River 6
Lorna
A Mystical Experience 1965

~~~~~~dream~~~~~~

My mind and its awareness were present and centrally located, but there was no awareness of my physical presence, no awareness of my body at all, so it becomes really odd that I was intensely aware of colour and sound. The dream was geographically formless, with no identifiable landmarks or physical setting. There were no symbolic hills, valleys, roads, trees, animals, machines or people. There was no action at all, symbolic or otherwise. Just awareness, mystical in power and impact, and the difficulty in explaining it except through the use of negatives, a matter of what it was not, rather than what it was.

I use the word ‘amphitheatre’ to explain where I was, but it was not finite in the usual sense when the image of an amphitheatre is brought to mind; yet that is what it was most nearly like. In so far as infinity can be enclosed, this was enclosed, even compressed, as if totally inside my mind. I was not grounded in any way, yet I was not adrift or floating either. I was completely without bodily orientation. Wherever I was, my strongest awareness was a combination of beautiful colour, light and sound. The background sound was musical yet unlike any mechanically produced music I have ever heard. The nearest I can get to an accurate description of it would be to liken it to the effect Percy Grainger sometimes strove for in his music, or the smooth sliding from one note to another that can be produced on a synthesiser. There were no clearly defined separate notes, no clear or easy certainty whether it was voice, instrument or air movement. There was no perceptible wind. I have since read of cosmic or astral harmonics. My gut feeling now is that the sound could be described as such. The effect was transcendent, complexly harmonious, soothing, peaceful and extremely subtle.

The colours surrounding me were predominantly blues, greens, violets, all shimmering, all shot through with gold and silver. Everything was sheeny, like peacock feathers, or the blue flash of kingfisher in sunlight along a creek. In so far as there was any form at all, the bowl of the amphitheatre tended towards deeper tones of greens, rising to blues, while passing through peacock and teal and aqua tones, to rise through a ‘sky’ of shimmering blues through to jacaranda and violets. There were no light sources - no stars, sun or moon - yet everywhere was a golden or silvery sheen. Colour and light seemed softly yet brightly iridescent and crystalline. Despite a feeling of pulsation and an almost overpowering range of colour and light, the actual effect was, like the sound, both soothing and subtle, and constantly changing.

I have no idea how long the dream lasted but I became aware of the silvery tones of light predominating. Gradually the intensity of light changed. It was indefinable then and I still do not know how to describe it adequately. My experience of it was interior and personal rather than something wholly exterior, yet the colour, light and sound was ‘out there’ as distinct from something close, tangible and enveloping.

Emotionally, I was engulfed by a great sense of peace and calm. It is difficult to describe the depth of this, but it was an intensely spiritual experience, strong in itself and strengthening to me as the receiver. I am using ‘receiver’ very carefully, because that is what I was doing - receiving as well as observing, feeling and knowing in an all-encompassing kind of way. The whole experience almost demands a host of angels, but there were none. Nothing I have written is accurate enough to give a precise image of the experience. It was, in total, a charged or heightened experience.

The calm became almost trance-like. Almost? Perhaps trance is the best description. Once deeply into this state of stillness, calm and heightened perception, there seemed to be a change from silvery to golden light, with purplish violet-lavendery colours predominating and a change in the sound. While not exactly a fade-out, the sound of music became less central in my awareness, less insistent of my attention. At this stage I became aware of a voice, whispery at first, but becoming strong and resonant. I have no clear impression about whether this voice was male or female but it was rich, deep, melodic with a beautiful timbre. The speech was in a language I had not heard before, but I was convinced then, and still am, that it was ancient Hebrew. This may be because I come from a Judaeo-Christian family background.

I felt I understood every word spoken. I felt a promise had been made that never again would life be as difficult as it had been during the preceding months. It was only after I felt certain of this that the dream faded. The fade-out was gradual so that I was unaware of the moment the dream finally ended, but I then knew that I was fully awake. I have never been clear in my mind about whether I woke in order to dream, half woke for the duration then fully woke, woke during the dream or immediately afterwards. I felt refreshed and calm and drifted back to sleep.

