My most vivid recent dream, I find myself participating in a large gathering of people in an island setting.  It feels very politically charged, racially charged (because I am a foreigner clearly, yet somehow being welcomed into the local indigenous community) and the various players in that transition project themselves onto me and what I represent to them.

Finally, the day of ceremony begins.  I am in a huge hall that seems like a throne for a kingdom.  The ceilings are 50 feet high, the room a hundred yards long seemingly and 25 yards across.  The walls were strewn with windows so that no lights were needed inside during the day and they both curved up to meet at a center line down the middle of the roof so that there was no flat place above the inner structure.  The wall at the front of the hall (and the back far behind me) was essentially shaped like a leaf – flat at the bottom and pointed at the top.

Before this wall I stood with the Chief and his court waiting for a ceremony to begin.  What was this ceremony about, anyway?  Was I being married into the tribe?  Was I having a spiritual bar-mitzvah?  Was I going to be strapped to a fire-ant hole and left to deal with the pain in a coming of age ceremony like I’d seen in movies?

My attention seemed more concerned with the court than the chief.  I could still feel their disdain, and their acceptance because I had the love and trust of the chief.

Everything was coming to a climax.  I didn’t know what this ceremony was and somehow neither did they.  Everyone just seemed to be looking around and waiting for something to happen.

Finally a signal snapped everyone into attention and I was presented by the chief, standing side by side towards this leaf shaped wall.  Then, he bid me to step forward alone.  As I did so, at that moment a black robed old woman appeared from the crowd pushing past the court and king determinedly.  Her cronely form was not weak, and her black eyes pierced my heart, her presence enveloping me as she took my arm and led me outside of the temple hall to the beach and walked me long enough for everything else to disappear.

The dream shifted and upon this beach, the wise crone and I came across an animal lying in our path.  “This is my mongoose,” she said.  “Mongoose” I repeated, smiling – hoping that I wasn’t disrespecting her in that way.  The animal I saw was a fox, with a black hide, black face with white marks, and a white belly and chest.   The forelegs were black and the hind of each leg white as were the paws.

The crone picked up her mongoose and set it upon her shoulders, carrying it towards me.  Only then did I notice that magic was starting to happen.  The back legs of the mongoose had a distinct shape flanking the rear haunches.  The back of each thigh was almost metallic and shaped like a serrated clamp not unlike the shape of a bottle cap, but twice the size and inverted as though they were clamps to grasp onto something of that shape.

The fox looked at me calmly, with no will to escape her master holding her legs and body draped over shoulders.  Only her head was propped up and tense as though wishing it had a rock to lay its weight on.

“See her legs,” the crone said matter of factly.  “My mongoose can be set upon the legs of an eagle.”  And true to form when a wise heart meets vision, will and energy – an eagle did appear, the mongoose looking up as it flew over the crone’s head and it leaped into the air and clamped its rear haunches onto its legs.

It looked like an eagles’ mating ritual where they fly mirroring each other by the legs.  The crone and I flew over them watching, now as one being.  From our perspective, mongoose was above the eagle who was flying upside down.  The mongoose was growing wings of her own, pushing out against the resistance of the wind beating all sides of her.   As the mongoose’s wings grew and grew, she took the form of a black raven as large as the eagle – both with 9 foot wingspans or so.

As the now fully emerged raven felt propulsion of her own in the wind, the clamps in her legs were the ones to feel pressure now, lifting the eagle higher in the air with her force until the clamps themselves gave way.  The raven flew right.  The eagle now upright flew left, and I awoke from dream vision.

This morning I didn’t wake up with any particularly strong dream, and found it interesting that a neighbor approached me with theirs and asked for my feedback. So here it is:

“This morning I woke up from a dream that I had a huge house. The house was soo big that the kids could play ultimate frisbee in the basement (about the size of a football field).

There was another house up on the hill that suddenly started to slide down the hill. I shouted to the boys in the basement, ‘Get out! Watch out!! There is a landslide and the house is coming!!’

