The hounds are back – Dream Diary

I thought I had done away with them. The hounds had stopped frequenting my dreams after I logged in my last  dream about them in September. Not that I am perturbed by them or the other things associated with these recurring lucid images but they do leave me drained out. There certainly is a connection somewhere, maybe a past life connection. In any other situation I would have let it pass but now I want to crack the mystery. What is taking me back to old havilies, graveyards and what are these magnificent hounds doing in my dreams. Are these dreams ” a knot of concerns in my conscience. unchanging ones, unconfronted ones, ones I continue to live with every day and that the unconscious thinks about by itself, trying to alert me, control me, warn me, get me to release it from its worries.” as a friend thinks or  is there a deeper play?

Usually these are morning dreams. Mostly after 2 O’clock. so vivid that I feel I can touch and feel and smell whatever surrounds me at that moment.

This is how it all began

I am in some upmarket house overlooking a deep blue ocean. The beach has white sand. Calm and serene with million shades of green. I am in a plush room with french windows with sheer curtains pulled to the sides. There are a few more people in the room, people I don’t know from real life but they seem like a family in the dream. The only person I know from real-time is my brother, a handsome man in early fifties (he doesn’t resemble how my brother looks now but how he would have looked if he had maintained himself) He is wearing an Indian Maroon polo neck Tee with black pants. The other guy in the room, much younger, is wearing a similar outfit. Dressed in a formal off white skirt and shirt I am looking out through the window. Interestingly my hair is long and tied in a bun resting at the nape of the neck.

There is  a corpse of an old man on the beach. Naked. The waves are coming up to it but never quite touching. I watch it for sometime and then the scene shifts to a room above this one. My elder son is sitting there on a large armchair. Handsome man in his thirties.  Dressed in the same maroon polo neck and black pant. Intense and good-looking. He is flipping a coin between his thumb and finger. I ask him why he did he do it and when is he going to stop it. Some conversation as a mother which I can’t remember completely but it is formal. He pays no attention but keeps his eyes fixed on me and then the phone rings. I put the speaker on. A close friend(male) from real time is on the line. He gets mad at me about what my son is doing and blames me for leaving  the job and starting a cult. Warning me that it will destroy everything. It seems my lad has been writing rebellious stuff and offensive things about his grandfather etc on social networking sites his blog etc.

We listens to the conversation quietly then I tell this friend not to get involved in this and that I approve of  my boy’s activities and with that slam the phone.

I tell Adi that the situation is grave and he should stay put where he is.

Then I come down to the living room where we began.  I see that a large long cushion is thrown on an armchair similar to the one above. Four hounds, their coats gleaming, appear all of a sudden and I say, “Who let these beasts out?”  and then I notice what they are doing. One of them pins down the pillow to the back of the chair , the other two are on either side pulling something over it which seems like a sheet of water. One of them is just keeping a watch looking in our direction.

“What the hell are they doing?” I say as water begins to seep into the plush red carpet.

The man who looks like my brother has the same intense look as my son. He is flipping a pencil just like Adi was flipping the coin. He is silently watching the chaos and then he speaks in a gravelly voice.

“They are doing what they are trained to do. They are Adi’s beasts.” with that he gets up and so do the others. There is a complete silence.

Now I see my mother, dressed again in formal western outfit (something floral, a skirt or a dress) sitting on a rocking chair. Her palm covering her face.  Maybe going through some emotional roller coaster of  her own. She is older than she is now.

I tell the people in the room to leave and not to breathe a word to anyone.

They step out and so does the man who looks like my brother.  Our gaze locks in a  moment of understanding and am back in the room above. Adi is at the window looking out. I join him.

The police are cordoning off the area and have put the corpse in a body bag.

We stand there in silence. The dogs at our heals.

*********

When I woke up the house was in darkness so I felt a bit disoriented. I stepped out wondering whether it was morning or evening. Then I saw mom reading in her room and the doorbell announced the arrival of the cook. It was around 7:30 PM. I must have slept for about four and a half hours. Wonder if I was really asleep or awake or just not in this world.

Unlike previous dreams there was no blood on me or maybe there was some on our hands – Adi and mine.  Blood that had tainted our lives.

Dreams and Dark Imaginings – Dream Diary

Hippocrates had a dream theory that the mind received images during daytime and produced images during night-time.

