Beekeeper's Adventures in Consciousness

[Beekeeper]

28^th December, 2011.
Wednesday.

“The Cling Wrap Men”
I interact with Carmen and baby Zoe in some kind of party atmosphere. I enjoy being with them.

I’m at an outdoor place now, near a swimming pool. It turns out it belongs to Helen L and I’m soon introducing my family to her. She introduces her husband, who is slightly more attractive than I would have imagined him to be. H says something silly and mildly embarrassing and I shush him. I think she provides food that we eat by the pool.

Now we’re inside Helen’s house. It’s a nice large room, a pale yellow colour, tastefully furnished. I look around it and say, “This isn’t how I imagined your house.” I’m not sure what it is about the feeling of this room but I teeter on lucidity. I might achieve it – I don’t know because I’ve lost so much from last night’s dreams.

Now I’m on the grounds of a school or university. The social interactions continue with the many people around me. I think Carmen and Zoe are back in the dream again. I meet Helen’s relatives, her many nephews and nieces. We’re about to pile into a car to go for a drive around the premises. There are so many of us that the male driver attaches a trailer for the kids to ride in. I experience mild anxiety about being included. I don’t recall a trip in the car now.

I’m listening to someone talk – a principal. While he talks I watch some men wrapping cling wrap around furniture, not covering it but making lines of binding wrap between the parts of the furniture, for instance, between the legs of a piano. Initially, I thought these men were painters because I saw white paint on their overalls but now they wear suits and the idea of paint is gone.

I wake with the thought that Helen’s an old soul (if there is such a thing as soul age, she probably is) and struggling to recall this dream that seemed to have gone on for a very long time.

[Beekeeper]

29^th December, 2011.
Thursday.

“Lecture at the beach.”
I’m outside at a learning venue by a beach. There’s a man on stage giving a lecture. I’ve been using my laptop but leave it to watch the man. He’s speaking with an affected and pompous English accent, which annoys me so much that I don’t really pay attention to the lecture.

I’ve walked away from him and I see many teachers gathered around a very large table. It becomes apparent that we’re supposed to gather in groups for discussion. Initially my group remains dispersed but gradually they gather to sit on some steps. I don’t know how I know they’re my group except for the presence of a blond woman with bobbed hair. I feel she’s been in other dreams. So I sit on the steps with them and they begin to discuss how some surnames indicate that certain people are to experience enmity. I try to apply this to me (are we speaking literature?) and suggest that since one my maiden name was to possibly indicate the occupation of silversmith, that maybe Blacksmith might be the opposite name. She tries to be polite but I’ve clearly gotten this entirely wrong.

Now I’m walking briefly with Maria C (from old job). I’m walking across a courtyard with her, asking her something but she’s barely acknowledging me.

I’m at the water and I have a surfboard so, even though the ocean is wild (as it has been here in WR) I dive in and ride a wave. It’s very enjoyable but extremely short-lived because I’m pulled elsewhere by the memory of my abandoned laptop. I go in search of it and encounter G, who is packing up the car to go. He has a small gathering of people around him (Paul E is there) to whom he has offered a lift and there are roof racks on the car with boards. He tells me he’ll have to do two trips because of the people he needs to drop off. I tell him I’m searching for my computer.

I’m not sure if this happens now or happened before I encountered G. I’m walking on hard, smooth volcanic rock. Suddenly my foot lodges in a hole and I look down and remember that someone has created a long shallow trench in this rock and filled it with large smooth stones. I easily dislodge my foot and move over so I’m once again walking beside the trench, not in it.

Now G is telling me he’s recovered my computer, that the presenters had borrowed it. I’m not really bothered by this, except for feeling the presentation wasn’t really worthy. He mentions Helen S, claiming skeptically that she says I pledged the use of my laptop for this back in January. I tell him that if I had there’s no way I’d remember it.

G is driving us home now but he wants to look at the ocean first (as is his way in RL). He drives us right to the edge of a cliff and I become alarmed and ask him to stop. Below us the ocean is vivid.

[Beekeeper]

30^th December, 2011.
Friday.