The house from up on the hill crashed to a halt and surprisingly there wasn’t a whole lot of damage. Just a few scratches on the doors.

Then the owners of the house on the hill came home and wanted to know what happened and where their house had gone.   I said it slid down the hill into mine, but when the owner and I went looking for it, it was gone.”

Last night I was spending time with the one who the world knows as Michael Jackson.

It must have been a long dream because I can’t remember when it first started, I only became conscious towards the end.

I was in a small house on a busy road and he and I were just talking.  He seemed to really need some company and to release some energy through his emoting of words and stories.

His loving heart, his childlike qualities and his sense of alternate “neverland” reality were all a part of this persona.

I just let him talk and be himself.  I was desperately afraid to even call him Michael or give any hint of  fanfare, for I knew he would leave.  This time was for him, not me.

Right about at the point that I started to become conscious, I had a deep concern for him.

“Michael, I’ve heard that you have a hard time sleeping.”

His energy dropped.   I thought he was going to leave for a moment, but he apparently trusted me enough to say: “Listen, I hardly know you.  Let’s get to know each other better before we talk about these things.” I nodded my head in understanding, but then it just hit me.

“No, I am asking because I can help you!  My words can heal you!  I can heal you!”  It was a dramatic moment, one that he resonated with and inwardly agreed to with the trusting heart of a child.

The dream shifted slightly, in the same house.  Michael was changing into black silk pajamas and my back was to him for privacy – but I did casually glance over as I sat down or some other natural movement.  I instantly regretted it.

Fully dressed.  It was Michael’s turn to confront me.  “I saw you glance over at me, what was that about?”  You want to know what I had going on in here?” Pointing to his crotch.

I was very uncomfortable and now not holding back anything, almost hoping he would leave.

The scene shifted and we were outside near some juniper trees and an alley way outside the house.  A black woman with a white ‘a’-cup camisole, very short skin-level hair, about 6-8 inches shorter in stature than the two of us appeared.  Michael and this woman embraced arms holding each other and foreheads touching, his hand behind her head pulling her close.  He pulled away just slightly, with his hand still behind her head. Her eyes were closed and her facial skin a little oily and little sweaty.   He obviously loved her very much and she him, but was she conscious of this moment?

“She and I look the same.”  He said, still facing her and holding her close, obviously referring to their appearance even though he had his long curly hair.  “And now, she and I love the same!”  He pulled down his black silk PJ bottoms to reveal a man’s shaven crotch, minus the phallus.  I couldn’t tell, but it almost looked as though some vaginal labia had been surgically placed or just penciled in somehow.

He didn’t pause to get a response from me.  He was beyond a personal connection now, I was listening to his message to the world, not to me personally.

“Was his hair a wig?” I wondered what he really meant by “She and I look the same?”  Was Michael gay at all?  No, he clearly loved her, but not completely as a man at all.

Perhaps it was just fantasy, perhaps just dream-like nothings – but I got to spend time with a man who transcended agism, racism, classism, fantasy and reality, and even gender.

I woke up wishing that Michael had been more expressive of his views about things while he was alive, and had a sense that his energetic disposition would suit him well to transition to life without a physical body.

One of Michael’s songs was playing in my head as I finally rose from sleep.  “What about?” Rainbows and flowers and sunrise. Maybe he did speak his mind and his heart, and his love for the earth. But there was such a shame and reclusiveness that I wish he could have just unapologetically given who he had become to the world. I consider this video below one of the greatest gifts and visualizations to the world from a man who transcends so many dimensions.

My dream starts out in the home of friends, an apartment with a group of 5 or 6 guys.   Possibly roommates, possibly just guys from around, buddies hanging out.

One of these guys is both repulsive and so interesting to me.  He’s tall, with a blond mullet that is so blond that it almost seems to have glow to it.  His energy is one of blessed financial status, of entrepreneurial golden touches, and a general sense of superiority to the people around him.

