Each of our lives are unique, so the images we create in our dreams will be unique reflections on our own stories. But there are common threads, and here John finds himself in a situation where he is much further from home than he imagined, and the only means of returning is to travel an unexpected route. That imagery can relate to many aspects of our lives, our home representing aspects that are important to us, or are part of our core values. In our dreams, we should live in the top floor of our comfortable home. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: So in my dream I go into a convention with some business types. I mean they’re kind of in suits and ties and whatnot. They’re not the type that I ordinarily hang out with, in other words. And this meeting is in an area where I live. I go there because there’s no cost for this event. In other words, it doesn’t create any complexities for me to go to it, and I’m going there thinking that I will learn something.
Those who attend stay at that same convention hotel and it costs them $250 a night. Everyone who comes stays there. The convention itself is free, it’s the room that costs. I guess I just didn’t realize this when I went.
And so I’m outside this convention hotel and a person comes up to me who is all dressed in a suit and tie; that’s when I realize that none of these people are wearing the ordinary clothes, or are slightly different in other words, the fact that he’s in a suit and tie. And that’s when it dawns on me that I’m not necessarily relating to them.
But the person who comes up to me acts as if there is a relatability. In other words, it’s like he’s very open and accepting as he hands me a paper that has a lot of other things printed on it, but the things that are printed on this paper, I don’t understand. But what he’s written over the top of it is a room number and an amount that he wants me to pay, or reimburse.
Well, I don’t have any money on me so there are a couple of ways that I know of to satisfy the obligation. I find myself looking at both ways as I try to untwine it, and as I’m ambling about the grounds of this convention area what I’m doing is I’m pondering what it is that I need to do about what I just realized: I’ve gone there so now there’s this price to be paid or something.
In keeping with one of the ideas that is slowly unfolding, that kind of pops into my head: maybe I need to get a key. And suddenly I see a place where you can grind the key. Well, that does me no good. Sure, I know that if I can get the room key ground or replicated here, that I can handle the issue then. But to get that this guy needs to be around, and he hands me this thing and then he goes back with the other convention cronies that he’s with and disappears. And I have no idea where he’s gone. So that kind of kills that idea.
So I have to resort to my first inflection. Well actually it’s not my first inflection yet. This is an in-between inflection which is, if he were around I could take him across the street where I live, in other words right nearby, and show him my place and settle up that way. It would be a little out of the ordinary for me to do this because he’s all in a suit and tie and whatnot, I guess he’d be rather shocked that the place that I live in is over the top in that way in terms of its nature and attire.
He would never have anticipated this. I mean he’s tending to look at me as kind of someone off to one side. And if I did that I could settle up with him directly, but that won’t work even though it is the most direct and expeditious approach because this guy is somewhere else when I come to this realization.
So I’m back to the first inflection, the first idea, which is to go to where I live, which is across the street, which is where I was prior to this convention coming to town, that I thought was a free convention, which I could come to know and appreciate something anew there. And I can go back then and retrieve from my room, my place, what is needed in order to make good with what is required.
Well, to my shock, as I go across the street to the place where I think that I stay it looks entirely different. It’s kind of a neat place, too, but it’s different. I kind of come up to someone and they say no, no, no, you’re in the wrong place. That’s when I realize that the place that I’m trying to get to has changed. It’s not as close by as I had thought, because I’ve gone to where I thought it should be only to realize that I’m in the wrong place and that it has to be somewhere else.
I just know I need to go to my place to get this worked out, and I’m running out of time because I need to settle up, I need to address what is required. And all of a sudden this convention deal and the hotel that is part of it all, there’s no town there, it’s by itself. So this kind of creates a problem and I think that I could just walk to where it is that I am at; I’m not sure if I can walk there and get back in the time permitted, or the time available.
My first thought is, I guess I’ll have to hitchhike. I hope somebody will pick me up because I don’t have a vehicle to go back and forth. I mean, everything had been just right there. So the minute I have this thought I see what looks like a kind of a small bus, I’m not sure what it really is, has pulled out of the parking lot and two people rush up and catch it right at the last minute. And this gives me the idea to approach the bus driver.
So as I rush over to him, I ask the driver how far he goes? The shuttle bus driver has no time to describe what he is doing in any kind of detail, where he goes or anything like that. He just says, “Get on.” So I get on figuring that somehow it’s better than just trying to walk. I mean I can’t get there walking, so what choice do I have? Maybe it’ll come together somehow.
So I just get on, I let go, and then I am appalled by what I see: everyone on this shuttle bus is in street clothes. I mean some of them could be hitched, some could be bums, ordinary people but nothing in the nature of what was going to this convention hotel that I was part of. There’s something different about them. So I can’t imagine how this is going to help because the area I need to go to, compared to what I am seeing, is on a whole different scale.
But then as I settle back I realize, when I let go of my first reaction, I notice that I’m not really that appalled at all. I know this is going to be okay. I can settle back into it. There is something that is okay about it. There’s actually something relieving about it. And as friendly as the guy was who came up to me with the note to let me know what the expectation was that I needed to comply with, which again was not what I ever expected to occur, and he was also in a suit and tie which gave him a certain mannerism that I don’t see in the shuttle bus, it’s now all of a sudden seeing the people in the shuttle bus, the ordinary naturalness of the people in the shuttle bus, that I realize that there is a flow that is different with the group that I was in, with how I am.
I somehow realize when I get on the shuttle bus and have let myself have to surrender to go to wherever it is that this shuttle bus goes, feeling that wherever it goes I will be better off than where I am at, and notice that I am more at ease for a reason that I can’t explain because it’s among the bum street people and others packed into this thing – this is the way ordinary travelers have to travel. I’m more at ease around them than the other conventioneers in their suits and ties. So this causes me to do a double take.
So the meaning about this, and what is going on… first of all what is going on is I am able to readily attend a convention because it is near where I live. But when I attend there is an expectation that wasn’t what I expected. And, of course, that expectation is this idea of having to pay the room fee to be there. I had thought it was free and didn’t have any conditions or mannerisms that would burden me with some kind of side expectation.
Now when I realize that there are those here who are upon a path that is slowly diverging, or that by going and looking and staying and getting indulged in this path, that I am slowly diverging away from where I live. I may have heard intellectually that this was a potential problem and reason to not mix a couple of different Tariqas or something, but I guess I needed to experience that to get it, to feel what it felt like. The result was it caused me to appreciate the journey I am on and the naturalness of this journey or place that I reside in.
In other words, again, I am in a place where something else is going on, besides something which is trying to shake something through. I feel I have come to know my path more closely in terms of how narrow it is, and this appreciation comes with a price. I am able to see that I am not actually signing up for that which I am most comfortable with. I am now able to see the danger of being wayward and that I have been carrying this around more than I realized.
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