A buffet of cakes and chocolate “samples,” seemingly awaiting consumption; my present-day friend Becca, a girl named Taylor who I haven’t thought about in decades, and a current neighbor/former coworker Kat and I walked into the place expecting to buy a chocolate cake and peanut butter pie for an office of about 78 people. The dream tasted delectable, with strawberries and cream flavored chocolate bites and thin custard-filled yellow vanilla cake slices up for grabs. We all binged on what we assumed were free samples in this abandoned high-class bakery we were sent to. The chocolate cake we were commissioned to purchase for the office party was the same cake I’d missed out on eating at a real-life Indians game back when I was a preteen. I had another chance at this cake in dreamland. Sparing a lot of the sweets-feast details, since they’re repetitive, I’ll jump ahead with this: I never got my redemption cake. I also knew that one cake and one pie wouldn’t be enough for the office party, but my pleas to up the ante were ignored. I wound up with a sweet donut and a sour attitude.
This one I remember less about, but apparently it’s very similar to a Dr. Who episode. I have never seen Dr. Who. In this dream, I was again with a small group. I did not know these people this time, which was for the best since we were being hunted. Eventually the hunt ended when I saw a wet-cement looking live statue of an archangel sneak up on my group mate, place its hands on their shoulders, and turn them to stone when they didn’t react fast enough. I woke up shortly after that, but I also remember there being a speedboat and a long dock and the weather was a cool, misty gray.
I think I was at a convention in this one. It wasn’t in a convention center, though; it was in someone’s house. My trusty crew this time consisted of Stacey, a former friend/coworker; Scott, a repeat contender in my recent dreams who went to elementary school with me and hasn’t been in my waking consciousness for eons; and two others that I can’t pull details from right now. This house had a windy staircase that was lined with old, dusty, leather-bound books that should’ve instead been compassionately released to a library. The bottom of the stairs led to an eclectic room where all the important convention discussions took place. One such discussion was Stacey and I talking to Scott about why he was so bummed out and trying to give him life advice. The rest of the dream was our group walking merrily (except for Scott) around this convention house, which resembled a combination of CoSi science center and Big Fun toy store with its endless knickknacks and rooms to explore. We eventually ended up in a parking lot. Just like in present reality, the parking lot is where we all parted ways, but not without giving Scott more earnest life advice. I hope he’s doing well these days.
As I write this, I have a crick in my neck on the left side. It’s tense enough that I can’t comfortably bring my ear closer to my shoulder. It could be from how I’m sleeping; from my pillow and positioning on the physical plane, or from the intense dreams I’ve been having in the metaphysical realm.
I found out late in life that not everyone has dreams. Most people dream but don’t remember them. Fewer people dream and can recollect some of the nonsensical settings (“I was in my house, but it wasn’t my house…”). In this way, I think I’m abnormal. I’ve always had vivid, detailed, and sometimes lucid dreams. I can remember the settings in such artistic terms that, if I was a talented painter, I would create visual masterpieces of texturized landscapes emitting colors that we have yet to know on Earth. I can identify faces of people I haven’t thought about in decades. I could pick out of a lineup those who I’ve met for the first time in my dream, usually trying to escape them in a frenzied thriller-type, movie-esque dash across an unknown town, through buildings and alleyways and stadiums and pyramids.
When I was young, probably ten years old, I had my most memorable lucid dream. I was inside a pyramid, and everything in it was solid gold. It was a single floor with pillars supporting what could have been a second floor. I was inside a swimming pool with my neighbors, Lisa and Emily. The pool was filled with snakes.
The three of us were immersed in the snakes, looking at each other, seemingly unbothered by what we were surrounded by. I remember thinking, “This isn’t what I would’ve figured snakes felt like around my legs…” and, shortly thereafter, one of them got bit. I think it was Emily. She cried out in fear, but not pain; once the fear subsided, she feverishly tried to convince Lisa and I to get bitten as well.