~~~~~~

I rarely remember dreams but often know that I have dreamed. Most of the dreams I have remembered have been disturbing or distressing, so this one stands out in a special category.

I had undergone traumatic changes in my life. My husband deserted us at a time when the five children and I were ill with the flu. He had planned very carefully, having previously sold off a number of our possessions so that I had been left not only without an income but also no realisable assets. Three of the five children were asthmatics, we lived in a semi-rural area with inadequate public transport, and society, at that time, did not treat deserted wives and children with any degree of compassion.

I had been forced to go the Child Welfare Department and make the children wards of the state who were then placed in my care. In today’s terms, I was receiving $2.50 per week per child and $2.35 for myself. Should I earn more than $1.90 per week, I automatically lost $2.35. Because I was not on a pension, I received no assistance with medical, chemist or train expenses.

I had gone from flu to pneumonia and the children had been told by friends’ parents to keep away as our household was no longer considered decent, respectable or suitable to mix with. I could not get any form of regular pension until my husband had been gone for six months. My in-laws rejected us because we were no longer family and an embarrassment. My family were divided in attitude. Some helped where they could. Others told me I had brought shame to the family and should have worked harder at making my marriage work. Our local doctor made sure we had medical attention and did not charge us for it. The milkman came from my home district and was a deeply committed, practical Christian. He made sure we had milk. Until the dream, these were the only ones to help us in any way.

Despair had been a constant. The doctor said I was too ill to even consider going out to work. I had been taking in some dressmaking before my husband left, but most of my regular customers stopped coming because I was no longer fit to know. Understandably, life seemed very bleak and negative.

To say the dream caused me to make changes that were clear-cut, objective or purposeful is to overstate the situation. What did happen was a change of outlook. My situation was still desperate, but now I felt real hope for the first time in at least three years. Even saying that is a slight overstatement. Without other things occurring, that hope would probably have been lost quickly and I may have filed the dream differently in my memory.

As it was, the first change was that an almost stranger, a former missionary, turned up at the door the day after the dream. She brought a box of home-grown vegetables which she said were surplus to her needs. She said she had a busy day ahead and could not stay to talk, but would drop in from time to time. When I unpacked the vegetables there was a pound note (about $2) in the bottom. I felt overwhelmed.

That same day, a stranger turned up wanting some dressmaking done. A few days later, someone who had worked with my husband came by to let me know where he was living. This meant I could now take some action to get financial support and, because he was living with someone else, begin divorce proceedings, instead of waiting the mandatory two years which was the minimum at the time for a divorce for desertion. My father offered the money to enable me to engage a lawyer. I began to believe in what the dream had told me.

I have always had a religious frame of mind, although not belonging to any denomination, so it was easy to believe that I was being cared for. The fact that everyone who now began to show friendship and concern and emotional support was a practising Christian did not seem to me to be coincidental. I was deeply aware of the spiritual around me and my own spirituality. It seems natural to accept the dream as a spiritual message and I still believe it to have been a deeply spiritual experience, explicable through the noumenal rather than the phenomenal. I expect the memory of the dream to remain a valid part of my spiritual experience, a part that I can draw on again and again, provided that I live my life spiritually and, more specifically, according to what is morally right. I received an inflooding wave of compassion within the dream and I feel I have an enduring responsibility to be compassionate. The dream and my perception of its message are part of my most interior being.

The dream reassured me that I did have a place in the universe, that I was not alone and that there is something other than the visible, tangible world around us. The dream soothed me and enabled me to see my way through what lay ahead with more calm than would otherwise have been the case. The voice and the background sounds were the most beautiful I have ever heard. I have always been sensitive to colour and aware of its mood-related effects on me. The experience provided me with an anchorage from which to begin the climb back from desperation to a more optimistic and hopeful mental outlook. The dream remains a powerful, if strange, experience but strange experiences, by other’s standards, are fairly normal for me.

