169. Awakening Dream

A drawing of Gaetway

December 18, 1996: It is a dream that brings things to a head, a critical point in our journey. A dream that says “remember who you are”, an awakening. Was it because of our presentation back in October, that brought all of this about? It seems so. Since then things have become “worse”, feelings intensified. More information about our stepfather. And suicidal feelings especially from Badb (4). As well we end up going to hospital after 6 years of staying out of it. Yes, things got worse and yet, in hindsight, it is progress. This is the work that must be done.

Before the dream an alter emerges saying “I don’t know who I am”. Is she the one who dreams the dream? The dream speaks to her, and to all of us, that we must remember who we are. She is only identified as Who/I (8) . As well, we get a clearer picture of Gaetway, a diagram in our journal.  We also begin to understand what is going on within us on a deeper level. We begin to see that our depression and pain is caused by certain thoughts, thoughts that are not truth, are not the facts. Thoughts that are simply fears and that we must find the truth of the matter, to not be governed and controlled by our fears.

This is a time of many insights. Moments of enlightenment and epiphanies. You know the sound of a seat belt when it clicks shut? That is what our insights sound like, ah ha moments that go click.

We see our complaints as open wounds that we must look at before they can close and heal.

There is a bowl made of stone and within it is blue wax, a wicker and a flame. Not even the wind can blow the flame out. It will always be there. It is sanctuary.

December 18, 1996: The dream. I am with strangers and I feel lost. I don’t know who I am. As if I have lost my memory of who I am and what has happened to me. I ask someone something about me but they don’t answer me. There is a strange child who I talk to. Then I turn to someone else and ask “Who am I?” She says “Ah ... she’s beginning to come round, she’s beginning to remember.” I ask her what will happen to me now and she says it all depends on what has happened before now. If I have suffered some trauma then ....

Suddenly a man walks in. I sense that he has power over everyone who is here. Everyone is all women and they all climb onto a conveyor belt. I get on the belt too. Then they all lie down on their backs but I don’t want to. I start to climb off the belt to try to get away from the man.

I wake up and feel afraid because I can feel the dream is telling me something very, very important. It is the most important dream I have ever had in my life. This I know. This is an opening gate, an entry point to something deep and true within.

-----

It does not end there either. There is another night, not long after. December 22. A night of no sleep and the most profound insights yet. All night our heart beats fast, and our mind races with so much thought. Then we talk Inside about what is going on with us at this time, at this point in our journey.

There is Christmas and whatever memories are attached to it.

We feel some kind of new awakening and transformation happening within us.

We ask for some guidance, someone to lead us on this path so we turn to a book we have called “The Transformers” by Jacqueline Small. We need to know what lies ahead, what can we expect. And her book answers. She describes certain stages in life that we all go through, and about a stage called The Fourth Force: Awakening. “At this level of awareness, for the first time I am able to rise above myself and see what I am doing as I am doing it. I am awakening! And I am beginning to love myself! .... I am learning to accept myself as I am ... and life as it is!”

“[A]cting creatively in the world rather than reacting mechanistically to cues from my environment”

“I am entering a world of self-acceptance.”

A place of letting go. Letting go of judgement, of shoulds, of good vs bad. It is like forgiveness. I am forgiving myself for being who I am.

“At this level I am working on being loving and learning to use my creative imagination to open myself up to new ways of being. ... I am not yet fully enlightened, but I am working with transforming energy for the first time in my life.”

We come to understand that our feelings of rage mean there is something we want to change. We also see that anger and rage are different. Anger seems temporary and less intense while rage is about the long term and comes from all the wounds in the past. The changes? How to parent, how to be caring, sensitive, kind, respectful towards other people and to ourself as well. Changes in society are needed too, about how we treat each other in the world, and to increase education about abuse.

We see that we have been very accommodating of other people’s needs, over our own. And it is different than giving, caring about or even compromising with someone. It is about repressing our own needs and it is not particularly healthy and more to the point, not especially effective or helpful to anyone. So we recognize that this is part of the work we need to do right now. To begin to see what we need, to get what we need, and to move beyond that to being able to give to others, which happens naturally if you are getting what you need.

This is a storm we are in. A sand storm. Many tiny grains of sand that blow around. Each grain is some part of us. Right now they all blow around but at some point each grain will settle into its own place. Settling into all who we are. Our life is taking its new form and shape. Our new life.