Beekeeper's Adventures in Consciousness

[Korpo]

For me it's either lions, or tigers, or bears. Oh, my!

[Beekeeper]

For me it's either lions, or tigers, or bears. Oh, my!

I guess they're pretty primal fears. It probably reflects anxieties about the start of term and getting the work I need to get done ready before then. I have almost exclusively a senior load this year and I'm teaching a couple of subjects I haven't taught for some years. That, or the bear is a self-aspect releasing anger/frustration.

24^th January, 2012
Tuesday

“Waiting for Linda”
I’m in a house with Wolfgang and some others and we’re waiting for Linda to arrive for some yoga. I’m dressed in my pyjamas and I’m climbing over the bed, improvising yoga type moves while I wait for her.

There’s a knock at the door and someone (Wolfgang?) answers Linda. I see her through a mist while she is at the door and I feel strange; the environment suddenly feels mysterious.

I forget a whole lot of stuff that happens next. ~
“In bed with Harry.”
I’m in bed with Harry and, again, we seem to be expecting someone. We’re reading something together and talking but I soon realize that Harry’s too old for us to be in bed together, even though he’s a bit younger in the dream than in current waking reality. I get up and leave.

“The meat factory”
I’m working at a meat factory. I haven’t been given instructions so I’m waiting, unsure of what I should do. While I wait, two bullocks pull a heavy trolley loaded with meat. They struggle with the weight and I’m in awe of both their amazing strength and the fact that they are used for such a job. As in the previous dream, I suddenly feel strange again.

A couple of workers come by and want to know why I’m not done. My job is to load bones onto a large metal trolley with two layers of shelves. I begin immediately and they help. We move fast.

Note: this one is very strange indeed. With it’s references to meat, I wonder if it was a dream translating something happening in my body as I slept. I fleetingly contemplated such dreams yesterday.

[Beekeeper]

26^th January, 2012
Thursday

“The F problem”
I pass some teachers and I hear them complaining about a student. They talk about how he’s always yawning and stretching his neck due to stiffness and I know they’re talking about F. I hear them discussing changing his teacher because he’s being rude to her, “with his constant references to the state premier.” I cannot hold my tongue and ask if it’s F they’re talking about and they confirm.

Note:
I wake up at this point. The night has turned hot after beginning in a mercifully cool way and I’m still under blankets, so disturbing dreams are par for the course. F, as far as I know, never had issues with any of his (physical) teachers, quite the opposite in fact. He does, however, suffer from neck stiffness and when he complains he refuses to acknowledge that it’s caused by long periods gaming on his computer. The odd quote about the premier would allude to his deep knowledge and intense interest in politics.

This dream causes me to momentarily stew on an unrelated issue where an attempt was recently made to curb my own expression. Then a thought suddenly hits me: F is on the computer right now. I get up to see. It’s 2.22am and, sure enough, I find him playing a game, chatting to his friend at a distance. I send him to bed.

I return to bed and begin to phase into a dream. Someone comes too close to me and I shrug him off with my left shoulder. I feel this as an etheric movement (lots of those lately) and try to phase again. Scenery starts to form but again I pull out of it. Eventually I go to sleep without phasing.

Fragments:

“Bridge”
I walk across an iron bridge. I know I’ve been here before and I begin to question if I’ve come the right way. I thought I was heading south and now it appears I’ve gone north, or the other way around. I was in a car at some point.

“Jenny”
Jenny, G’s cousin whom we rarely see, is trying to buy something (a yoga pass?) but struggling so I offer to help her. It costs more than Jenny knew but the lady takes less money for it. We talk while we exchange money, both with a concern for Jenny’s welfare.

There’s something more vague about being with people at a party. I have food in my hand and I’m standing with others talking.

[Beekeeper]

28^th January, 2012
Saturday
I seemed to have the same dream throughout my dreaming periods last night. I can’t remember details, only it seemed a combination of things I’d been enjoying throughout the last week of school holidays: “Stargate Atlantas” and “Downton Abbey.” I do recall being on a spaceship and a woman with a broad rimmed hat. I found myself with a problem to solve. I was given some kind of schematic and I was able to discern from that that I needed to get out of the room I was in, which may have been a room within a room. Anyway, I soon find myself on my feet and trying to get out of the dream room in physical reality. When I became aware of my position, I began to laugh and when G asked me what it was, I told him I was on a spaceship trying to get out of a room. I might blame a late night and the pseudoephedrine for such a silliness but then, this morning, G told me he became disoriented when going to the loo last night and kept walking into different walls of the bedroom. Okay, we had been out earlier and we did drink a bit but not that much.

[Beekeeper]

Yesterday in the liminal state before waking: G has bruises on hi face.

29^th January, 2012.
Sunday.
“Moving away”
I’m about to move into an apartment at ANU but there’s been an error and my apartment has been given to someone else. I’m angry and berating the woman in charge who, apparently, doesn’t care a whole lot.

