Chicana Dreamer

Taking an idea from a dreamer’s dream is called “extraction” and planting the seed is called “inception.” Where does this idea come from, I critically asked myself, as I watched the film I had so arduously avoided all these months. I didn’t like that the movie was billed with so many guns in sight, explosions, broken faces, etc. It’s not that I’m above violence myself, but that it gets into my nervous system like angel hair. But, this past weekend, my time was up, and I sat through it–not once, but twice. Though, the second time I fast forwarded through the violence, and savored the instruction and planning for the inception. Here’s what I liked about the film. I won’t give away the plot, and I’ll try to not over-explain myself, given that I’m not a movie critic anyway.

The first theme that comes to mind is the potential for getting lost in time and space. Di Caprio carried a totem to check his reality. He’d set it a spin, if it didn’t stop, he knew he was dreaming. Being the master of dreamers, he’d remember to pose the question. This group of dreamers could put each other to sleep in the middle of a sentence and finish the thought in another dimension. Checking for reality was crucial. And so it is for us who are trying to awaken. For one thing, you need a very strong desire to remember to even remotely question yourself. But they did it, and came back with full memory of the dream.

More frequently than not, I go into a dream and fail to challenge myself to even bring my hand up to my face to remind myself that I’m in another dimension. What my practice of dreaming has provided for me, however, is the realization that life itself is fragile, and suffering abounds. Luckily, each moment, waking or dreaming, we have the opportunity to choose a new alternative; a new place initiated by a brand new thought. Usually, we have our constructs, the props of our lives in place. We’re also very protective of keeping our mental environment exactly the way that keeps us just slightly tilted and in subtle chaos. Not too much–just enough to make us think that we’ve come up with a new idea and that things are changing. All the while, there is a place, deep underground, below the basement, where we come back to time and time again just to make sure no one has touched or moved anything. Where we keep the people we love and adore suspended in time and space with a single idea that serves to keeping in tact what we believe makes our world safe.

We keep these constructs as our little totems to assure ourselves that yes, indeed, my life is going as it should. Fortunately, we don’t have to live the perfect spiritual life, as long as we keep asking for the Truth. The dream “Going to Tlalocan” in my book, Corn Woman Sings suggests the identical point by the Ancestors “Know which god you are serving, and which world you are in. Click here for the Dream.

What I liked most about “Inception” is that it actually embeds the thought that makes one wonder, where is reality? Have I gotten stuck somewhere thinking I’m awake? In the end, the old man is simply what the Asian entrepreneur has become in his quest for power. The gift for us is that we, the viewers of the film, have actually fallen “victims” to the shape shifter/dreamer and must now live with the challenge burning within ourselves, “Know which god you are serving, and which world you are in.” It’s official: It’s time to wake up. Now.

Sweet Dreams, write when you can.
Ellie

I’ve yet to meet someone who has not dealt with duality–that precious gift of opposites and contradictions we face in life. What we believe about our past defines who we think we are, and thus begins the dance with Duality. But hold on, there’s more: Shape Shifting is an option.

Granted, once we begin to work with consciousness, we are apt to find thoughts, feelings, fear, and other such emotions amplified. But the point is to remember that nothing is ever fixed–everything, and I do mean, everything–is always in a state of flux. In my dream circles students begin by thinking a current situation is fixed. It’s as though we must go to the edge of our reality and step off the precipice before we can see that, in fact, nothing is written across the sky forever. A student identified a mattress he carried on board a dream airplane as his ego. In class he dealt with a futon, clumsy, cumbersome, unwieldy, and became frustrated. The lightheartedness in the group helped him consider the possibility that discarding the “mattress” might be a viable possibility. The idea didn’t come easily because in the waking state it is difficult to let go of feelings that protect us–self-righteousness, indignation must be protected or we think we’ve lost a battle.

Traditionally, shape shifting in the early Native cultures was considered being able to change oneself to another species, from human to owl or other form. I’ve heard from reliable sources that there are still some who can change themselves into something other than human, but generaly the consciousness has changed and we no longer “believe” in such phenomenon–for waking time, that is. The scientific mind is too strong now, but, even so, there are other ways that we can practice amazing shape shifts. In Corn Woman Sings: A Medicine Woman’s Dream Map I discuss this in greater detail. Here, I am referring to awareness in our dreams and waking that enables us to transcend the accepted norm and delve into consciousness as it is believed in the Western World.

Shape Shifting is a state of being wherein we, in essence, step lightly from rainbow to rainbow and travel easily and effortlessly through thoughts that could make us earthbound. We can let go of beliefs that bind us to the heavy and dense world; yet, shape shifting in our dreams is no easy feat. Dreams being the seat of reality, we shape shift there first, and bring the consciousness with us to apply to the waking world.

We could elect to see shape shifting as a test, like the student with the mattress, and be willing to travel through life lightly. Life is a dream, be willing to err on the side of compassion for yourself and others; let go for an instant of your tight grip on an idea and change right before people’s eyes. In my book, that’s real shape shifting. No medicines, no mind altering is necessary; just an instantaneous decision to let go of right and wrong in both the dreaming and the waking time.

Happy Trails,
EBD