Dreams, Memories and Reflections.
A rear-view mirror into some of my dreams.
Well this is new. I came up with this thought while I sat ruminating next to a lake, “Too much of one thing makes Ashutosh a dull guy.” I have been writing about my village and actively engaging in the promotional events for my book and that has made me repeat the same stuff over and over again, to a point where I found nothing new to write. So, this rumination and digital detox at the freshly revamped lake, next to our house in Chiplun, gave me a fresh perspective.
The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul.
Carl Jung
Dreams. I start my book with a dream I had. Just before our house was flooded, I was deeply engrossed in a dream. I saw snakes everywhere and many of them were warning me of something. It is not the first time that I was envisioning snakes in my dreams. As far as I can remember, I have always had periods when my dreams are much more complex and they have always had snakes or alligators in it. Maybe it has something to do with me growing up around lakes - Chiplun, my hometown, was historically built around lakes. When my dad called me downstairs, I was already mesmerised by that dream. I was wondering what those snakes wanted to warn me. Water was rising all around the city when I opened my laptop and quickly typed in “snakes” “entangled” “water” and many such words along with all the fading things that I could remember from that dream. It didn’t take long to realise that those snakes in my dream were reminding me death. Something was about to happen and that something had never ever happened in my town. Chiplun flooded like never before. Our family and many such countless families like us were praying for a miracle. We were safe when the deluge receded but it put in me a deep curiosity for dreams.
Actually these dreams started far back, in my childhood I was seriously ill and all I could see was mountains of salt. No one knew what was happening to me. My family consulted doctors, priests and many such holy and unholy people to get me out of this illness but nothing happened. The moment I closed my eyes I would be standing in a desert of white salt and within that desert I would see pyramids of salt. Some abstract figures stood on top. I know all this because I kept telling this to my grandma and my mom, who thought that I was captured by some evil spirit. I was told that my family gave some offerings to the local Gods after which I was back to normal. Now, I don’t believe that an offering can mysteriously cure you but this dream stayed with me- not knowing what it meant.
When I came across Carl Jung’s books, in Scotland, I was sure of it that dreams had a deeper meaning behind them. A dream propelled me to walk 1800 kms across India. I don’t say these things out loud - or in any talks - because I don’t want to be called a nutcase. This is the truth though.
Marie-Louise von Franz, a scholarly colleague of Jung's, wrote that dreams "are the voice of nature within us."
I read many books on Jungian psychology to understand the deeper facets of my psyche. There are many gems in the depths of our psyche, which we forget to ponder upon given the extremities of modern world. Maybe people, in the past, had time to just sit next to a haystack, watching their cattle and taking a siesta and dreaming all these dreams which lie in the unconscious. Our dreams warn us, they protect us, they even predict future and those moment when you have a deja vu - you have already experienced it in realms where your waking self has not yet chartered.
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness's of other people. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung
In the past month I had one such dream that I remember quite vividly. I woke up and scribbled it down in the book that I keep next to me.
Here is what I wrote:
I woke up at 4:30 am with the most complex dream that I have ever had. I remember another one with my grandmother where we both go on a ride through the underground tunnels to fetch water. It was a surreal ride through the depths of my unconscious. From then onwards many dreams came and faded away. Many days were dreamless, letting me enjoy the silence of the sleep.
When I woke up today I knew every bit of the dream. I remembered every second of it. I knew I was there, I knew I was present. It had many symbolisms, some of which I will try to think and figure out over time. Some symbols had clarity.
I was with two other friends. I had no physical form that I can remember of. Although the other figures had very vivid forms. It felt as if they were mythical characters from a much distant dimension. Those characters had physical forms which had ornaments and fine clothing. We were standing in the middle of a field surrounded by many people who were similar to us. I don’t remember the boundaries of that field. But it had an an imaginary boundary which no one seemed to cross. We were in tune with others, dancing on beats. Although I don’t remember if that entire sequel had any sound. Dreams are usually mute, at-least in my experience they are. Maybe my brain does not register the sound as it comes. Anyway, the first hour of dream is a flow through many places and meeting people outside linear boundaries of what I called my ‘self’. I was more or less the one experiencing a different world. There were real people, the things that they did had a real purpose. They had specific clothing that was different to ours. I wondered in that moment, why and how did we all end up with shirts and trousers? The options in the older world were limitless. Why not a Kimono? Why not the Bhutanese national dress? Why did we not end up with what the Polynesian tribes wore?
