Here is a great example of how we are all the characters in our dreams. In this imagery John finds himself as a hunting guide, which can be seen as being like a teacher. Then he is also the person who has the gun and is going to do the hunting. And he is also the third person who is causing trouble and distraction, inhibiting the potential for the hunting trip to be a success. As in any endeavor we undertake, there are aspects of us that help, and aspects of us that hinder or resist. Knowing this allows us to make better inner alignments for what we want to accomplish. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: When I went to bed at 4 o’clock, I wasn’t sure I was going to get any sleep because I was just fuming. And I think we all kind of carry that, where we go “catawhompers.” And so then I have a dream that basically shows what it’s like to go catawhompers and how it destroys things.
So, in this dream, I am leading the way as a kind of a guide. We’re nearly to the top of this kind of mountain area in which just over the ridge, it’s going to open up into a plain or openness. And I’m a hunting guide is what I am. Behind me is Aria and another guy. Aria’s going to be doing the shooting, you know, he’s got the gun. I’m just going to get him to where the game is at. And then there’s this other guy that’s along, that doesn’t belong, really. He’s the distraction.
Like I mentioned, just on the other side of the top of here, I’m convinced that as soon as one goes over the top, it’s my experience that the whole thing will open up, break into the open, and you’ll always find game there, either deer or elk or something. That’s what we’re hunting.
Aria is lagging with this other person who has come along for some reason that doesn’t facilitate the hunting adventure because this other person is arguing and creating a friction that makes it hard to stay focused.
When I get to the top, I look over and I’m shocked at what I see. Something I hadn’t expected. Here comes this whole herd of mountain goat, climbing up the other side, going to reach this top knoll. I get really excited because for a hunter to be able to shoot a mountain goat—I mean there’re people who get these special license permits to hunt mountain goat and the odds of being able to ever get a mountain goat is nearly impossible, because a mountain goat, you sometimes might spot them in the distance and they’re usually on a hillside or something. And there’s no way that you can catch up to where they’re at. They look like they’re just standing there going real slow, but they make such sure steps that, they’re just, they’re moving. They just really know what they’re doing when they are on a hillside.
And so here they are, these mountain goat were climbing up to where the knoll there, where I looked over. Plus, it’s hard to shoot them because they’re on a hillside, so who knows where they will fall to. And so I race back to get Aria to hurry up. He’s trudging along with this other person who is doing his best to keep things distracted because he’s arguing about things. He’s creating some sort of confusion over something in the past, which, you know, we’re out hunting. It just needs to be dropped.
And so, I get Aria going and then I turn my attention and take over dealing with this guy’s mania, whatever it’s about. And this person is caught up in something in the past, and the way he is acting indicates that he even wants me to hit him in the stomach, to break him out of the trance. Well, he won’t hold it against me to hit him. He’s insisting that I hit him. And so in the dream, I’m hitting him in the stomach and he still won’t come out of the trance. It keels him over and he stands up and I hit him again and he keels over. He still won’t come out the trance. He’s still carrying on about something in the past. This isn’t breaking his fixation.
And, of course, the making of the noise and all of this stuff, and the continuing of whatever this ancient grievance is that’s possessing him, it’s destroying the whole idea that we should be out hunting. You know, you wouldn’t know that from the way he’s carrying on. And I can’t even remember what the issue is that he’s contending with. It’s such a waywardness and distraction, and so far removed as a friction and confusion from what we’re doing. You know, the mayhem to what is important as a terms of a focus of hunting, is disrupting the focus to such a degree that when I get back up to where Aria is at looking around, the goats are nowhere to be seen. I mean, they probably sensed the confusion or even heard it.
The meaning of this is I am pursuing a course of action which requires a clarity and stable and steady focus. Confusion from the past exists around me. This is a distraction from a clear-footedness. This distraction compromises the sight and is enough to get in the way of what needs to unfold.
So, that was actually the second dream that I had in meditation.
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