The robot structure of daily lives does not facilitate the awareness of the shadowlands.
It is the dim reality of half-waking, half-dreaming. aware that there is an outside world, but refusing it. the distant hum of reality, the day that must be faced intruding upon.
Also, but not as distinctly, going back to sleep. the gradual shift from conscious to unconscious.
What is consciousness? as far as I can concretely determine while still using words that make sense (and ideas that have content) it is the period in which our memory operates.
Yes, we remember dreams, but not as our own actions. dreams are different.
dreams are the memories of the shadowlands.
the phrase came to me as I was drifting off to sleep, or trying to... the orderly thoughts that prevented my drift. the drift I willed o-so-hard, but which would not come.
The order was too strong... into the shadowlands I notice my grip upon my own thoughts loosening, order dissolving, chaos imposing. When the chaos reigns -those mental lists, the constant assessments, and the internal conversation, then the unconscious begins.
and we walk into the shadowlands.
and what's there, what kind of place is the shadowlands?
my experience is personal. I know not what the dreams of others are made. I've heard them recounted to me, as best as words allow for the recollected, but this is hearsay. I've heard stories of dreams come true, mirrors of realities they've later met. this too is hearsay.
the following however is not hearsay, until of course you yourself relate it to another.
I was eight maybe, maybe nine. The dream was a vivid one, and I remembered much of it. My mother and I talked about it:
a scene in which I saw a large plate, a silver plate, with a cover. an ornate butler perhaps, perhaps not. the cover is removed and has water in it, filled to where the cover once went. there were vegetables in it too, I believe.Her thought was that I should drink more water. This didn't seem right, and also seemed to fit what I perceived (or I think I did (in a nine year old mentality) ) to be "what she wants me to think". Perhaps that was true. I don't begrudge of it her now - water's good for you.
There was another scene though:
It was some sort of shoot-out, an old west setting the entire dream had. I looked down at my hand. My right thumb "flapped" open to reveal my innards.Less than a month after that incident I slammed a car door into my hand (My mothers husband alway told me not to slam the door) and I looked down - my right index finger was "flapped" open, in the exact same manner. Immediately I recalled my dream.
Another instance I was in a dream, I did not understand, and could not explain it. I could and can only use metaphors to describe it. I was about ten or so years old:
I was in a maze, not really a maze... I had a goal, I
was trying to get to a certain place, to navigate.
but it wasn't directions, more.. Colors! Maybe, but
that's closer than space... I remember it was real
difficult, and it was real important that I get to the
object. I was scared. I was running, running, screaming.
My dream ended.
I was outside my room, outside our apartment, across a bridge, returning
home. I had been running, I had been screaming. Screaming at the top
of my lungs to our apartment complex, in the middle of the night.I saw that maze again, New Years 1995. Again it scared me, as I wasn't in 'normal consciousness', but I realized the nature of the maze more. I knew that my comprehension of the space was in the shadowlands, I only have the memories of knowing more.