Phantasmagoric is how I would describe my dreams. Usually I do not take naps during daytime but a few days back sheer mental, emotional and physical fatigue made me crash while my laptop and cell buzzed ceaselessly. I was in a sort of hypnotic trance and yet fully aware of the sounds that filtered through the closed-door of my room. The afternoon sun shone brightly and filled my little room with brilliant sunshine and warmth slowly sucking me into a gateway of a private fantasy land. Unlike the known realms of fantasy this one did not have any magical stuff . Somehow I feel that many of my lucid dreams are sequential and  bizarre. It seems I am shape shifting into some another being or sometimes I see myself with people who are either part of my present life or past at places known and unknown though I may have known them at some other time.  The scary twist comes to a normal lucid dream when your subconscious mind takes control and the dream feels like reality. You can actually feel, touch ,smell what surrounds you.  The senses are sharper than normal and visual impact is much more than what it may be in wakeful state. The thin line that separates wakeful state and sleep diminishes and dissolves.

On this day I was taken to an old house. These are the kind of houses you find in old cities. Houses with many big and small rooms, a veranda, a store-room in an old style kitchen, steep staircase leading to terrace. Heavy doors  and windows which bring in more darkness than light.  Old style flat wooden beds, iron trunks and wooden furniture that makes the atmosphere slightly daunting. There is always  fragrance of age, a murky presence of cobwebs and cold feel of stone under your feet if you walk bare feet.

I was in a big room where on a large wooden bed my mother sat but she didn’t look like her. Her physique resembled that of  my paternal grandmother whom none of us have seen except in a few yellowing photographs. She wore a soft cotton sari of some pastel shade. Her hair silver streaked with black tied in a loose bun resting at the nape of her neck.

There is a small girl whom I call with my niece’s name but she looks nothing like her. A thin wispy creäture dressed in a frock and leggings.  I bring her in and tell the two domestic helps to stay in the outside veranda. These girls work for us here now in real-time. So here is some present merging with past.

The room has another door at the other end leading to a row of dingy , vacant rooms smaller in size. I take the little girl to one of the bigger and airy rooms to wash her dirty face and change her clothes,

She is unusually quiet and obedient.  Not her usual self at all.

The scene shifts from these dark interiors to one of the flats I lived in as a teenager. It shifts to my room with again two doors , one leading to the balcony and another to the lobby. The setting is almost the same as it used to be in my time but there is an overpowering presence of an old wooden wardrobe. Heavy dark wood.  stuffed with clothes and things with bundles of more clothes and saris and sheets on top. I tell mom to clean her and put fresh clothes which she does. here her real image is clearly visible.

I may be in early thirties not younger for sure.

The scene sifts back to the old room where I put her on the wooden bed with a glass of milk. A modern glass with lid and nozzle, on of those insulated ones.

I go into the bathroom among one of the rooms in the row and come out to find a drunken , disheveled man shouting his lungs out to take his daughter back. I manage to push him out but can’t find the girl.

I call for the house helps but no one is there in the murky summer afternoon pregnant with various smells rising from inside and outside of the house.

I run around in panic constantly yelling for the helpers and the child.  I find her sprawled on the floor face down at the bottom of the staircase and in the twilight filtering in from door I see the pool of blood near her head. The house help comes running down the stairs and swears to know nothing about her fall or injury. I turn her carefully . She is unconscious and cold as ice but her heart is beating. I rush inside to pick up my purse and car keys ( By the way I don’t drive) and by the time I return everyone has disappeared. There is a dark pool of red seeping slowly in the crevices of stone flooring . The door is open and swinging slowly with evening breeze. I run around in the by lane but there is no sign of  life not even the usual street dogs.

I find the younger house help who tells me that a couple has taken the child to their house in the next lane. (These people are neighbors from where I lived two years back). I rush with her to their home crossing series of old dilapidated buildings. We reach a deep blue wooden door with a huge chain lock on it. I open the lock and step into another dark corridor and set of rooms. On my right is room with curtain drawn. I can hear hushed voices inside and a dim light is visible if you look carefully through the coarse material of the curtain. The gentleman comes out and tells me that the child is still unconscious but the bleeding has stopped. Nothing else can be done for now. I argue that we should take her to the hospital and he looks at me in surprise.

” Which world are you living in girl? There is a curfew in the town since last four days. I am surprised you even managed to get here and did not get shot. The town is shut.” I just stare at him wondering  how long have I been cooped up inside the four walls of that formidable house.

As we talk we walk into an open courtyard.  His fingers find a switch on the dark side wall and the naked yellow bulb springs to life. He turns to face me and his eyes freeze with alarm and concern.

‘What happened to you? You are bleeding.”

“What? Where?” My hand automatically reaches to the side of my left temple. I feel the sticky liquid run down my fingers.  There is no pain, no sign or remembrance of an injury.

