John: My dream starts off where all I know is that I’m to go to a place that I can sense inside. To begin with, it’s just an impulse; I don’t know where it actually is, so I only have a sense of how to get there. There is no rationality behind it. In other words, it is magnetic, it has a pulling effect on me, but it doesn’t identify any specific place. So I’m following that sense like a thread.
The prevailing opinion inside tells me that I have to go through Denver to get to wherever it is that I need to go. I am drawn to the idea of taking the journey based only on my sense of it. I am holding this idea and not asking any questions.
So how do you ask questions to a sense? Well, you follow it in a way, because there has to be trust. But suddenly, just before setting out, I realize that there is something irresponsible, something too general, in all of this. I feel like I have to ask a question, or take a closer look, or something. It wasn’t until this very last moment that the idea even came up that you can’t just go wandering about based upon a sense.
So I look inside to examine what I was about to do. What I discovered was that the ultimate destination was Los Angeles; yet I was going to Denver. That seemed a little out of the way. By now knowing that, I could be more responsible. Immediately there is the idea that there is a more direct route. Until then, the inner sense dictated. Now I could no longer function strictly off the magnetic pull inside.
Now I can automatically intuit a more direct track. I ask about it. Again, I am following something that is a trust inside, a thread that is opening up, and there is still the magnetic pull of it. This is all presented inside me. So I ask inside.
I am told that the route that is laid out for me is well established. It is a well established route and that what I am looking at is not clearly marked; it is kind of a secondary route. The route that is laid out for me is more of an interstate; you follow that and it may take you around and about, but you are not as apt to go wrong because there are no obstacles etc. What I am thinking about is a secondary road with two-way traffic that not much is known about. It is not clearly marked and I can’t be sure I can trust that.
So my question pointed out this difference of opinion inside. Now that I have an idea of what this is about, I get out a map. The printing on the map is difficult to read, but I am able to see that this fairly obscure little road is even marked “road to L.A.” It is a little old back road but it says “road to L.A.” Not very well traveled, not very widely known, but it is more direct to get there. Then I go off to try and understand these various inflections inside with a little more honing.
The first thing that’s interesting is that the course of the dream takes me from a feeling to a realization. I was able to gain knowledge of the destination I am meant to reach. At the beginning it is just blind trust.
Second, upon knowing that, I am able to directly inflect the most direct route to that destination, and that inflection is more focused, more direct than the general route I had been following when I was going with my sense. Now the direct route is not as well defined because when I was working off the magnetic sense only, I lacked the focus to be able to hold onto something like this little narrow road.
Third, when the prevailing sense is questioned – which is me questioning the prevailing sense – I am able to find a greater specificity and see the more hidden as opposed to the generality.
All of that has become possible where it was not possible before, when I had no idea of the end point. When you don’t know where you are struggling to go, you can’t gain further detail or better information from which to act.
And fourth, the inflection of the smaller road proved to be more to my personal need and manner, because it was now precisely visualized. From this visualization I am able to see – even though to most it may have seemed obscure and uncommon – that this route is indeed a clearly established, although less traveled, way to L.A.
