Strong Dreams – Light Morning

God Is Approaching

A Dream Recalled on 29 December 2000

This continues an occasional series of strong medicine dreams. Several times each night, when our earthly body and personal mind become quiescent, a myth-spinning mind becomes active. The following dream is part of a slowly evolving indigenous mythology. The story of how I was drawn to dreams many decades ago is here. Links to other numinous dreams in this series is here.

Scene 1

I’m in a massive indoor mall, filled with small shops, large businesses, and condominiums. It’s a self-contained urban living environment. People in the mall are trying to leave, due to the immanent arrival of an approaching Presence that is both alien and implacable.

The Advocate

This is the first in an occasional series of my strong medicine dreams. An introduction to the series can be found here. The dream was recorded on the morning of March 4th, 1984. It has five scenes. Each of them — in a nod to internet readability — has been given a title and an illustration. Following the dream are some of the personal and cultural associations which the dream evoked.

My Father

I’m in a courtroom, sitting at a long rectangular table. To my right, at the head of the table, is the judge. To my left is an advocate. Although he seems unfamiliar to me, I somehow know that he’s my father.

Other people are seated around the table also. There’s an air of expectancy in the room. Everyone seems to be waiting for something to happen.

Strong Medicine Dreams

I turn seventy-five next week. That means that I have spent close to twenty-five years (one third of my life) asleep. For many if not most of those twenty-five years I’ve been fully immersed in the swirling world of dreams. Having grown up in a dream-demeaning culture, however, it wasn’t until I was twenty-four years old and living with a woman for the first time that I became aware of that world.

The opening happened in Arden, a small experimental village founded by my great-grandfather at the turn of the twentieth century. Joyce and I had known each other as children there. But my family had moved away when I was in grade school and we hadn’t seen each other again until we both returned to Arden as young adults.