G is driving me towards the uni and I have my belongings in the car. H is in the car too. I begin to wonder why I’m going back to uni anyway. Am I going to do a new degree for the next 3 or 4 years? It makes me sad to be away from my family and I know they’ll feel the same. I decide it must be only for a year and that I’ll at least be with F. Then that seems too much and I decide it will only be for 6 months.

Note: At this point I’m making the dream up consciously even though I’m still dreaming and not lucid.

~There’s something about having lost a shoe or pairs of shoes. I’ve been with a group of people and now I’m trying to gather my shoes together.~

I have a room at uni lodge now and G and I are sitting on my bed. At the end of the room Cath M and Margaret M are talking (they’ve never met IRL). G and I want to make out and they don’t seem to notice what we’re up to until I decide I wish to ensure our privacy. There are six doors down either side of my room and I want to lock them all. It’s then Cath notices us and begins to challenge us about our canoodling. I tell her we’re married and we’re entitled to our privacy. She goes off to check our papers and returns to inform us that we’re not married yet, only engaged, and therefore we will not be permitted intimacy. She waits, obviously with no intention of leaving us alone.

Note: Cath hasn’t appeared in my dreams before. She’s an elderly spinster that manages the chapel at my work. She’s known for being very old-fashioned, dictatorial and repressive. In former days she had been the school’s librarian and there are tales about her censorship of the art books that included nudes. I don’t have a problem with her but it’s funny how well her image fits the role in this dream.

I'm back at work tomorrow and F is off to his orientation week in a week or so. I think these things have become conflated and I'm simply expressing anxiety in this dream.

“The boy who walks ahead”
I’ve been on a bus that drops others and me at the M bends. I’m walking back to Gainsborough* (so I must be “living” in either of our former houses). I momentarily see something aberrant like a ghost. Then I become aware of two things: it’s getting dark and there’s a teen boy walking in front of me. I sense he’s scared of me; too scared to look behind because it’s getting dark. I don’t want him to be afraid and I’d prefer we were allies in the dark. I’m aware of those behind and will turn my attention to them too eventually but for now I plan to speak to the boy, to tell him we should walk together to create security for ourselves.

*I'd normally delete place names like this but I think sometimes they can be meaningful to the dream. In this case, I suspect that my return to full time work and the subsequent financial "gain" creates a kind of darkness/despair (nicely repressed in waking reality) that is, no doubt, shared by the teen boys we teach.

[Beekeeper]

30^th January, 2012
Monday

I can’t find a Year 7 class and the school is unfamiliar to me. I’ll apparently find them in the art classroom but I don’t know where that is.

F has something like a hotrod that he’s going to drive to Canberra. I get in the passenger seat behind him. He heads off but I think he’s gone the wrong way and say so. He’s uncertain of himself but then I’m not sure he has gone the wrong way. I tell him I think I could be wrong; there’s probably a way there the way we’re going and no need to change direction.

I’m standing against a wall with some primary school children. I ask a little girl if it’s okay if I stand there and she moves away a bit or asks for more room in order to be more comfortable. I oblige.

I seem to be returning to this scene of primary school children and this time I see a mother and around her some of the children are smoking. I think she’s trying to be a “cool” mum but notice her own child hasn’t been permitted to smoke. I wonder about her relationship to the children, and if she takes some responsibility for their behavior.

~I’m seeing a new environment that seems to incorporate a number of new bathrooms, as in public toilets. The area, however, seems domestic. I’ve been cleaning and maintaining and Mum has been taking a shower. She has come out and inspected a wall unit, expressing approval that it has been dusted well. I resent the surprise in her voice that betrays her habitual lack of appreciation.

Now I’m telling some people about this at the basins. They seem fascinated by my imitation of Mum’s voice.

31^st of January, 2012 (Already!)
Tuesday

I’m at the back door of the home where I was raised. I look outside into a night sky where a single large saucer is passing, lights blinking. Something about it feels ominous.

I’m in the hallway with 5 pre-teens (presumably I’m one too). I think there’s only one other girl, probably my younger sister. We’re sitting on the floor, sharing a blanket, which isn’t sufficient for our number. The boys in particular are making noise, creating a sleepover atmosphere and sharing junk food, which one of them seems to have fetched from the kitchen. I think I tell them about the UFO I’ve seen earlier.

Simultaneously or intermittently I’m a mother with two daughters, similarly seated on the floor and attempting to cover our selves with something; this time a man’s thick cotton t-shirt. There’s a heavy energy on the shirt that I consider unwholesome so I take it out to the back yard and shake it continuously, checking every-so-often to see if it has lightened.

Note: Exhausted last night and it was extremely hot so we slept with windows open and the fan blowing.