My experience of trying to talk to others about prior events, dreams or awareness was such that I had long since stopped discussing anything inner with anyone else. It simply did not occur to me that anyone else would be interested or that I would be thought anything but half crazy or odd if I did. From time to time since, I have met those with whom I could feel safe enough to talk about it. I seem to have chosen listeners who had experiences as equally compelling or ‘otherly’.

I believe the dream came in order to allow me to find the courage and strength to go on with a more positive frame of mind. The dream presaged change. It changed me rather than encouraging me to change my life through any external action. It prepared me to meet changes as they came rather than to go out and actively instigate change although, some months later when I saw a chance to begin a small business in partnership with my sister, I felt I could take the chance. The business folded after my sister became ill. At exactly that time, I was presented with an opportunity to return to teaching. I know the dream helped me find the courage to then begin studying for my Bachelor of Arts. It had an effect on my choice of subjects and the level at which I understood and related to symbolism within my studies and its use in my writing.

Since that time, whenever life takes a serious downturn, I consciously recall, review and re-identify with the dream and become more able to cope with events. I am, in general, a person of moderate mood wings and have always lacked certainty about myself. For the first half of my life I had no consistent evidence of approval from anyone and still struggle to define for myself who and what I am. However, in my working life as a secondary teacher, in an increasingly difficult world, I won a reputation for calmness, resilience and integrity. This is, in part, the end result of a belief that nothing will ever again be as bad as at that time before the dream, that if I survived that trauma as well as I did, I can survive, or even conquer, whatever life brings. I also believe that this remains dependent on my continuing to live a moral and compassionate life.

This was the only dream which affected me consciously in this way. It remains very much an exceptional, isolated experience which, thirty years down the line, still brings comfort, calm and a sense of wonder. In so far as I was at the rock bottom of my whole life experience at the moment of the dream, it represents the most crucial turning point of my life.

Jane’s Interpretation

This beautiful dream demonstrates the sense of extreme heightened awareness that can be attained through the dream state. Not only is the dream charged with an enhanced sensual awareness, but it is also a deeply spiritual touchstone which needs no interpretation.

Do spiritual dreams come when our life is in major crisis, presenting us with a contrast to enliven our most emotionally downtrodden moments? Do they arrive when we are in drastic need of balance in our emotional lives, or of comfort in death? Are they ours in times of spiritual or religious uncertainty, or when we are truly in need of succour, guidance and a sense of life purpose? Are they merely a balancing act, created by our own psyche, yet capable of changing our lives through altered perception and renewed faith? Or are they communications from a spiritual dimension beyond our waking reality? 

The opposition of dream and waking life seen in Lorna’s story were noted again in Francoise’s experience. Her waking life description included ‘hectic, stressed out, crumbing, disintegrating’, while her dream contrasted this with ‘touched by energy, uplifting happiness, joy, aliveness, knowing’.

Nellie moved from a life situation of ‘wanting to die’ to a dream feeling of ‘joy’. Dee progressed from ‘emotional shock, chaotic, stressed, blaming the world’ to a near-death experience of  ‘peace’.

Sarras used the words ‘mess, responsibility, threatened’ to describe her pre-dream waking life, and ‘scared’, followed by love, peace and tenderness’ in her dream.

Similar contrasts, though not as heightened, appeared in other dreamers’ reports. Mell and Andy shared feelings of ‘oneness’ in their dreams, Susannah felt love, Heather felt comfort, and others relished basking in a life more uplifting than their waking life at the time.

If these spiritual dreams were only self-generated delusions, how would we explain the synchronicities (meaningful coincidences) which followed? To quote Lorna, ‘Without other things occurring, that hope would probably have been lost quickly and I may have filed the dream differently in my memory’.

Grace and Francoise also noted synchronicities, as did all the remaining dreamers in this section.