There were many people, hundreds actually, but only the three of us had a special connect. We bonded over something that wasn’t illusory or maybe it was just the bond between those two and I was only watching them do things. Suddenly, we all saw at outskirts of that field. An old man, not the ones that we have in our world, the ones withering apart, dying- this old man was well-built. We had no intentions of going to him. Nor did he invite us in with any hand-gestures. But we all knew that the four of us should meet. The girl who was with us had no form of her own. It was as if she was present at all times, yet we did not know what she looked like. We even spoke with each other, she was obviously there, her presence was felt, yet her physical absence was no hindrance to any of us.
The old man had two tanks - a smaller one inside a large one. I am naming the man who was with us in the triad as Aion. Aion wasn’t his name. None of us had names or forms that can be named or recognised that easily. Yet, its easier to tell the story with names. Aion sat in the smaller tank. He was sitting in a child’s pose. Suddenly the old man poured a big drum full of water on Aion. In any other case it is physically impossible for an old man like him to raise a massive drum but here was an old man with incredible strength. He then poured some warm water on Aion and he kept on pouring water on him after some more intervals. For some reason it felt as if he was being christened.
In the meantime I walked with the feminine spirit to the field. Something had changed. The characters had transformed into frightened, degraded souls who had lost it. They were not dancing anymore. They were looking down, while speaking with themselves and each other. They explained with reason how the Mongols were a threat. Someone had informed that ‘The Mongols were coming’, but none of them knew who had informed it. The source was missing. As moments passed, they kept speaking with each other, creating stories that were obviously untrue. It felt as if they were incapable to stop making more stories. Many such characters came close to me, to tell me the story. Many tried to frighten me and even reasoned with me, ‘this is why you should be frightened!’ I kept looking at the female spirit. We both knew that we were walking amongst dead objects.
Next moment, we both disappeared and I was watching everything from a top-down vision. I was a bird who saw all this happening. The field had no boundaries in reality. Everyone stopped at an imaginary line, which was drawn at the edges of the field by their own mind.
There were many more symbols that I have forgotten since I woke up. I know for a fact that I was there, witnessing it all. Now when I look back, the feminine formless character was my spirit who guided me. The Aion, who I thought was a character throughout that dream was actually my past self. After waking up I left for a walk at 4:30 in the morning. I was witnessing a sleeping world. I could see each forms and names sleeping in each buildings that I walked past. The people who were out were busy doing something or the other. Lost in the field. The Mongols had got them.
The spirit had put the deepest question in front of me. Who are you? She was asking, ‘Who are you outside of what the world has made of you?’ I could not answer. I had no answer at all. I was dead in that moment. My past form, name, character had died down. I was left with nothing.
We have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.
Carl Jung
I feel like we are all being pushed away from each other and I think that this is a deeper strike on our consciousness itself. The algorithms keep us busy and loaded with hate and we find no other option than to be a slave to it - unknowingly, of course. Dreams warn us and if this dream has any meaning then it is this - to regain our consciousness. To become free once again. To be one with reality, with what is and not be consumed by illusory forces.
Did you have any such dreams which you can remember? Type it out in the comment section below.. lets explore each others mind!
If you are still here, I would take this moment to direct your attention to a book I have written. This book is almost 2 years in the making. In 2022 I left off on a walk across India and ended up walking 1800 km from Narvan on the west shore, to Visakhapatnam on the east shore. Initially to document the issues plaguing rural India, the project unfolded to become an unforgettable voyage of self-discovery; involving sleeping in unfamiliar places, venturing alone through the Naxalite insurgent jungles, and even being interrogated in a jail cell.