I woke up with the feel of blood still on my hand. I realized that my hand was still at the temple and it that semi awakened state I saw the deep dark liquid on my hand, that unmistakable irony smell of blood filled my nostrils. I could feel its sticky texture and how it slowly made its way down to the elbow and down to the floor as I looked at it  with astonishment. By this time I was actually awake. The  laptop battery had died and the blank screen stared at me from the side of my bed. The sun had gone down and the room was in darkness except for the tube light  peeping from under the closed-door. I got up and switched the light on. My legs a little shaky and a definite ache in the neck muscles especially to the left.  I realized I was sleeping in one awkward position for more than three hours.

Slowly the sounds had faded and the house had become silent with my mother bent over her book somewhere. I went into her room and into the bathroom. Switching on the light above the mirror I looked closely for any marks on the side of temple but found none. While washing my hands with liquid soap the same feeling of feeling blood between my fingers returned  and for a second I actually felt it was blood but it wasn’t.

It is intriguing how I am able to actually feel the wetness of blood and know the right thickness and color of it. It is also intriguing how this is repeated in dream like sequence. This is the second time  I bled in my dreams and surprisingly it never scares or upsets me. Read DEATH RED here.

Beyond The Unknown – A Short Story

I felt slowly being lifted out of my physical body. It wasn’t a hallucination. I was very much aware of the separation of my consciousness from the flesh body I was living in for all these years.  I was aware of one of my selves watching the other in moment of life. Fully conscious of what was happening to me I watched my sleeping self for some quiet moments, turned and began to walk.  Nothing unusual.

I walked on a familiar road shaded with the deepening shadows of ancient trees that lined on both sides and remembered what a beautiful shade of green they were during daytime but at night they acquired demonic shapes. There is one thing about the night; it paints everything in its own colour. All forms, colours, and shapes dissolve. It fills them with similar melancholy stillness. There are things one can see only in the darkens of night

The road beneath my bare feet was like a glacier. I was sure I heard earth’s soundless whispering drifting through the trees.  Why wasn’t I scared? Why did it seem familiar? Was it Déjà Vu? Or was I under some spell?

I remembered my physical body lying on plush bed. The slow rise and fall of my breasts and the constant humming of the ceiling fan. And then I saw him. A hound. At least I thought it was a hound. It sure was a larger than life and had deep non luminous eyes. A hell-hound?

I could see his balanced athletic body movement as it advanced towards me, slowly growing like a huge sinister black shadow.  Strange that he did not charge on seeing someone on a road – deserted, charmed, and vacant running through the middle of nowhere. It surprised me that the darkness of the night failed to camouflage him.  There was nothing ferocious or scary about him, not even the demonic red eyes that looked straight into mine… instead I instantly felt a connection, an at ease feeling. I felt his sinews strengthening mine with his growing presence. A strange sensation began to flow through my veins. He seemed friendly, maybe he was a protector, an animal spirit guide or maybe not. Maybe he had some ulterior hidden motives? As far as he did no harm, it did not matter much to me.

I felt a drop in temperature as the distance between the dog and me shortened but kept on walking. I noticed he had stopped midway blocking whatever lay in the darkness. For  fraction of a second as my attention shifted from the dog to the rustling of the leaves he was gone. As if he just melted into the night and slid into some dark hole taking it along with him. Making it all even less visible than invisible.

The scene changed dramatically. I could see the graveyard now, dilapidated, old, forgotten and vandalized. The headstones were barely visible even though the early morning light pierced through the thick foliage like spears making some sort of voodoo motifs on the earth below. Everything was transfixed except the light.

The graves themselves were covered by wild flowers and moss.  I stood there observing the scene that lay in front of me.  For a long time I kept staring at a headstone half covered with gray green moss. It was the only one intact even though it had aged with time and had a dull decaying appearance. I tried to step a little closer to inspect but found myself rooted to the ground. I just could not move.

A bunch of wild daisies fluttered furiously at the base of its left side as if desperately wanting an escape. It was bizarre because the breeze wasn’t that strong.  The flowers held my gaze. A strange feeling of some past connection swept through me. The effort and the feeling of déjà vu were now consuming me.  I felt as if my skull was about to crack open.

Suspended between a strong desire to stay there and a stronger one to return I stood there in the midst of all that sadness that had burst into various shades and textures of green.

Why was I there and whose grave was it? I noticed that most of the other grave stones were buried under wild growth or barely visible. Some seemed ravaged, as if mauled by some animal. I suddenly remembered the hound and instantly felt a presence behind me.

I turned on an impulse and floated into a dream.

