Reader alert: This dream contains the dreaded N-word. It is not a racist statement. Anybody who knows me would know that. It is simply surrealism. It is unedited raw material straight from the Unconscious. It comes from early 1993, when I was living at Esalen, and running the Creative Arts Center there. I finally (Sept. 2011) decided to publish it because it’s so unique. It’s just too good not to share…
Feb 1, 1993, 3:30 am: I just awoke from a group of dreams of wild and sumptuous creativity and clear, resonant emotional content. What matters is the love we share. Everything else is an order of magnitude less important. A description of the images or story could not begin to convey what these dreams are about:
I want to tell Deborah Miller (she was running Friends of Esalen at the time) how happy I am. She’s a bit standoffish in a pink suit. “Oh Debbie,” I say, gathering her into a hurried hug, “Let me love you. I am feeling so much. It’s not personal, but just so much I need to share it with someone.” She’s a bit stiff, and very pregnant. To show her what I mean, I place my hand gently on her belly. She understands, and takes my hand, and we walk together, but not for long. The connection is broken, slipping and sliding down steep, icy sidewalks in a lovely old area of San José. These places weren’t made for ice – you can see they never expected it. Someone points out there’s no ice in those upper units. It’s a microclimate – dependably warm. Crazy niggers live up there. They are spoofing paranoia as I wait below: “What’s he doing there, watching us? Look at that outfit.” Falling all over themselves laughing. They carry the old guy down. He’s drunk and joking about pissing on me, and he does. Pees on my leg as he lies on his side laughing.
We get out of there and take off down the street. What’s the matter with those people? Damn, niggers, they’re racist too! The whole world is like Disneyland, so sweet and bright and sexless – like disney kids – a lot of feeling though. Floating through this scene singing and improvising. The song describes this sweet world as having no sex, no sex, and I sing back in a light-opera comic mode, “Not even just a little?” What a grand joke. It’s so funny I fall off the porch laughing backwards into space: Mythical Mom & Dad’s porch in twilight night of costume-jeweled universe. Just blown out of there. I almost don’t go back, but they need to know I’m unhurt. It’s important to let them know. I return & embrace a 3D cartoon Dad with a caricature squiggle face; all glowing art with ’40s abstract quality. He’s so emotional, he forgot to take down some of the decorations on the porch. He can’t remember things, and it scares him. Jewell season is over. I forgot, but I guess it doesn’t matter. We’re all here together. That’s what matters.
Mythic Mom comes out. We’re all teary-eyed and so glowing. The song becomes a rhythmic sobbing, yet still a song: Ah-hah, ah-hah, IN OUT IN OUT, breathing the release with tears, Real Tears, and everything OPEN. Everyone is crying. Mom and Dad crying. Passing woman who cries with my eyes – my reflection as woman – and a dark woman who inspires some fear, even though she just flickers through the scene. I awaken with the Ah-hah, Ah-hah rhythm of tears very alive in me, so open to life, feeling unable to describe the beauty and splendor of this sumptuous dreamscape of love, song and absurdity. Drenched in love and color, so open to feeling. In the end, it’s the love we share that matters. All else is secondary. The sad story of this dark earth, so hard to comprehend and open to. Why is it like this, so mean and cold, when each of us has an interior universe of wide open love and creativity?