“Enormous Wave”
I remember just the end part of this dream. I’m in the ocean and somebody (G?) calls out to get ready. I look up and see a wave towering above me; totally vivid. I’m diving under it and I hear the voice warning me to watch out for sharks. I look beneath me at the clear, tremendously deep water. I’m totally unafraid.

Note: I did go to the beach with G and the boys yesterday and that probably influenced this dream.

“David and Mishell”
Mishell has come for a holiday in Australia. So she can go out, I mind David for a day. He’s a lovely boy and plays well with the various things I find for him to do. He definitely knows his preferences and I enjoy his presence. When Mishell returns from her day out, David is asleep and I report that we’ve had a great day together but I realize that we’ve been so involved in play that I haven’t fed him anything or given him a drink.

Now Mishell and Holly, a new first year out teacher from work, need a place to sleep. I tell them I can provide a room but not a guest bed and they’ll need to sleep in sleeping bags. Mishell looks disappointed by this news.

“Everyone should Fly”
The same characters minus David are transported to a new environment. I don’t know what this place is exactly but there’s a larger group of us now and we’re required to climb a tall ladder and make our way across unevenly spaced monkey bars. I feel disadvantage because I’m wearing a dress that reaches past my knees, but I comply. I decide that the easiest way is to crawl across the top, which I start out doing but then I decide I’d rather fly. I like flying so much that I plan to never stop.

Someone from deeper within the house, a male cousin perhaps, approaches me and asks me to desist. I ignore the request, totally convinced that this is reality, and I say to Mishell and Holly that it’s time humans began using their ability to fly – I shouldn’t stop, everyone else should start.

“Mum’s choir”
I’m a teen again and we’re preparing for a singing performance. My mother appears and she’s apparently the conductor. I wonder if she’s smart enough to do this but I give her the benefit of the doubt. When she speaks she has an accent, which is true in waking reality but it’s not her accent, not her voice. I find this very curious. There’s a sense of much greater intelligence, even a sense of humour when she talks. She’s wasting time though and I’m becoming impatient to learn the actual song. I read the unfamiliar words and try to make a tune with them.

There’s a sense of other invisible authority figures observing.

Note: Mum made a Skype call to me just before bed. I’d never used Skype before but downloaded at her request (against my better judgement) out of sympathy for her loneliness. She spoke for 45 minutes straight about all the problems she’d had in recent weeks. It was, as it always is, painfully boring.

[Beekeeper]

A couple of non dream adventures from the last week.

Sitting in the car with the family I thought of my mother and sister and wondered if they'd tried to ring the house. The mobile phone rang that moment and it was them.

Walking the dog, I had the warning feeling of something ahead. I couldn't see or hear anything but from around the corner came a mother and her son on his scooter. I couldn't see a threat here, the boy on the scooter was even going slowly, keeping apace with his mother so that he wouldn't have collided with Bella if I'd left her off her leash.

I decided to keep her on leash because I've been right so many times and regretted when I've disregarded the feeling but there was nothing. I let her lead me down to the grassy paddock so she could be by the creek where she loves to romp and continued cautiously in case the warning feeling was for a snake but she was totally safe. There were no encounters with poorly mannered dogs and ranger wasn't there either.

So what do I learn from this? Clearly, the signal itself is probably fairly neutral: "Something ahead. " That part I get right every time but I have a tendency to confuse an emotion such as dread with it and that's probably based on past experience. So, the challenge is to come up with ways to differentiate the signal from the feeling in order to get accurate, useful information.

[Beekeeper]

31^st December, 2011
Saturday

"Diamonds"
Remembered fragment from earlier in the night. I’m with two women and they each wear wide, black fabric belts studded with tiny diamonds. I scrutinize the diamonds on one of the belts and see that they are pink as well as clear. They mesmerize me.

Lots of dreaming and weird energy sensations through the night but I went to bed late and was so tired as a consequence it’s hard to get straight what happened. There was a moment I appeared to phase but I can’t recall the scene or what followed now.