The same woman who came in my dreams, my friend, confidante and lover was standing behind me, wearing only a smile. Her left breast seductively half concealed behind the long dark tresses which she had brought forward on one side. Let us call her Luna. The familiar feeling of being at the receiving end of a torrential desire crept up between my legs.

I looked at the sky, the shadow of the moon was slipping away slowly from under the clouds.  Either the time was travelling too fast today or her eyelids had closed upon the day. Day and night seemed to have merged.  Weak with longing and fatigue I sank into her arms.  The touch of Luna’s smooth skin felt like ice on my scorched skin.  I was delirious. I remember whispering strange meaningless words to her. My face resting in the curve of her neck and her strong comforting arms wrapped around me like a blanket. It was uncanny how easily I melted and morphed into her skin and became her. Our relationship was something between friendship and love, something which I had not experienced in real life. It was fluid with no spaces in-between.

Luna had been my dream companion since time’s beginning and even though I am not a lesbian many times I found comfort in her. It wasn’t just erotic sexual relationship we shared but the bond of intimate oneness was stronger than any I had experienced. We were friends. Inseparable. When this world became too much to bear I always turned to Luna or should we say Luna was always there.  I don’t how to explain my relationship with Luna.

It surprised me to find her here in the graveyard and that too naked, why was she roaming around naked? But then I had always seen her like that. No, sometimes she wore mist but today her voluptuous body shone like an August moon in tranquil night sky.

I felt a tingling sensation tickle down my spine. A cross-road demon?

My body seemed chained to the bed and yet it felt strangely relaxed.

It took a lot of effort to open my eyes.

It was then I realized I was nude under a thin sheet carelessly thrown over me.

The kaftan I had worn lay crumpled on the floor.

My throat was parched. Somehow I dragged my body to the cabinet twisted the bottle lid and took a long drink of water. Some of the icy liquid ran down my bare neck and sizzled as it ran in rivulet between my breasts. I was still hot like flaming embers.

I manoeuvred my way through the smokiness  of the room turned the door knob of the bathroom turned the shower on and stood under the cold needle sharp jets of water. Eyes closed. I could hear voices and feel the coarseness of a bathrobe on my skin.  The water had stopped running.  The heat was returning and I was drifting again.

*****

I could not have heard her last words had I not been sitting close to her. I reached out and touched her forehead. The temperature was normal.  She was fast asleep.

I picked up my recorder and stood up. My shoulders and back ached as I tried to stretch myself. It had been a long day.  I walked up to the window and looked out at the lengthening evening shadows.  It had been strangely hot and murky day.  The tarmac on the road steamed and gave out sparks as the vehicles zipped passed on it. Something moved and caught my attention behind the cluster of trees across the road. I thought I saw a large shadow leap and slip away into the forested area.

With a swift movement I turned around. The couch was empty.

 This story is based on a dream I had some months back and which returned two days back

 

Dreamscape, Imagination, Mindgames And The World Within

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. 

All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable  magnificent wonderful   stupid   amazing  worlds.

Not just one world.

 Hundreds of them.

 Thousands maybe.

Quote copyright-Neil Gaiman

Dreams make me endure the reality. Imagination lets me stay sane. The world inside my mind is where I retreat at times when the world becomes too much to bear. That is the world I live in most of  the time.  A private dreamscape, a virtual reality world where time has no meaning. Where the five senses work magically unrestrained. It is a world where dreams get realized, even the wildest of them, where passion are fed, love blossoms, fears take shapes and walk around. Where there are deep crevices full of secrets, dark alleys where thoughts stumble upon each other, strange voice glide past each other, there are ditches that reek of pain. A world where ghosts from the yesteryear wander freely rising from the graveyard of memories buried over the time.  It is a world where I am invented and reinvented driven by uncontrolled fantasy, a world where stories are born.

 A world with constellations of wants and needs, hopes and dreams, laments and longings,  a surreal universe of uninhabited stars yearning for life. No emotion is superfluous there, everything is an all engulfing whirlpool. Everything is larger than life. Raw, naked, stripped off all inhibitions,  everything free of boundaries reality imposes. I live here, in my enchantment. protected by own fairy tale, by love. Here time is different, unmeasured. It’s sunsets and sunrises painted in celestial colors. It is a world where I can smell, touch , hear, see everything that can not be smelled, heard,seen or touched in real life. I can give each object, each person, each place any dimension, any form, any kind of existence that I desire. The boundary between the animate and inanimate is in itself animate ( says KS) and it holds true here. Here I am the master weaver, craftsman, a dreamer, a storyteller, a lover with a raw sort of vulnerability, a woman I try hard to be in reality and manage only a fraction of it and sometimes I am just me, a form, unchained by sexuality. A shape shifter.

