The Fox's Secret

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated the site, in part because I’ve been unable to come up with a satisfying piece reflecting on the previous dream narrative in which the Fool returned for a fifth time in the past year.  So instead of continuing to spin my tires in the mud of that particular dream, I’ve decided to go ahead and post another.  This is a dream I had about a month ago, and I think it’s interesting on a number of levels.  It continues with the theme of religion and religious truth (and falsehood) and it also comes back to a central struggle of mine that increasingly revolves around the seeming futility of academic and or intellectual pursuits.  But now I’m interpreting before I’ve narrated the dream.  So without further ado, here is the dream in which I escape from a cult on a hill:

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The previous two entries both involved religious themes and the appearance of divine figures.  I’ve decided to stick with that theme tonight and post a dream that I had in the spring of 2002.   It’s a dream that had major ramifications for my waking as well as my sleeping life.  But I’ll say more about that in the next entry.  As usual, I prefer to post the dream narrative itself, leave it open to the reader’s interpretation, and only then post my own.

One night I got home at four in the morning, having been out drinking again. The first part of the night was filled with those bouts of drunken sleep from which you remember absolutely nothing. When I woke up the first time, it was probably around 9 in the morning. The bedroom window was open slightly, enough to see that it was a very overcast day. There was a gentle rain falling. I can still hear the sound of the rain today. When I went back to sleep, I had a dream that forever changed me, in what ways I’m still not sure. Read more »

After a good bit of reflection, I think I have a pretty good handle on what I can take away from the dream I described in the previous entry.

I do feel disappointed in myself spiritually.  I have many values that I do not live up to and feel that I am often wasting away a great deal of potential.  In some ways, the rejection itself is not done in anger, but in a “tough love” sort of way.  It’s my spiritual self saying “No, it’s not okay that you’re not living up to these ideals–or even trying hard to live up to them.  Falling short is one thing, but you’re not even trying.” Read more »

In my previous entry, I described a dream in which I decided to take issue with an omnipotent being over the fate of my friend, Debbie.  Toward the end of the dream, I was about to face the presumably very painful consequences of that rebellious choice.  And yet, when I woke, even knowing that the rebels I had led into battle had been defeated, I still felt a great deal of pride over the choice I made.  And I would later realize that the dream itself signaled some big changes in my life and in the way I saw the world.

Does it sound strange to feel proud of oneself for actions taken in a dream?  Maybe it does.  But while I was dreaming, I did not know it was a dream.  I thought the world really had ended, and events really were playing out as described by the more fundamentalist interpreters of the Book of Revelation.  I knew that it was hopeless to rebel against an omnipotent being and that there was absolutely nothing in it for me if I chose not to accept the fact that my friend was going to be sent to hell.  But I stood up for her–and for my ideals–anyway.

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Have you ever had a dream that changed your life?  Or perhaps a dream that crystallized a major change that was already happening in your life?

The first time I had a dream of this kind was during my senior year of high school.  I suppose that as many people approach graduation, there is a sense that the world they know is ending and a great deal of change is to come.  My senior year caused a great deal of reflection on everything from potential college choices to career interests to religious beliefs to the meaning of life.  It was also the first year I remembering having so many personally significant dreams–dreams that literally changed (or made me question) some of my most central beliefs and the ways in which I understood my life and the world around me.  In some ways, you could say my fascination with dreams as having a greater significance than mere fantasy began here, at this point of my life.

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I spent a lot of time thinking on the images, sounds, emotions and events of the Fool’s fourth entry into my dreams in less than year.  I think that in many ways it sums up the most fundamental inner conflict of my life.  At heart, I have been and maybe I still am an idealist.  A dreamer.  A believer.  I still find great wisdom in the secret that the fictional Little Prince learns from his friend, the fox: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.  What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

On the other hand, faith has never come easy for me.  I’m also a seeker.  I question everything and I’m curious to no end.  And in many cases, my searching has not led me to deeper faith, but to ever increasing doubt.  I believed in Santa longer than anyone in my class at school, even into the 5th grade.  Why?  Because I believed, very firmly, that my parents would never lie to me about something so important.  From the time I found out they had, I rarely trusted what I was told by anyone again.  I felt like a fool for having believed for so long.  I was embarrassed and ashamed and realized why so many people had made fun of me for being so naive.  There’s a part of me that never wants to be taken for that kind of fool again.

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I really thought that I was done with dreams about The Fool after I finally confronted this character in the dream I described here.  I should have known better.  Despite an eight month hiatus (he must have been hibernating during the winter), the Trickster invaded yet another dream this past June.  It happened during my vacation.  I was staying at a Travelodge in Ft. Bragg, California in between two travel days.  The dream was so intense that I got out of bed at around 3 a.m., flipped on the lamp and wrote down every detail I could remember in my journal.  So, even though the dream is now two months old, the narrative of this dream is as fresh as they come.  (I have added some additional comments where my night time scribbling might have been hard to decipher otherwise in parentheses.)

Here is what I wrote down in the middle of the night when the Trickster returned to play yet another joke:

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