No. 61 - Dream==World

A few minutes ago I awakened abruptly from what I had hoped would be a pleasant night of sleep that, in truth, was a night of dream-filled torment. I recall my breath coming in sharply, a sense of urgency, feelings of sadness, despair, anger. I looked around to see where I was… had I just experienced something real? The images, sensations, conversations and perspectives I had while in deep slumber seemed to be so real to me… so real and so genuine that now, even as I sit here awake, part of my minds eye is still considering the messages and lesson to be learned that can be gleaned from that dream==world.

There was a place, a different world, inhabited by many different peoples, all who had found a way to live together peacefully. Each sect was different – looked different, had different cultures, and acted in ways that suited them. Theirs was a prosperous land, having no need for war, no need for anger, no need for jails, and no interest in exploiting their own language. They dealt with their issues with rules and laws that insured one group could not benefit from the other.

Then there was another group… the group that felt envy, fear, hatred, malice, and every other kind of fear based negative emotion one could have. This group was collectively guided by their unyielding need to offset their overwhelming sense of fear with their even great need for power. They had watched the peaceful people for some time and concluded that even while these people “appeared” to be calm, they were only acting this way as a way to fool their enemy. “Sure”, they thought, “a group as mighty as this would some day be a threat…”. “Surely”, they reasoned, “these people were up to no good.”

And so, the one group attacked the other.

When the attacks began the peaceful people came together to understand their options and decide what to do in their best interests. Surely, these actions against them had not been provoked… It was decided that they should leave their land to find another place where they could create a home, and so every one of these people gathered what was necessary and left.

The attacks continued. Everywhere they went they where attacked… their numbers began to shrink. Fathers would go into the field to find sustenance for the wandering family only to never be seen again… or worse…

After a time a stirring began within the peaceful group. Many of the people that had lost someone close decided they would run no more. They would take up arms and defend their people. Many of the elders resisted this notion because it was not the way of their culture and they feared this kind of change would not help -- but only introduce the very behaviors that had killed so many of the peaceful people -- into their very presence. The defender group would not hear these warnings.

And so a new fight began, now with the thinking that this is the only way to send a message to the evil group that their attacks would no longer be tolerated. Initially this response had the impact of stunning the other side… but only temporarily.

As the fighting wore on the landscape became barren and would not support the people. Food became scare and the peaceful people were forced to stay in their resting places longer because they had to cover more ground with each move. Their people were scared, tired, hurting, hungry.

As things continued to worsen, the elders came together and all agreed that this was the beginning of an end for their cultures. They had seen that now even members of their own community had become as heartless and brutal as the very group from which they were protecting their people. “Evil begets Evil”, became the mantra that resonated from lip to ear throughout group.

Finally, on the day of the end, the last battle was fought. It is here that this dream and my reality blended in the way that ultimately caused me to awaken in a panic. I saw many terrible acts of brutality happen to these people… to ALL of the people.

At times I was an observer, a fly on the wall, an element of wind that happened to breeze by the torrential flood of hurt, pain and devastation.

And at other times I found myself wielding some sinister form of weaponry in defense of someone I loved and/or cared about, ready to die (or bring death to the attacker) for what I believed was the right thing to do. My mind saw the ravages of war, and what one fearful man could do to another. My perspective was shockingly draw to the intimate detail of mothers and children wailing in agony as they saw the one they loved lost in battle.

This visage disturbed me to the point I needed to yell for it all to end. No more could I bear the with-ness of these images, the with-ness of the screams of agony, the with-ness of the mental hardship so many where forced to bear.

It took me half a second to wake up. It took me ten minutes to calm myself down and realize it was only a dream – a nightmare. It took me twenty minutes to decide I needed to write about this.

It’s taken me six years of work in the streets and witnessing the traumatic affects and impact of fighting, hurting, emotional dysfunction, and minimal (or non-existent) respect for others to come to more fully appreciate one key question I think we should all consider more carefully:

How closely do our dreams and our realities align?