Here love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke. Bodies are chiseled and carved in shape of desire. They feed on each other passionately, ravenously, sensually in the midst of all the silent noise that surrounds them, unaffected.Here love is not flowery, poetic, measured and hesitant. It is fierce, pulsating, graphic, full of fluidity and madness. Nothing comes close to the love we make inside our head. Ethereal, adventurous and wildly stimulating all at the same time.

The mind also has a dark world lurking to suck you in. It is devious. It can rage passionate fires and it can also drown you in the deepest of oceans full of pain. Shred you into tiny pieces, cut your veins and bleed you to a slow death. It can ravage your heart, nibble on it or tear it like a carnivore, it can throw you off-balance and hurl you down a narrow, gaping hole. It can strip you naked and whiplash you till your skin burns crimson, black and blue. The wounds it gives don’t heal, they come alive and spit lava. It cuts you down to your size more effectively than reality does.

Then there are dreams, you won’t understand if you aren’t a dreamer, lucid dreams filled with pieces of super reality which ooze out as revelations, a world within a world. A gobbling kaleidoscopic. It is amazing how we are tricked into believing reality of these world within by our mind. It is the creator. I think my mind has highly optimized memory channels which store data for later review. Vivid, lucid dreams where one is in control of that which in fact is just imagination, is something not everyone possess.

It is here that  the reality’s image is mirrored in absurdity & strange connections, I try to link them till I the find the pattern I seek. The process is continuous.

There are callings, revelations, symbols, voices and spirits. leading to inner deeper layers of this world which is a merger of dreamscape and imagination. One lives and dies and lives again here. Time travel becomes a reality. past, present and future merge. Mind becomes a canvas where every micro second the patterns change. The fine line between imagination and dreams becomes even finer with people like me.

And if you thought that is the end of it, you are wrong.

There are those demonic depths of mind where world as sensitive as a lunatic’s mind form and dissolve. Where revenge is plotted, throats are slit, where occult resides in its most primal form. Sometimes one is sucked by it at others it remains quietly breathing under the more calmer serene layer. The paradoxical existence of both and our ability to create a balance is what life is about, in real world or in the mindscape.

These are not the only world within, every moment new worlds are conceived in the mind womb ready to launch forth at any given time and take control. Everything emerges from three base emotions – Love, Hate and Fear.

Everything one runs from is in the head lurking in one of the worlds inside.

If I could just stand one night alone in my mind…. The thought itself is orgasmic.

Death Red – Dream Diary

Gaily I lived as ease and nature taught,
And spent my little life without a thought,
And am amazed that Death, that tyrant grim,
Should think of me, who never thought of him.
~René Francois Regnier

Someone slit my throat last night. I felt blood ..warm sticky ..slowly collecting at the nape of my neck and getting absorbed in the soft pillow. RED.

RED ….The color of our root chakra located at the base of the spine and allows us to be grounded and connect to the universal energies.. RED ….energizing, burning.  RED  color of poison, strength and aggression …RED…..Warm scented metallic taste  of  blood.

RED….   the highest arc of the rainbow, rebellious tainted love, the scarlet letter. Blazing red sunsets, sun stabbed skies.

Day before yesterday I mumbled something during my Reiki session at night. I did not know about it till my Reiki master told me the next day. Since some time night have been blotting paper for many sorrows and a bed for illicit desires, hopes, dreams and dark longings .

I am amused how death like a desirous lover shadows me each night relentlessly. Sometime lurking among the deep dark crevices of my mind at others trailing me from a safe distance. I feel it presence. Gentle , persevering she stays close. She ? Yes I know night with all its beauty and glorious charm can only be feminine.

It was an ordinary room with folding iron grill doors on both ends . Windowless. Sparsely furnished. A comfortable bed with soft white quilt duvet and a large frilled pillow. Spotless White.

I am draped in a sari. Thin floral Georgette in pastels. It has taken my shape.

I remember the bangles, glass bangles. I get the whiff of  roses but there aren’t any flowers.  No perfume.

The caretaker, a middle-aged woman  urges  me to go with the rest of the family. I ignore and  point towards the three fox-like dogs at the door and tell her to close the grill doors. They have pleading eyes. She lets them enter.

The animals look at me with intense eyes , pause for a moment and go out through the other door. The gaze stays.

I hear voices of other family members in the next room. laughing, arguing , debating and packing. They are ready to leave. Voices from a distance sound strangely mysterious. I try to catch the words as they drift through the thin walls and dark corridor. My caretaker too is set to leave. She continuously reports how others are irked and exasperated by my decision to stay and wait. Wait for someone to fulfill a promise.

