A dream from March 23 this year (while in Berkeley).

I died, but am still around.

Others can see, hear and touch me, and I can see, hear and touch them, so the interactions are much as before. The main difference is that we all appreciate the preciousness of life and our connections much more, and are closer and more loving.

Still, we are all a little puzzled by what happened. I have the appearance of my usual body, and function similar to before, but am also obviously dead. Others want to know what advice I have for them, and all I can find is to live life too the fullest while the opportunity is here, without too many worries. To experience the fullness of life, while it is here.

There is also a sense of a process. The death had happened, yet is also in process. A process of bringing it to completion.

Vector work

I explored this dream further tonight, using the vector work from Process Work.

First, I walked the line of me in the dream - dead yet still interacting with people.

Then, I walked the line of the others in the dream, the living.

Finally, I walked the third line of the triangle - from the starting point (of the first line) to the end point (of the second line) - the line which (literally) is the sum of both, or rather is embracing and holding both.

This line holds the timelessness of being dead, being outside of time, and with an absence of worries. It also holds time and our conventional and daily lives, the lives of the living.

It is engaged, immersed in human life, unfolding within time and space. Yet it also have the qualities of being outside of time, of the timeless, of the absence of worry.

Looking at the initial line (me in the dream) from this third line, I see how it is outside of time and absent of fear. It is even in communication with the living, yet also somehow on the outside. Not fully engaged.

Looking at the second line (the others in the dream) from the third line, I see how the living are wrapped up in the minutia of daily living, caught up in worries about everything from how to fix the sink to finding their path and awaken. They do not have the freedom that comes with already being dead, and the timeless.

Together, there is full immersion and engagement, yet within the context of the timeless and an absence of worries.

I also see that my advice to the living in the dream - to not worry, to live their life fully without worrying too much - is really the integration of the two dream elements. This advice is the third line, and it is of course really to me. It is what I need to hear. It is what I am invited to bring more into my life now.

Initial notes (from March 23)

This is a very interesting dream to me, and two things comes up.

This reflects the realization of selflessness. I died to any sense of separate I, but was still around and functioning as before. The dream seems to show that this has already happened. There has been a clear enough seeing of the absence of "I", for instance during the weeks last fall when it "popped", and there is also a process of allowing everything to soak in it allowing it to take effect.

A minor aspect is the sense of deadening which came through the dark night phase. This seems to be at its tail end, fluctuating more with a familiar sense of fullness and excitement. From being in this dryness and flatness, there is a desire for a fuller and deeper sense of aliveness and an appreciation for life and sense of preciousness of life.

Active imagination following the dream brought up a process of becoming nothing, so that what is (life, Existence, God, Buddha Mind, Brahman) can become everything. This is very similar to the meet the symptom maker experiment mentioned in a previous post.

Labels: dream, process work