Somehow, Mr. Gray and I decide to go for a walk.  During the walk, I have a toddler on my arm – it might be Mr. Gray’s daughter, and I wonder where my kids are.  We enter a tunnel, that is dark and dirty.  I look down and there are many levels below the one we entered on.  I race down the tunnel to a series of platforms leading downward, all fashioned of steel oval patterns that one can see through the floors from top to bottom.

Mr. Gray and his daughter and I get to the bottom of this structure and I hear the sound of a train coming.  The entry level we came in on was apparently a train track, and now it is starting to rumble.  The dark train passes overhead, making our spot a wind chamber that is swaying with the rhythmic ‘clunk clunk’ pattern of the steel wheels against rails.  Finally, the train was gone.  The little girl was a trooper and had a sense of trust of me, as did Mr. Gray.

The dream shifts and I am standing on an intersection I used to live at off kaapuni road.  Except now there is a two story building to the east that I’ve never seen before.  I see a man with medium length dark hair pummeling what looks like a silken body bag on the upper level porch of this house.   The top of the bag is so baggy that it is flowing in the wind and for a brief moment I see the glowing blond mullet of Mr. Gray inside.

I am with 2 other guys and one of them is so startled that he is panicking, “Go call the Police!”  I stop him, and he is begging me now.  “This is not a murder,” I say.    Mr. Gray is alive and well, better than ever.  That is his house.  That is him with a new haircut and a new energy for how he wants to be in the world.  He is simply living with regret for who he was before and beating himself up over it, and letting the old pass away.

The other night my dream started in a forest setting.  There were all these crazy people running around in superhero costumes.  I laughed because the place was full of people, and not one of them was dressed normally!  It was like a marvel comics fan convention, and the whole forest was full of Spiderman impersonators.

I decided there had to be a real super hero hiding in the crowd somewhere, like a needle in a haystack.

The way I went about discerning the real from the pretend was to go up and try to take off all their masks.  I removed a half-dozen masks, then came across a guy who’s mask wouldn’t come up.  His whole head felt like a rubber action figure – just one solid piece.  Somehow this verified that this guy was real, or at least not pretending to be something he was not.

This Spiderman then took me for a little journey away from the crowd, until we reached a very strange animal.  It was a huge dog-like mammal whose shoulders stood as high as my chest, but he was built long like a dachshund – and with long white hair.  Very strange.  The hero showed me how to behave in a way that the animal would obey and respond to.  It had to do with posture and touch – but only in certain places.  Then animal was in line and responding to command.

So I followed the Spiderman figure, and the crazy giant dog followed me.  Until that time that we entered a doorway arch, mortared into a cinderblock wall, which was essentially a walk-out basement to a house above.  The hero disappeared into the dark basement, and the long hairy beast then morphed.  He walked beside me as though he were upright instead of being so long and horizontal, but he wouldn’t fit through the door, so his head transformed into the head of a flamingo.  The avian neck curled onto itself and layed itself easily onto the hairy shaggy body and I looked in disbelief at the flamingo-headed upright dog that walked beside me!!!!

My conscious mind could no longer handle the hilarity of the dream and woke me up.  The last thought I remember having was, “Hey… hero!   What do I do with this thing now?”

Dreamt last night that I was in my old neighborhood growing up, Bessemer Street. I was there as a man, and just before I reached the block where my old home stood, I ran into two old friends – both adults now of course, and they were incredibly strong and powerful in their physique.

One of these men I knew less than the other, and I was suspicious that this one was the most enthusiastic to see me. He came up to greet me, and I was standoffish.

Next thing I know, after a brief cut scene of a struggle on the sidewalk, I am held captive in a house nearby – by this enthusiastic old friend… I force myself to wake up, as from a nightmare.

I go through my Saturday, with this dream on my mind.

Real life: When I was 7 years old, in this neighborhood, two older kids age 12 and 17, took me and held me captive for 4 hours. I was molested, whipped, and half-drowned. If a passerby hadn’t noticed and threatened to call the police, I might not be here to tell this tale. So this dream, in a sense was a direct reliving of that very real nightmare when I was a boy. Facing men more powerful than I, and overpowered by their hateful intent.