Slowly the voices die.  Hush.

I lie awake and ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’  A voice says to me, ‘ This is going to take more than one night. More than one life ‘

I close my eyes.  Someone pours red-hot lava inside my head. I shudder and  lie suspended between dark and light. An ache begins to numb my throbbing body.  I move my hand to my neck. It’s been slit. A neat cut. Sharp and precise.

I moved my hand slowly and touched my neck. Eyes still closed. I felt blood. warm and sticky.

Slowly I opened my eyes. Death stood there wearing midnight, her eyes cold as steel and yet I was alive.

I was amused. I still am. This tryst with death was unexpected. Unexplained. Liberating and calming instead of scary and suffocating. I watched the soft gray sky from the mesh doors. Stillness of soul helps one to have those rare flings with reality.

Red is also color of LOVE.  Sensual , stimulating color of  passion and seduction.

Red is Cupid and the Devil.

My heart explodes.

Love doesn’t come easy to me, Death does.

I know not what causes this  fervent rush inside me…. Is it  my heart surfing the Californian sunshine or is it my body bathed in sweetness that is Indian summer ?

The rain may have the answer or the wind.. or maybe

la petite mort

A Dream Comes Haunting Again

Normally I do not sleep post lunch but for some days nights have been stuffy and restless. Unable to sleep I toss and turn in the bed, dozing on and off into slumber and wake up with a start.

Something has been tugging me at heart since long and I am trying to find solutions. Since yesterday morning I had a vague feeling, a mixed emotion of fear and longing but I kept it to myself wondering if it was just another play of the devious mind or something deeper than that, a heartache.

Today was a quiet day and tired from the pre lunch activities and lack of sleep my body began to demand rest. Unusual, because this rarely happens and as my eyes began to feel heavy I excused myself to the bedroom.

Someone noticed that I was quieter than before and asked if I was missing my boys. I think I did reply but it’s not very clear now.

Sleep took over the moment I hit the pillow. An insatiable thirst woke me from a dream. An old dream recurred after a very long time and got overlapped with a new one.  The havelies have become an integral part of my dreams and surely have some significance and some relation with my past life.

I often wonder why I see and remember the details of even the minutest part of dream.  The colors, the clothes, the streets, everything is absolutely clear.

These are the dreams that stay with me.

Its evening when I enter the fort or haveli , the door is heavily carved and the corridor is  mostly dark except for the light filtering in from the jharokhas above and the mashals  ( torches) which threw dancing shadows on the cold stone walls.

I am searching for someone but don’t see him anywhere.

A heavily dressed woman is sitting on a carved bench of stone made along the left side of the corridor. There are two young women with her who get up and move aside the moment they see me. I kneel and pay my respect to her but she is anxious to find me there. A sort of resentment is visible on her face.  I hear whispers from the young attendants. She gives a cold stare and gestures me to follow her. WE move ten paces and go up an iron staircase. I follow her without question and on top of the stairs there is another beautifully carved heavy door .She opens it for me and I walk in without question. The door is shut behind me and then I realize that it is a cell. I notice how dark and cold everything is. I have been here before. I have spent an entire lifetime here, secluded from the world.

This dream was constant many years back and came as a flash and got overlapped with a new one. Even in my subconscious mind I recognized it . Something took control and transported me to another time.

I am in the fort/ haveli garden and there is some zamindar (landlord) or stately prince, someone powerful and authoritative. He orders his men to tie my hands and take me away.

The men have covered faces and only eyes are visible. One of them holds me firmly and almost drags me inside the same corridor but from the door on the other side. It’s much more lighted. His grip is strong and hurts. (I felt the pain on my right arm even after waking up) .

The other two subordinates are told to stay behind. I recognize the touch .It is familiar but I can’t place it.  We pass two small water bodies where two women are being given some ceremonial bath. Large mature women, nude and sort of sedated are being bathed by men in a pool of water laced with white flowers. Terrified of my fate I cringe and struggle to escape but am firmly and closely held by my escort. I can feel his breathing and body heat. That too is familiar. I have experienced it before.

Something tells me he won’t harm as I am hurriedly led from the scene.  We reach the same staircase and the shadows increase. He reveals himself and before I can express myself holds me close and rushes upstairs. In the process my anklets fall.

It is surprising how I can see the gold broad old-fashioned anklets shimmering in the light of the torches.

I struggle to get away and pick them before anyone comes. They will reveal my identity. I see a young maid and tell her to pass them to me but she is too aghast and petrified to pick them.  He keeps insisting on moving away. His arms wrapped strongly around me. I long for the anklets for some reason.  My life depends on not being recognized.

