that could have unraveled the entire thing - 'If Michelangelo was created in Gods image and then proceeded to create God in his own was the title it garnered him blasphemous? 'Divino II'? This paper snatched an A and was circulated through the dept. We did not have the information super highway we have at our disposal today (Internet), but when I googled this picture for this blog I came upon the following...
Collective conscious at its finest. I can rest easy knowing I wasn't alone
Fragment: A vision of a pack of pre-teen boys that included my son. They were walking home from a stolen camping trip on the mountain. They were dirty and tired, not having gotten much sleep because they were not yet men and remained terrified, within themselves, most of the night. However, they were high on having gotten the deed done and now able to justly boast about it at school on Monday.
There were about five of them and they were walking with heads down to what would, hopefully, be a breakfast of pancakes and bacon and Mikes house with that Cream O Land chocolate milk. They were too much involved with their own bravado to notice how empty the two roads were that they had crossed. The first by the snow melt coming off the mountain and the second past the horse and turkey field on Mountain Road. They were warriors now and the forest and grounds were theirs for the taking.
Relief at coming home seemed interrupted as they all simultaneously caught a tune in the air upon seeing the entrance of the development. It was the eerie jingle of the ice cream truck, but it was only about 7AM. They looked at one another questioningly. 'Probably Jeb' said Matt. They nodded it was probably Jeb.
Jeb had been the star quarterback, the big man at the regional school, who had been the life of too many parties. Jeb was now a go nowhere 22 year old severe alcoholic that drove, slept, and probably lived in the ice cream truck.
The parking lot held a few defunct vehicles with past due inspections, and one donned 4 donut spares. The development had seen it's glory days in the money-flowing 80's but time had taken its toll. The parking lot badly in need of paving for the last few years sprouted weeds that would take it over once every home had been taken back by the bank.
They neared the truck and slowed down the last 20 or so feet. Something innately spooked them. "Hey Jeb!" Nick yelled. A slight tapping on the back hatch door. "Jeb you asshole, shut that shit off!" The music played on and again a slight tapping from the back...
Somewhere in the lucidity of this vision-dream my mind told me
"You need to write this story one day."
(photo RCschlotter)
Fragment: A tiny one room lodge with my brothers family and I. We were to wait out a winter storm that was to last an entire year. The adults where trying to compartmentalize our minds as we played with the children. One part playing Yahtzee, the other searching for a solution on how to feed everyone. There had been a downed tree with frozen acorns. We would have to go soon. Any attempt delayed would be met with a complete white out. We could boil them as we would not lack for water. But would the tannin in them shut down our kidneys? A feast we could not chance.
coffeeinthemorningandkissesatnight-photo
Fragment: I was on the lake looking up at the sky. I was meditating as I often do. The clouds began to accelerate in the direction of the sun (which always sits to my left). Then there was a gathering of darkness quickening in from the right. I was laying down with my legs up. Shattered spiders of lightening worked over the webs of angry clouds above. I could not leave. My paddle would have served as a lightening rod. I tossed it aside. I had to ride this out, as I do with many things in my life. I shifted down as far as I could and spread my body as evenly as possible. I could not help but watch. And wait.
(photo 2ndyellow)
As these tributaries formed the river of a dream, I was conscious all of this was in my head, artesian thoughts, and yet I remained a voyeur to their display. My mind took fragments and spliced them, dressed them up in some strange macabre ball of thought in my brain that will most likely cease existing when I do. So why on earth did I write this dear reader? Because it wouldn't let go of me. It simmered in my being for two days, then last night around 1:30 I awoke, vomited up a dinner I had consumed far too late (another plug for a 9-5 gig) and sat with a steno pad and purged it.
Dreams compressed for storage in a mind that may as well have been a vacuum in the no-where of a universe...empty yet full.
Namaste
