Two years in limbo

As I start to write this, I’m guessing most people won’t make it through the entire story. Primarily because I have no idea where to begin.  There is no single clear message to convey with this story. I’m still sitting here in awe at what happened, trying to make sense of it all.  However, I feel compelled to put it down in writing, mostly for my own sake.

Anyone who has read about my various dream explorations on this website knows my passion for dreams and other aspects such as astral projection and out of body experiences. Dreams are how I connect with my God and maintain a spiritual practice. Unfortunately I’ve been in somewhat of a spiritual limbo for well more than two year as I write this.  Between March 2012 and March 2013 there are exactly 3 entries in my dream journal.  And based on the nearly daily journals from the previous year, that’s a major change.

So, how did I get here? As with many big moments in my life, it all started with a dream.

In December 2010 I was on somewhat of a dream quest. I had decided that I was going to record my dreams every single morning for at least 30 days. If I could not remember the dream, I vowed to write in my journal anyway, just about how I was feeling. This would set the habit/pattern of immediately reaching for my dream journal in the morning.  On the morning of December 31st 2010 I recorded three lucid dreams in one night.  Then, three nights later I had another lucid dream where I perceived Juliette Lewis to have come into my dream.

Understand, that at this same time I was on this dream quest, I was also attending a meetup group on Buddhism. And I was also practicing yoga with a strong intent of opening my heart to love. Not love in the sense for a significant other, but love in general. I was practicing mantras similar to the first part of this one that were targeted at opening my heart to love for everyone.

Approximately two weeks after the previously mentioned lucid dream, I met a woman who looked very similar to the version of Juliette Lewis in that lucid dream. So much so, that for a moment I thought that maybe I was mistaken about it having been Juliette Lewis in the dream. Lets call this woman Cindy for the sake of this post. Regardless of whether it was Cindy in the dream or not is somewhat irrelevant. What matters is what happened to me when I encountered her and spent some time with her over the course of only a few days. Somehow I bonded with this woman in a way that I have never done with anyone in the past.

In the course of only a couple of days, I went from being in this really great place in my life, filled with love and joy, to a complete mess. There were a few times when I would simply break down and cry for no apparent reason. At those times I felt like my life was falling to pieces, even though it was not.

Cindy, who I had bonded with was in the process of losing her home of many years. She could no longer afford the home. The home that she had raised her family in. She was planning to go out of state for one month after selling her house due to a prior commitment, and then she had no idea where she was going to live upon returning. I helped her move her belongings into storage before she was to leave town. In the nature of the teachings I was practicing, I was trying as best as I could to help her through these difficult times, and at the same time I was sharing her emotional pain which was entirely overwhelming for me.

Around this same time, my five year old son became emotionally distressed. While I was trying to hold things together, I watched him go into emotional fits. One time he burst into tears and was screaming in the parking lot of New Seasons. I sat there just holding him while he cried for about 5 minutes non-stop. There was absolutely no reason for these sudden outbursts he was having. And he was unable to explain to me what was wrong with him. He was simply sad. His mom even asked me if I knew what was wrong with him. She said that he was acting very odd and that he seemed to be having the same emotional stress that he was exhibiting around me. She said that she was really worried about him.

Then, something happened that was frightening to me. My son, who rarely volunteers to tell me about his dreams ran into my bedroom one morning and wanted to tell me about his dream from the night before. He asked me to write it down in the journal I keep for him by my bed.

These are his exact words
“A raccoon was sleeping in a tree. And then a dinosaur came, but the raccoon was safe because the tree was covered. And then I was in the tree with my friend raccoon. And then the tree bonked the mean dinosaur.”

Then, when I checked my email about an hour later, there was an email from Cindy expressing her concern about the raccoon’s living on her roof. She had this fear that the people buying her house may harm or kill the raccoon’s. She referred to them as her animal friends.

Between my own emotional distress, my sons emotional distress and his dream coinciding with Cindy’s troubles, I felt a strong urge to step back from whatever it was that I was sharing with Cindy. I was somewhat torn about it. I wanted to stick to my original commitment to help her through the difficult times, but I was a little concerned that somehow this bond was carrying over to my son and effecting his well being.

It was good that Cindy was gearing up to leave town for a month. This would give me time to step back and to disconnect. It did indeed give me some time to disconnect. However, upon her return, I found that there was still a very strong connection to her. While not as strong as before, it was still there. At least she was in a much better place when she returned, so things were not so bad.

When Cindy returned from her trip motivated to start her new business, I offered her some advice and some tips on an area that I knew a little something about. Unfortunately, for some reason she decided she didn’t trust me to help her anymore. She interpreted my effort to assist her as an attempt to get money from her. She believed that I was trying to own up some part of her new business. She was absolutely furious with me for having registered a .com domain name on her behalf, even after she had verbally told me to go ahead and register it for her. While the domain was registered entirely in her name, this did not seem to quell her anger at me for having registered it on her behalf. That’s when the hurtful words came spewing from her mouth. She accused me of being a control freak. She tried very hard to convince me that the entire reason I was into lucid dreaming had to do with this sick controlling nature of mine. She wanted to convince me that I had this need to be in control of everything, including my dreams.

I was completely shattered and heart broken about this. She took the most beautiful and important thing in my life and stomped on it as hard as she could. I believe there is a strong possibility that Cindy knew what she was doing when she said these words to me. I believe she wanted to get even with me and hurt me the way she perceived me to have hurt her. Either that, or she really did believe that I was a control freak. Either way, it hurt just as deeply.

Over the course of the next six months, the entries slowed tremendously in my dream journal. I would wake in the morning and see my dream journal there and I would hear those hurtful words coming from this woman who I had bonded with and cared so much for. So, rather than having to think about her, or those hurtful words, I stopped thinking about my journal entirely. And in doing so I started to remember less and less of the dreams I was having. I had completely shut her down along with my spiritual practice.

As I said, I’m still somewhat in awe about this entire experience. I’ve been racking my brain over it, wondering why on earth did this happen? Why have I gone through this? Why would I allow her words to hurt me so deeply that it would effect my spiritual practice?

One way or another, I must move on and get back to living my life properly. I can’t let another persons diatribe from two plus years ago effect my state of being today. It is absolutely ridiculous that I’ve allowed this to effect me for so long.

Breathing deeply right now. And off to meditate and set good intentions before sleep.