We hear the sounds from a distance. Fear grips me.

I opened my eyes slowly and scanned the room unable to place where I am. The dream left me listless and sad.

Last few days have been crazy enough to run me down but the beautiful moon in the sky today lifted my heart. Sometimes a voice, few words, a feeling of warmth floods the heart and makes up for all that is lost.

The dream needs to be interpreted along with the earlier ones. I am putting it in Dream Diary category.  Hope the beautiful night brings solace and calms my yearning .

Phantasm

A vein opened and words began to flow, something  I have no control over .

Spirits, voices, callings … I don’t know what flows in my veins and make my fingers tap the keys. Delirious and feverish with something beyond my knowledge I flow. Out of a swirling black misty dream a path emerges for a while, then closes within a dream. Did I tell you I am a dreamer, a seeker ?

There are times  one needs to change the  path and move on to a different road. A more exciting road,which emerges out of nowhere and just goes on.  A  dangerous and mysterious road. Unknown, Unseen.That’s when you cut yourself loose.  Shed all inhibitions. Just be yourself and listen to silence of the spirits around you.

Am I fooling myself , they ask. Is it that I create these visions around in my dream space to feed my insecurities and fears. Who knows he reason. Who wants to know. They help me find myself.

I feel there are many ‘ Me’ inside this ‘ I’  that I am. They all reside in small little compartments waiting for their time .

We dream that is why we live or else we exist .

Someone asked me am I really what I say I am for I don’t connect with the poet me, writer me and my voice does not have the power to convince the thoughts I portray . I smile .

No, I am not that.

I have no idea who I am.

There is that Me which people see in flesh and blood but that’s just a body, a vehicle for my soul and a treasure chest that holds an unruly heart and a devious mind. I have the hell and heaven inside me.

I , is not defined .It is nameless orphan of silence.

Do not try to know me by my face or my aging sick body. It is nothing but a mirage. An illusion .

Look deep if you have eyes to see like I do.

Why is it that people do not believe when I tell them spirits and souls exist. They roam around and connect with right match.

You are plugged in with or without your consent . All is not love, sometimes you just get sucked in and have no place to run to and then they make you rise the storm , they spin you till all becomes a blur.

Battlefield

Unruly heart&devious mind at it again. Words as weapons are sharp. Loaded. I am watching from a distance. Scared of the result. This one time I trust the spirits around me. The storm is rising again. Swirling with great intensity every moment that passes. I try to see… just a blur. I know they are there. A vein is cut . I see the ink flowing like a river in rage. Red ink, the color of blood. What next?

The heart is unruly but very courageous. It bleeds so I can dip my pen and paint pictures with my words. The devious mind … oh never mind..

There is light and there is darkness. All within. There are monsters, demons and there are strong, courageous loving female spirits that ever walked in the universe. We just have to know the difference. A hard thing to learn.

I recently got connected with some beautiful souls animals and humans  each with an enigmatic aura. Reaching out from nowhere.

They just know and seek you out. Especially the female spirits. They have strong invisible blood bonds .

You break , you change , you expand and then there is a release . Sometime you reach that point of combustion and then  Nothing.. you wait .. it is not time yet.

Someone watches from behind the night’s curtains.

Some one I don’t know

A spirit which could be  manifestation of my imagination . A new birth of a crushed desire .

We take pride in knowing Love and affection .We talk about the beauty of it and yet we know nothing of it. Nothing at all. whatever you think Love is , is not actually .  Of course it is debatable .

We frown when words like Lust, passion and longings are spoken.

Hypocrites that we are.

Humans have made things so complicated.

Something life was never meant to be.

We have caged life in chains of so-called emotions.

When all it is to life is an uninhibited, unrestrained approach.

I long for that. The I that is really Me.

We are either spectators or exhibitionist and never ourselves. We are performer to please the rest and then we take our place in the crowd and watch others perform. An endless activity .

The dream catcher is meeting the word weaver and there is lots in store.

Spirits move around me. Silent Observers. Is there a calling ? Let them decide the path

I felt it again some days back.

A male spirit at my feet when I was fast asleep. Usual time around four in the morning. I was asleep yet conscious of its being there. It wanted me to get up and insisted to sit up. Shaking my feet gently. Normally I would have opened my eyes and looked for it but this time I could not . Eyes felt heavy, drugged. I did not want to take any journey with it this time ( this time because I had a feeling I had gone on one before) I just played tired and lethargic and in a flash of a moment I was pulled to a sitting position . As if  pulled by both arms . I woke up instantly but still could not open my eyes . No feeling at all, just curiosity. I kept sitting, no movement and then rolled back to sleep. Something that usually doesn’t happen.

