The Emissary of Dreams
One morning after an especially long walk through the forest and into
the meadow, I returned home feeling quite tired. I lay down and fell
asleep. Then I dreamed - not an ordinary dream where I am chasing
squirrels in the woods, but a deep dream - a dream with rich, emotional
tapestries and estuaries. It was as strange as a duck-billed platitude.
This dream was as real to me as is my reality when I am awake. And
like many dreams, it defied any spatial orientation and temporal
sequence. One scene changed immediately to another without transition
and yet it seemed quite normal. No one or thing had a proper name. Past,
present, and future were unified into one.
I lived on an alien world of unknown whereabouts among an alien group of tribals. Of course in the dream there was nothing alien about us. We were just who we were. I had been raised by the tribals, but I was not one of them. Yet they accepted me as one of their own, and I felt that I belonged with them. I was one of the youth of the tribe, and I was a male.
The scene changed in an instant. The youth were provided an opportunity to participate in an exacting initiation that had consequences for one's standing in the tribe. Few of the youth took the challenge because of its difficulty and its likelihood of death. Before taking the initiation a youth had to successfully bond with one of the opposite sex after having been sponsored - one representing the male of the bond and the other representing the female.
It came to be that my best friend chose to represent the female who ultimately would bond with me. This was a highly unlikely happening that immediately aroused interest in the tribe and led some to speak of an omen. I asked the female to bond with me, and she immediately accepted. We both knew this was meant to be and that it was exclusively for the initiation.
The scene shifted again. I began the initiation. I was required to fight to the death a vicious, reptilian creature. It snarled and roared at me, and I immediately realized why few of the youth undertook the initiation. When it lunged at me, I managed to get my right hand around its throat and compress its trachea. As it scratched and clawed, I plunged my left hand into its chest and ripped out its heart. I displayed its bloody heart over my head for all of the tribe to see. I had accomplished what few others had.
The scene shifted once more. The creature that I had just killed was alive again. But this time it was calm. It smiled at me and then congratulated me, saying that I had done well. Before it walked away, it told me to dream of it someday.
The tribe was in awe. All that remained of the initiation was a water ceremony that my female and I would undergo. We stood in front of the Emissary who was next to a large container of water. My female went first. He plunged her head under the water and firmly held her there for a very long time. He then released her and she emerged smiling.
Just before he plunged my head under the water and held me there, I noticed that he had an unusual smile on his face that no one else had seen. I choked and gasped when I ran out of air, yet he continued to hold me down. I couldn't stand it any longer so I forced my head out of the water. The Emissary and the others looked at me in bewilderment. Why had I failed such a simple ceremony? (I knew in the dream that because I was different than the others, I could not stay under water nearly as long as they could.)
The Emissary told me I had two more chances to complete the water ceremony. Again he put my head under the water. Again I struggled and forced my head out of the water. Everyone was aghast and aphasic. I told myself I would not fail the third try. Once my head was under water I resolved not to struggle - to stay as long as he required. Time passed, and finally I had no air, yet I did not struggle. He took my head out of the water for all to see, but I had drowned.
My female was in a panic. She ran to me and began beating my chest and blowing air into my mouth while everyone else watched intently with preclevitudes of disaster. Over and over she tried to revive me. Finally I awoke, and I awoke from the dream.
I was disoriented. The dream I woke up from seemed more real than my present reality. Are dreams merely temporary creations of the unconscious mind, or do they exist independent of the dreamer who on occasion enters them? Is the waking world - our physical world - an illusion, a temporary residence, and not true reality?
Dreaming is the vehicle that brings dreamers to this world," the Emissary said, "and everything sorcerers know about dreaming was taught to them by us. Our world is connected to yours by a door called dreams. We know how to go through that door, but men don't. They have to learn it.
~ Carlos Castaneda, The Art of Dreaming
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
~ William Shakespeare