"Trains and bags"
I do recall, however, being on a train platform. Once again a train pulls in and the gap is too wide for embarking so I decide I’ll wait for the next train rather than leap across. I have a “memory” of this happening before and I leapt across but left my bag on the platform (if I had this experience in a dream it was never recalled). Now I look down at my bag and one of the handles has broken off. I’m unperturbed by this but mention it to someone on the station out of surprise at its happening.

Somewhere in all this I dream of two former colleagues, Maria G and Renate. I worked with them at different schools, one was an art teacher, the other, a special needs teacher. Both were similarly humble, skilled and likeable. I’m told in the dream that Maria retrained as something else by studying hard while she continued to teach.

[Beekeeper]

1^st January, 2012.
Sunday

Late to bed for obvious reasons. Happy new Year.

“Deep underground”
I’m deep inside the earth in natural caverns with my family. We’ve definitely been here before: we remember being fascinated by the fish in the small pools that are scattered about where we walk. It also feels different to last time, as though things have altered slightly or we’ve gone deeper and it’s as if we’re interested in slightly different things this time. The ceilings are well above us and there’s a tunnel to the outside several kilometres long. The light travels down along shaft. I experience one of those morbid thoughts that sometimes occur IWR when we’re vulnerable in our environment: What if there were an earthquake and all the rock were to collapse on top of us? People would only know we’d been here by finding our abandoned car.
G wants to cross a deep crevice but the material he wants us to walk over looks like gigantic stalks of straw laid flat. I have my doubts but we’re crossing before I can express them and the straw gives way beneath our weight. We plummet but without fear.

“Elevator”
A later though poorly recalled dream. I observe in third person and woman who is physically somewhat similar to me. She is operating an elevator from outside, ready to ascend. She is talking but there are others who wait with her and they are silent.

[Beekeeper]

2^nd January, 2012.
Monday.

“Back at Uni”
I’ve gone back to university to do a degree. The first part of the dream is like an orientation where I simply accept I’m doing a degree again. For a while a fellow student, a young woman, asks me questions about the area, which is apparently Canberra (so I guess it’s Australian National Uni where my son plans to go). I tell her I’m not local but somehow I’m still able to help her with her inquiry.

There’s a blurred bit here. I seem to pass a line of piled books. I’ve done something correctly where others have failed. There’s a vague memory of my former boss, who IWR is about to become my boss again, and Megan, who made my former job a misery.

I’ve started early on the big assignment. Is this a Master’s Degree? It’s an English assignment, so I feel entirely competent. I’ve read copiously and I’ve expressed myself clearly. I know it’s excellent as I present it to the professor who sits behind her desk. I hope she will mark it there and then, even though I’ve submitted early. She reads and comments on it. I can see she’s looking for ways to detract marks but she has trouble finding them. She mentions that she might take a mark away for something that seems arbitrary and I comment that if she does I’ll alter it and resubmit, since the essay is early anyway. She softens then and comments that she’s giving the bibliography 81/2 out of 11 but that the essay itself is flawless. I know the bibliography is extensive and authentic but I don’t care about it. She announces 96.5%, a High Distinction. I don’t notice the maths and accept the mark.

Note: Maybe the degree is in self-assertion. Admittedly, it’s something I’m still learning.

“F’s Potty Training”
F is using a potty in the kitchen. I think to myself that we’ve spoilt him way too much allowing this practice. I see a neighbor climbing a ladder next door and comment that he’ll see Finn through the window, hoping to mock him into more conformist behaviour. The neighbor doesn’t see.

Note: I wasn’t going to publish this one because it seems to suggest my eldest son is in some way delayed but potty training really is just a marker/symbol for the necessary stages we pass on the way to adulthood. The mocking attitude is an indicator of parental fear that the child won’t behave in socially approved ways, that they'll fail at key specific stages. The dream is a reminder that there are more loving ways to bring children to adult realisation. Mockery in this sense is also a failure of self-assertion because it is a form of bullying.

[Beekeeper]

3^rd January, 2012.
Tuesday.