[Beekeeper]

3^rd February, 2012
Friday

Fragments.
“Miserable Baby”
There’s a baby propped up in a wooden chair. It is stiff, as if it’s swaddled and can’t move but I don’t recall seeing a sheet wrapped around it. I feel sorry for it and pick it up to cuddle it but it begins to cry, so I place it back on the chair.

Now I see ants all over it’s neck and set about washing them off with water.

“Mineral makeup.”
I’m with another woman, probably my younger sister though I don’t recall seeing her. We’re having a mineral makeup applied by a department store beautician. The person I’m with suggests we try one with a gold base and I’m of a like mind.

[Beekeeper]

4^th February, 2012.
Saturday.

“Gabrielle’s Whales”
~ I’m in Gabrielle’s house and there are some other people there too. We’re trying to help her by keeping her house in order. There’s something about her tap and sink that draws my attention. ~ I look through the window and see waves crashing to shore and then I notice three whales riding them so I become excited and run outside with the other people.

Now the whales seem to be smaller and multiplied. It matters little that they’re dolphins; I’m still excited and running through the waves towards them. I’m lifting my skirt, aware that I’m exposing undies rather than swimmers but not overly perplexed.

Note: Gabrielle is currently stuck in Tasmania. While holidaying as a couple, her partner had a stroke and she has since been living at the hospital engaged in a bedside vigil. She’s been sending me daily texts updating his condition and I’ve also been given her senior class to teach in her absence, so she’s on my mind a lot.

“The artist from the 1950s.”
This is an older setting: the 50s perhaps. I’m a young woman and we’re poor. An artist lives with us - an older man with whom I’m infatuated, although I’m not immediately aware of these feelings at the beginning of the dream. It starts with me looking at some of his pencil drawings: nudes of my friend Lindell from WR. She too is a younger woman. I like the drawings: Lindell is very curvaceous and somehow the artist conveys a love for women through these curves. There’s a gentleness and tenderness about him and I’m drawn to it.

Now I’m in a wooden shack with my “family”. I sense Dad is very restrictive but perhaps not as brutal as my WR father was/is. I’m seated with family members near a window that possibly lacks a pane and I see a crowd of young people lined up outside as if for a dance. Again, the era feels 1950s. I’m amazed and amused that our little shack will be used for a dance.

~ Something odd about the family’s baby crawling out the window.
~ More about the artist. Loving him now and feeling loved in return. There’s a sexual element but I suspect this is more about feeling than any kind of act. There’s a sense that he’s genuine and has my best interest at heart. He’s perhaps too old for me or feels my father will forbid a relationship between us.~
~ Kissing a thin blond girl called Mary who is slightly my senior and is part of the family or household. It’s a non-sexual kiss but prolonged as if to suggest my tremendous affection for her. She shortens it and puts me aside as if she has other things to get on with.

[Beekeeper]

5^th February, 2012.
Sunday.

Dreams aren’t a priority presently and subsequently I’m finding recall difficult. There was plenty of dreaming last night because I slept in this morning, which is unusual for me, but I read a bunch of links before writing this because I knew already that I wasn’t going to remember much. The most interesting aspect of the night was phasing back into a dream after getting up in response to G’s snoring and using the toilet. I’d been dreaming that I’d left something valuable in a car and left the car unlocked. No sooner had I walked away than another car pulled up, someone jumped out and stole my car. I guess that’s a dream about autonomy and being careless with giving away my personal freedom. (Funnily enough I just left the e out of careless and typed “carless”). Anyway, it wasn’t a particularly great dream but I could remember the bleak environment and so I was able to envision it as I fell asleep again and find myself lucid and driving in a new dream. For some reason that only lasted a few seconds and I was awake again, raising energy and meditating.

After that I dreamt someone called me (probably our insurance broker) and spoke to me at length about G’s well being. It seemed he felt that G was working too hard and suggested I work harder instead. It triggered a sense of injustice in me and I found myself preparing to argue the contrary. I wonder if there’s any point to dreams such as this. They seem pointless in as much as they don’t process or challenge anything that hasn’t already been processed or challenged consciously nor do they give sweet relief from the pressures of daily life.

[Beekeeper]

“Gabrielle’s Whales”
~ I’m in Gabrielle’s house and there are some other people there too. We’re trying to help her by keeping her house in order. There’s something about her tap and sink that draws my attention. ~ I look through the window and see waves crashing to shore and then I notice three whales riding them so I become excited and run outside with the other people.

Now the whales seem to be smaller and multiplied. It matters little that they’re dolphins; I’m still excited and running through the waves towards them. I’m lifting my skirt, aware that I’m exposing undies rather than swimmers but not overly perplexed.

Note: Gabrielle is currently stuck in Tasmania. While holidaying as a couple, her partner had a stroke and she has since been living at the hospital engaged in a bedside vigil. She’s been sending me daily texts updating his condition and I’ve also been given her senior class to teach in her absence, so she’s on my mind a lot.

I sent Gabrielle a text about that dream. She told me she and her niece had been planning to swim with dolphins that day.