Terror, terror, terror 2 ...

 I am back with my 2 adventuring friends. We are at the edge of a cave now in the mountains.

My male friend looks into the cave and starts to say "terra ... terra ... terra ..." *

He is frozen with fear looking and I look to what he sees ...

He then says "a Pterodactyl has her, a Pterodactyl!"

I see a Pterodactyl emerging from the cave (its beak actually is a little like a Pelican interestingly ...). In its mouth is a woman - her face peers out from its throat, her arms are poking out of the mouth wrapped awkwardly around he head. She looks for all the world like a baby being born out of the Pterodactyl's mouth.

The Pterodactyl picks up pace and runs off the cliff edge soaring into the sky. I remain connected with the woman's feelings of terror. She is now soaring above the earth leaving her in a terrible dilema. She longs to kick and break free of the Pterodactyl's mouth. However the animal now keeps her safe from plummeting to the ground.

Later relaying this dream to someone I realise that the "terra ... terra ... terra ..." sounds like the word terror, terror, terror - the predominant feeling of this and the previous dream on the same night.

I also note all the birth symbolism in this one. She looks like a baby being born though she is adult. I can sense / feel her body curled up in the Pterodactyl stomache like a baby in the womb. The bill of the Pterodactyl is "like a Pelican" that delivers baby's in folk lore.

It also made me think of the existential terror and dependancy of an infant, upon the adult who carries it - if that adult is in anyway unsafe.

Two Flying dreams

I have a history of flying dreams that don't end well, here are two recent ones - but the second seems a significant development in my psyche as finally it has a happy ending!

A few nights ago I was back in my usual 'flights ending very badly' nightmare. I was on a plane landing in very windy conditions and it was being buffeted around. I looked out the window and we were just a metre from the ground and I thought "phew we are going to make it".

But at the last minute the plane pulled up steeply and from there on I was in a terrible nightmare, a bit like being in a Stephen King movie! I think at one point there was even a clown flying the plane, certainly there was lots of graphic violence. I won't describe the details of this except for one motif that stands out in my memory - a woman being killed by having her head caved in violently with a sledgehammer.

I highlight this detail as I feel this dream is an egoic one, basically to do with armouring developed against a world perceived to be ruled by fear and violence. In some ways I feel embarrassed that I still have this dream, surely have I seen through this fear based experience of things by now?

However as brutal and graphic as the head caving was, I can't help but feel that something was necessarily being destroyed in this action. That even this nightmare with it's brutality, has its Kali like place in uncovering the true self, an expression of the destruction of thought structures perhaps, that keep me attached to fear and suffering.

Because what happened a few nights later was extraordinary ...

A lighter way of flying

I have been taking some wonderful herbs, and in my dream last I met my herbalist. She had constructed a flying machine out of scraps of flowery fabric and hazel poles. She took me for a spin up in the clouds over a beautiful woodland. "Not too high!" I yelled at times, she laughed and we never went to high. Indeed it was a delightful experience.

Next we went up again in a different but similar flying machine. I understood this was one I had made, it still had a very natural and home made feel, but where as the last one was just "like Mary" (my herbalist) the design of this one was very much me. It had broad wings and a triangle like structure at its core.

In the craft were Mary, myself and a man who had joined us. I was in charge of flying this time and we went over woodlands and then the sea. It was a very delightful journey! Then the time came to land the craft and I became uncertain wondering "do I know how to land it, I am not sure that I do?".

I worried that I had not been studious enough studying the manual and perhaps now I was putting my passengers at risk. Still I carried on thinking "how hard can this be?" and just focused moment by moment, on little micro adjustments of my hands and body, each dipping the craft a little lower again and again till we were rushing close by the ground at an exhilerating speed!

In fact it reminded me of the landing during a hang gliding experience I had undertaken some years ago Hang gliding in Rio 2014

I was scared but we landed safely. We were a few fields away from where I intended, but I checked with my passengers and they all seemed quite capable to find their own way to their intended destinations. We had some discussion and then parted ways, I felt very happy.

And upon waking, I am amazed that finally - I have had a good outcome to my flying dream!