Re: A dream by Whitley Strieber
In the dream, I was with Anne in a sort of bookshop-restaurant where we were looking at books and waiting for lunch.
This is a “food for thought†dream.
Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. I went out and saw a number of enormous machines in the sky. They were not ordinary UFOs, but different shapes and sizes. I glimpsed a few grays, but for the most part, they were manned by people, both men and women in various sorts of uniforms and all with weapons.
There’s a commonality here, despite the differences in uniform, species and gender there is aggression. I don’t think grays in this context represent higher beings. Yes, they’re literally “higher†but their behaviour is not that of a spiritually higher being, only that of a technologically higher being.
Although they seemed quite cheerful--or perhaps because they were so cheerful--I got the impression that they were here to kill people, and I became frightened. When I turned to go back and get Anne and try to escape, a man taller than me confronted me. He had a gun, which he shot me with. It didn't hurt me, but left a sort of film on my clothes, like a light dusting of spray paint.
The adversary seems more powerful but his weapon of choice does not annihilate Whitley, suggesting the gun is representative of a tactic that Whitley encounters in his life that could potentially control him or destroy a part of him but that isn’t working. Note that Whitley is showing concern for Anne when faced with this adversary. I wonder what colour, if any, the film was? It left its mark but there was no real impact, as far as I can see.
I said, "You can't kill people. People's lives are sacred." He replied, "lives are not sacred unless people make them sacred. The future is sacred." Then he said, "We are here to make room for the future."
Whitley’s innate sense tells him lives are sacred no matter what. What is the future if life is not sacred?
I got back to Anne and we left the restaurant and climbed out of the small town it was in, passing across a great mountain full of ice and storms.
Standing up for the sacredness of life sees Whitley escapes the “small town,†a confined and dangerous space. The challenge of standing up for his truth is represented as a journey through difficulty.
Behind us and far below, terrible things were befalling the city we had been in, while a small number of people came out and started up the mountain.
It is those who resist rather than those who acquiesce that escape the city to the more expansive but more challenging outlook. An upward movement is about lifting oneself spiritually.
Once we crossed the mountain, there appeared a verdant valley below. In it were quite a few people. A man told us that
A man told us that the ones who had come were going to "turn under" the whole planet once again, and we were "encoded" with a new way of being, that would enable our progeny to build a new world along better lines, with a clearer understanding and a more compassionate heart.
The “progeny†may be children but it might also be somebody’s life work. The “encoding,†if misinterpreted, suggests an outside force that denies the autonomy Whitley showed earlier in the dream. The people are there because of their own efforts. Certainly outside influences can help us evolve spiritually but it’s listening to the inner promptings that represents true growth. "The ones who had come were going to "turn under" the whole planet once again," may sound like some spiritual avenging force but I wouldn't trust such a fundamentalist reading. Obviously, it would be those who do not respect life and free will that would do such a thing. Those who are more spiritually enlightened could avert such a fate.
He said that this had happened before, and each time mankind had gotten a little farther in terms of development of a truly good society.
This represents a notion of collective spiritual evolution but that only happens with each individual’s choice to evolve according to his own conscience. Ideally, humanity learns from its own mistakes as, ideally, each human learns from his or her mistakes.
I said that this was wrong, that so many people were being deprived of their lives. He said, sadly, "Their lives aren't being taken. By the way they lived, they gave them away."
A spurious argument to justify a wrong if their deaths were actual physical deaths but maybe they are symbolic deaths, in which case they must change the way they live if they seek a return to life.
"How did they live? What was wrong?" I asked.
Anne's hand came into mine. She whispered to me, "It's refusal of the soul."
This speaks for itself. Whitley's intuition whispers to him that to refuse the soul is a type of spiritual death.
"A dream is a question, not an answer."
(Therapist and dreamworker Strephon Kaplan
Williams)
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