I thought more and more about this, and despite this connection and perspective, something was still not right.

I was laying down in the afternoon with Shemmesh (age 8 months), and the one thing that stood out from this angle on the dream was the fact that this suspicious man in the dream was characterized by joy, enthusiasm, and rekindling of friendship. I thought about how happy the man in the dream was to see me, and how “captivating” he was (he wasn’t going to let me go) – and I realized that this man could be none other than a part of myself that I had disconnected from. I had work to do.

I fell asleep with my son laying next to me – making every infantile attempt to resist falling asleep – so after awhile I laid in a way that just created a natural barrier for him and let him play until he finally did fall asleep. Falling asleep consciously, over a long period of time, together.

I went back to my dream with one intent, to see what this man was trying to offer me.

I decided to trust, and follow the dream with a different attitude towards this guy.

What was different?

New Dream:

I was in my old neighborhood growing up, Bessemer Street. I was there as a man, and just before I reached the block where my old home stood, I ran into two old friends – both adults now of course, and they were incredibly strong and powerful in their physique.

One of these men I knew less than the other, and I recognized him from last night that this one was the most enthusiastic to see me. He came up to greet me, and I stopped and looked him in the eye, noticing my home behind him, the horizon behind him, and everything about my life growing up.

I opened my arms, tentatively, and the enthusiastic old friend steps in between them, embracing my body for just a moment – and abruptly steps back, just an arms distance apart.

I’m about to get suspicious again, but his energy is undeniably trustworthy at this point – and a healing is brewing inside of me.

My old enthusiastic friend raises his left arm, fingertips to my sternum, elbow just a little higher than his wrist which is exactly straightened against my chest. His eyes are intense, then he somehow changes dimensions, his hand becomes see-through like a spirit and slides into my chest, through my left shoulder and down my arm. This powerful and joyful man turns his back into mine and slides his right arm down mine as well. – Almost like wearing a coat!

This guy comes up, wears me like a coat, and I feel completely reunited with a joyful, enthusiastic, and loving part of myself that has been ‘gone’ for oh so long.

I feel a return of my own enthusiasm and zest for life.

I dreamt that I was in a car dealership with some kind of burger joint splitting a lot. I was purchasing a new VW Beetle, and for some reason, my father was purchasing one for me as well, but I didn’t know it until I had ordered the specs on my vehicle. Halfway through the process, my vehicle was about to go through the assembly line and I was waiting. I spent most of the time in this dream either waiting for my car, haggling over details, worried about the dealership’s return policy, etc. I tensed up when I heard there was a 10% return fee on vehicles (at least $1000), but then relaxed when a different rep told me you have a 6 day free return period. “Great, then I can try both what I came up with and what my father came up with and choose the best.” Last stretch of waiting, burger and fries next door, then I returned to see the new vehicle. It looked like a geek squad car with a white body and black wheel walls and they promised to add more trim to make it look custom to me. Nice.

I take the car out and the terrain has shifted. The “driveway” of this place now has a huge halfpipe-looking crater in it, but my new vehicles wheels are very round and prominent and the body is short so I go for it. The wheels grab in all the right places down then back up this dirt halfpipe and I’m out of the dealership, only now I realize that my vw bug didn’t have any body at all, it is like an off road sand buggy.

I ride into the city and have to pass a pedestrian railed corner with steps, so I transform my off road buggy into a bike and head into a shopping district.

It was then that I noticed a line of 5 young guys on skateboards, all holding a large black fabric like an oversized sheet. They stopped and held the sheet up blocking the view to a line of 5 young men holding rifles and my panic set in. Every entrance to this shopping store, like a grocery store or something, was line with this rifle squad and sheet blocking the public view. The they opened fire and pedaled like no tomorrow, but always too slow, especially for bullets. I rode away as fast as I could, yet it seemed like there were less people running away then there were armed people participating in this thing.

I woke up with a feeling of fear, disgust, and shame at my priorities in the dream.