“Bridget’s Job Interview”
I’m in a school setting, in assembly or mass when I spot Bridget who is resplendent in a green silk blouse. Carmen sits on my right and spots her too and we become quite excited that she has come to visit.

At the first opportunity Carmen greets Bridget and asks her if she’s coming back to work with us. I think Bridget has confirmed this and I’m delighted. I think I hear Carmen say she’ll be an improvement on the current teacher who, in the dream reality only, is a former student of mine who IWR lives in Western Australia and is a set designer. I wonder why Daniel hasn’t been a good drama teacher in Carmen’s view.

It seems Bridget is gone already and I enthuse about her return but Carmen sets me right and explains that she’s not returning, that she’s about to attend a job interview to be a paralegal. This confuses me a bit because, as far as I know, Bridget has only worked as a teacher and an events organizer.

Now I see Bridget in a performance set inside a spacious office place. I watch her from a high angle perspective, the lead girl in an entertaining tap routine. This feels more like it!

I’m leaving work for classes. It seems to be a complex process as though I’ll be away for days. There’s more to this dream but it has a muddled quality.

“Gifts”
I enter “home” where Dad is, either with my siblings (and we’re younger) or with my own kids. They’ve unwrapped presents and I check out what they’ve got there. There’s a decorative plate with birds against a bright red background, sitting in white tissue paper atop a mantle piece. I glance briefly at a video explaining the significance of the plate. It plays on an old style television beneath the mantle but, for now, I’m more interested in the others who are unwrapping something else. I cannot remember what it was once I awaken but it seemed to be valuable and bigger than the other gift: maybe a long, heavy vase.

[Beekeeper]

4^th January, 2012
Wednesday
“Preparing to die”
I’m in a school setting. Michelle G announces to the students that an atomic blast is about to occur and we prepare to die without sadness or drama. I tell Michelle that if I can’t spend my last minutes with my family, then I’m glad it’s with a quality person like her, a true old soul.

Note: Michelle is an exceptional human being. We worked together at my former workplace.

5^th January, 2012
Thursday
Back to a pattern of copious dreaming and poor recall. Must get to bed earlier and reduce the stimulation before bed.

“Phone call from unknown woman”
A woman’s voice speaks to me on the phone. She’s expecting a second baby and moving to the area where I lived when I had my babies. She’s asking about the availability of an obstetrician and I’m telling her there’s one locally in the shop complex. She is explaining the problems she’s had with this birth, with pieces of her uterus coming away. She’s also asking me questions about building and if I know a good builder. Somehow, G comes into this part of the conversation.

Note: There was no obstetrician local to where I lived IWR but it was true in the dream context.
I suspect this dream is representative of a relationship I have with a former student who caught me on the FB chat feature last night.

“Naughty Schoolgirl.”
There’s a schoolgirl who is in someway naughty. She has endeared herself to me and reformed her ways. I’m not sure what else happens but she seems in the role of initiating the dream actions.

[Beekeeper]

6^th January, 2012.
Friday.

“Holding My Ground”
I believe I have the role of directing a musical. It’s Little Shop of Horror,s one I directed many years ago. I know all the songs and I understand the needs of the play. I feel competent.

The stage is set and there is a group of girls on a lower side stage to the front left of a traditional proscenium arch stage. They sing the title song. When they’re done, I explain to them about singing from the diaphragm because I thought their voices were a bit thin and weak.

Now someone tells me about the arrival of another person, apparently from the university, a recent graduate who starts attempting to run the show. She’s young and unnecessary and I’m unwilling to accept her authority. Now a young man arrives with similar intentions and again I wonder where these outsiders have come from and what gives them the right to run the show.

Now I’m with Megan (a nemesis figure for me). We’re singing together, heads touching. I know all the words but she knows some of them and when we sing the pieces she knows, I harmonise for fun and we enjoy ourselves. I sing the other pieces alone. We seem to be semi-reclined on the floor before a cabinet of drawers as we sing. Suddenly I notice something peculiar: Beneath the normal drawers and to the left (much like the stage arrangement) is a set of tiny drawers. I wonder what is kept inside them.