“OUCH! I just–wait, that didn’t hurt. One bit me! It doesn’t hurt! Try it, guys!” Lisa and I looked at each other, each of us wading in the pool chest-deep in snakes instead of water. Lisa was easily sold into the opportunity, which I found strange, as I felt the opposite.
“Ah! Me too, just now. Emily is right, it doesn’t hurt! Try it, Shannon!” she said excitedly. I gave them both a look and said, “You guys are nuts, I’m not falling for this,” and made my way to the ladder to exit. They kept goading me to experience this apparently blissful bite.
I eventually said to them, “I’m not doing it, you’re both stupid. I’m not stupid,” as I grabbed onto the round chrome ladder handle. When I noticed it was the only thing in there that wasn’t gold, my calf felt it–I’d gotten bit. They were right; it didn’t hurt. What hurt more was admitting this to them after I’d called them stupid and affronted my superiority. I did admit it to them, though. It was pretty cool after all.
Not as impressed as my neighbors, I continued up the ladder and left the pool. They stayed in, loving the bite thing way too much. I walked out and around to the head of the pool when suddenly a massive, absolute giant of a king cobra shot up out of the center of it. I had this dream way before Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets came out, but that’s what this creature emulated in its size. It was a monster.
Being the only one not in the pool, I stood to witness the king cobra violently reaching up towards the ceiling, lashing its head side to side, and spotting Lisa in the pool beneath it. I watched as this Godzilla-like serpent reached its jaws down to swallow her whole, lift itself back up toward the golden bricks above it, and set its sights on Emily.
Emily was already halfway out of the pool before she was spotted, so I yelled to her, “RUN!” She listened to me and ran like crazy into the center of the pyramid. It was at this point that I felt truly scared; luckily, she was luring the predator away from me, so I found a hiding spot behind an L-shaped pillar and leaned into the corner to catch my breath.
I remember it being almost cartoonish, but still I felt afraid. I peered out from behind the golden structure shielding me to see Emily running with arms flailed, the serpent following suit behind her, somehow without urgency. She cried out to me, “What do I do?!” I felt right then as if I’d been put in a pressure cooker, faced with evading a giant predator while also figuring out a logic puzzle. At that moment, I found the solution–and also became lucid.
“Emily! On the count of three, scream ‘WAKE UP.’ Ready?” I yelled. She was still running around in circles in the middle of the pyramid but was able to respond in the affirmative. I bellowed out with such eager intention: “ONE…TWO…THREE…” then both of us in unison, with all our might: “WAKE UP!”
My eyes shot open and I saw the white ceiling above my bed. My heart was pounding. Yes, the big snake was scary, but what did I just experience? I knew I was dreaming? And I could control it?
I was fascinated, excited, and slightly regretful that I took such a quick exit. It being one of my first lucid dreams, I can’t blame myself for jumping the gun like that, but I did wonder what else I could’ve explored in there had I let the fear subside. Actually, it wasn’t until I typed this that I made the connection between that fearful reaction and the one from inside the pool, when I was so sure being bitten by the dream-snakes would be “stupid.” Fear had stopped me from experiencing–both in the beginning, and in the end, of that dream.
There was no plan for my first post in my revived blog. I just felt a need to write something down. My dreams lately have been so energetically charged that writing about them, and starting from the beginning of my lore, was the obvious choice. Now, after getting that out, I see an eerie tie to my present state of mind and how I have a lesson to learn. Fear is nothing but the uncomfortable ropes holding me back from the essence of life.
I had nothing to fear in the pool before the snake bit me. I was even told as much, but I resisted it. I had nothing to fear when the giant cobra was hunting us. And I have nothing to fear now, whether I’m asleep or awake. “Life has a way of working out” is a common quote, one that I’ve more or less dismissed because of such commonality; its being popular has no bearing on its truth, though, and I feel like I’m just now waking up to that fact.
The Word 