Some thoughts that I have had, as this dream is still “up” in my energetic experience.

One is the nature of time in this dream. It seems to be reversed. Things seem to be progressing from the future to the past in the dream. I am bicycling away from a violent grocery store scene, then dunebuggying, then receiving the item of desire. Not the car that I am impatiently purchasing for myself, but by giving time to take the proper order of things in universal creation, allowing myself to receive that which my father has prepared for me.

The mantra in my head is: “All things are given by God. All things are given by God.” The car to me represents my worldly power in a very specific form.

The insights on the grocery store scene so far are very biological. I am depressed over the weight gain I’ve abused/overly comforted myself with after the achilles rupture. And somehow, I created this disturbing grocery scene that I can almost feel physically in my stomach. The grocery store is my stomach, to me, and a very aggressive part of me is very angry about not being able to control “the comings and goings therein,” hence, the violence against the grocery patrons.

The message, and physical impetus I finally feel from this scene is some kind of fast or scaling back of my dietary choices or categories – the strength I have been asking for in regaining some self-control in the realm of food consumption.

I was at a park like setting, and lots of people were gathering for an event that I could describe as a wedding. Then a woman arrived who was the center of everyone’s attention, flanked on both sides by female attendants. She was very pale in complexion, had chest length curly hair that seemed too thin despite looking no more than a teen in years. This woman, Tyra, was recognized energetically by everyone at this wedding as some kind of saint, as one who intimately knows God, but she wasn’t dressed as the traditional one to be betrothed, so I was confused at the blending of energies. As Tyra passed where I was standing, she made a prayer in my presence, and I could see that even her lips looked pale and she had an irregular shaped mark on her chin, just below the right side of her mouth, that had scabbed around.

Tyra’s prayer was: “Dear Father, please show me an unopposable, undeniable sign of your presence.” Then Tyra, all of her attendants approached this building that had two main structures. The main building was two storied and on the upper level it seemed her earthly father was waiting for her. All of the guests at this “wedding” waited outside while she spoke to her father. The question she asked her father was what to do with me. The two available options were: “Make him like a pinkney drink or like a midnight spritzer.” The Pinkney to me felt like a daylight option, one that is public and celebrated, and the energy was such that this was Tyra’s preference, what she was advocating for to her father’s family dynamic. However, her father’s preference, and final decision, was the midnight spritzer, a subdued, mysterious, and secret ritual that is not in the public eye.

The second structure at this park was a very simple two-storied tower on the front lawn that reminded me of something that could be a stage prop in the story of Rapunzel. In the presence of all these people, and in the presence of Tyra’s father who somehow viewed from his station, she took me up the spiraling stairs of this tower. We were up there for about 5 seconds, literally, and I really don’t know what the ritual was that took place, other than perhaps she offered me a drink of this “midnight spritzer.”

Then my dream shifted. I was in high school again, on a basketball court as I so often am in my dreams. I could perceive that I was in a school that I have never been to before, I was a new student, having switched schools for my senior year. I led my team to defeat the team I was playing, and toward the end of the game, things started to heat up: An asian kid who was large but insecure pushed another of his friends into me as I approaching the basket. In response I took two steps back, passed the ball to the ungaurded man he left open, and my teammate sunk the winning shot from the baseline. Then, the official day of school began and at the door I was approached and stopped by two teachers, who “heard about my little skirmish on the basketball court.” One of them was against me saying, “I knew you were a bad seed, you were the cause of this, I knew you shouldn’t have come here.”

I found myself calling a meeting, then, and a large round table of 20 teachers and administrators were present where I was allowed to explain what happened. My conclusion was: “I still think I can be friends with that Asian kid. He is just insecure but I sure I will win him over at some point.”

An atmosphere of disclosing all, of overcoming all obstacles, even the dirty ones, then being able to befriend the enemies on the ground (the court) and in the air (the judgmental teacher) to me represented the energy that I was looking for: An unopposable and undeniable sign of the presence of God in my life.