After contemplating on what is the right way forward, I have come to the conclusion that I will self-publish it- and I did. If you are interested in reading about my journey and supporting me to become a full-time writer, please consider buying “Journey to the East”- which is currently available through my website. www.ashutoshjoshi.in
If you wish to buy me a coffee - paypal, www.paypal.me/ashutoshjoshistudio
You can buy my first book “Journey to the East”, a memoir about an 1800 km walk through India, through my website .
If you would like to buy prints of my photographs, you can choose the photographs you like on my website and send me an email. I will send you custom quotes for the sizes you’d like.
I have had extremely vivid dreams ever since childhood - and I remember quite a few of them. And I have been recording them since I became an adult. All my dreams are in color, with sound, smell, sensation. I have friends in my dreams, who recur, who I have never met in real life. Sometimes I have precognition dreams - where I see something that later happens in real life. The trouble with those is that you can't change what happened...
This is the dream I had two nights before my father died: I dreamed that I was looking at apartments with my father, and Allan, in a large city. At one point we were driving around this stadium, and there were apartments -- it was a college town -- but they belonged to fraternities, and they were pretty battered up, and I wouldn’t rent one. Then we were by some apartments that reminded me of like Chapel Hill, and I even said that I’d lived in one of them. We got out to take a look -- we had to go down some stairs, outside stairs, and I was telling my father to hang on to the rail tightly, and then I saw that the next level didn’t have any railing, so I turned to Allan and told him to help Daddy. Allan, though, was terribly tired, and he told me so, and he curled up in this almost like flower bed, except no flowers, just freshly turned earth, and he went to sleep. So I got my father, and we went up, not down, and we were looking at these apartments. One side of them were like in motels now, where they look out on the inside, over the pool; these apartments had no outside windows, and when my father said yes they did, I pulled the drapes open and showed that what he thought was a window simply looked into the next apartment. Two nuns, in veils, but pink habits and wearing jewelry, came in at that point -- their order owned the apartments, and they were letting people look at them. I wanted to go up further, but couldn’t find the elevator.
The next thing I knew, I was RUNNING, running, running, running, across these fields where they were harvesting wheat; golden wheat; with big black lorries pulling in here and there, and parking, and me going around them, just running my tail off. This puppy, golden with curls, was chasing me, and nipped my hand. I complained to one of the harvesters and he said that they usually gave the dogs a stalk to shut them up, and he gave one to the puppy. I ran on and on until I came to a ladder set in the side of a mountain, in the earth, and there I started to climb. I climbed up until I got to this upright tunnel, wood all around, narrow, but I was going up through it, and when my head poked up through the top I realized I was way up high, VERY high, so high it was scary, and there was almost no platform around to step on, just wide enough to walk, but no railings or anything. I was so high and it was so scary that it almost paralyzed me, but I knew I had to keep going, so I closed my eyes and literally walked up and out of the tunnel and got on to the platform by feel, and THEN opened my eyes, and I was on this redwood walkway -- tremendous view, overlooking the sea -- and walking along it, and came to where the elevators were in what was left of the side of the mountain.
This is the dream I had the night before my father died: Last night I dreamed that I had exchanged bodies -- and not altogether willingly -- with a young man . And as I was walking down the street in this young man’s body, and I had to admit I was admiring the arms very much, all the tight skin and muscles, and the energy, although at the same time I hoped that the original occupant was taking good care of MY body, the female one, and looking forward to being myself again.
My father's death, BTW, was totally unexpected.
And after his death, a few days later, I dreamed that he (my father) was lying in bed, in a dark room, with a small light somewhere, and I curled up next to him in bed, and he told me that he’d hurt his arm (it was his right arm). And I kissed him and then got up and left, and walked down this long, dark hallway with doors all along it, and at the end of the hallway I went out a door and was outside, outdoors, where it was a sunny day.
Dreams are a conduit, a channel, a message...
Interesting what you said about sound - I am never conscious of sound in my dreams - figures, vivid colours, people, occasionally animals, and of course feelings / emotions. No smells. The sense of many layers of consciousness, and time. I suspect Mozart dreamt in sound.