Vivid Sensations, Readable Dream Texts by Jennifer
For the June Oneironauticum at the Ojai Foundation, I downed my bitter brew of Calea Zacatechichi and then followed moonlit paths through the grounds to our spacious yurt, spectacularly perched on the edge of the Eastern lip of the valley.
Erik and I alternated between a sensual sexy vibe and giggling like children, particularly once we’d hunted down a persistent rustling that turned out to be a very cute mouse who barely deigned to scurry away, retreating several times only as far the outside edge of my flashlight’s circled beam.
Though not particularly different or more numerous than usual, my dreams that night were extremely vivid. In one scene, I saw a very high ferris wheel in the distance, with the San Francisco skyline behind. I could make out people raising their arms as they got to the top, barely lower than the tops of the buildings. For a moment I felt the vertiginous sensation of cresting the top of the incredibly tall wheel in one of its rocking gilded gondolas. Then my perspective switched back to my distance view. As I looked at the wheel through a window, I leaned my hand against a wall that began turning. I realized that the wheel was stationary and that it was my building that was turning. I clearly felt the wall sinking down in its rotation and woke up with the sensation still vivid, as real a feeling as my fingers hitting keys as I write this.
In another dream, I discovered the notebooks of a work colleague and realized he’d been taking notes every time we talked on the phone. Among dream enthusiasts, it’s well known that we’re rarely able to actually read text in dreams. In fact, one of the more well known ways of testing to determine if you’re dreaming is to try and read something and see if you can make it out. I could clearly read what A. had written, however, and even made out some sentences in blue ink highlighted with light purple, and other notations in black ink, some underlined. Most of what he had written concerned fairly mundane observations of my reactions to things, e.g. “Jennifer seems excited about lightning in Japan”. The final thing I read said “Jennifer is still pretty, though she’s clearly getting older”. When I reported this dream the next morning, Dale Pendell laughed and commented that I’d gone to a lot of work to get that message from the spirits. Thanks a lot, spirits.