I feel it around at times , a caged desire ?

Spirits , they show the path themselves  , they send souls to unravel the secret. I AM WAITING

Lured by inner music that words make

Alright ,  I confess.

 

I tried to stay away , to rein the creative streak in me and apply myself to something else but the inner music that words make lured me back to my blog.

 

I would have gone insane if I had not written to empty my mind. This is an itch that can only be cured by the music your fingers make on the keyboard. ( it used to be the scratch of pen on paper … how times have changed)

I resisted the pull for a long time but ultimately had to give in. The questioning stare of the words hovering all around me was unbearable.

As James Michener says, ”I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”

My heart was overflowing with drafts and I had to write them down somewhere.

Facebook  is a great place to share notes , have debates but there is something amiss ..something that only this place can offer.

I shared some thoughts on FB and would love to share on my blog too.

From the Daemonic depths of Mind

It dug holes in my brain and planted itself. Its roots reaching deep and spreading in my nervous system. If I try to pull it out it shrieks like Mandrake torn out of earth. It can’t stand the unruly heart and its longing. Makes me feel like a vision seen in Opium sleep.It chides as loud as thunder when the clouds in autumn crack. Got to tame it.

I hear its whispers in hollowed shadows, I hear its murmurs as it flows beneath the maze of streets of my mind like some drunk colored liquid. Filling all empty spaces.

Slowly I have begun to understand its moves and my heart has softens for this pathetic creature.It only needed a vessel to grow and expand. It wanted to share the space with the dream world of creativity. It wanted to break the shackles of robotic programing. It was scared , lonesome and hungry for love. I decided to give it some space and it began to flourish at an amazing speed.

The shirking reduced considerably.

And then one day it crossed the line, trespassed into the world of inflaming passion and began to swirl and swirl untill it became a blur.

I feared that it may destroy itself and sucked it out of a dark dungeon.

I feel like a junkie addicted to it. I explore its depths and heights and I marvel at the intricate crisscross patterns  that it creates.

And yet there is something very potent that rides above it . My dreams. They hate intruders.

They have a mean streak. If needed they will swallow the mind.

They warn.

This is the dream I had some days back.

Two robed men, faces half painted in red and black, holding Katanas or something similar, a path leading into darkness, night, am being chased. I see flashes from the swords but never them, they are just two apparitions, I run for life, they chase but never get close enough. A dream I have had since sometime. Gets sinister every time. Is there a calling again ? Where is this path going? Dreams freak me out

And then

A week back I felt a presence in my bedroom. It must have been early morn because the alarm shrieked like a tortured soul in an hour or so.

I felt a presence , a male. it stood near my feet urging me to get up. I wanted to open my eyes but they felt heavy. Spirits don’t scare me. I struggled to open my eyes and suddenly with a jerk I was pulled to sitting position as if someone pulled me by my arms. My arms were inside the quilt.  I felt the heaviness of strong hands. They were cold hands.

Normally I wake up and look around trying to understand my surroundings but this time I was dazed and sliding down slipped back into slumber.

I wonder how I remember this dream. It doesn’t bother me though. Makes me curious.

What is this thing that haunts me?

Does it want to take me someplace ?

It makes me comfortably restless. What does this mean?

I take refuge in writing for all it is worth. My fingers feverishly tap dance on the keyboard. Possessed. Words neatly pop up on the screen neatly arranging themselves in sentences. I do nothing than watch.

I love this strangeness, feel blessed. If you have even a spark of it you will understand. Do not interpret it conventionally , it won’t be right.

It is weird stuff.

Have you been inside the mind of a lunatic? You must. It will freak you out with its brutal understanding of existence.

It will suck you in and spin you like a dancing dervish till you are dazed.

The creepy symbols , the lurking spirits, the storms inside the brain , the freaky dreams and portals that urge you to step on them all are indicative of something.

It is a jigsaw puzzle where all pieces need to be put into correct slot to get the complete picture and the pieces are scattered in various brains all over. They sometimes make contact .

And when they do something neat arises. Am I getting ready for such a contact ?

I do not know what prompts me to put this song link here but it really makes you comfortably numb Do listen

Dream Diary : The Run

This is so difficult to explain. I still do not get it  why I always dream of old, ruins of forts, havelis , an empty road leading somewhere I do not know of and sometimes people whom I have never ever seen or heard of. After a series of such dreams I decided to write about them. Vivid as they are and most parts I do remember for days.

Yesterday was a tiring  and trying day for me and I decided to take that much-needed afternoon nap. Here is what I dreamed.

Me , hubby and my two boys are in a car driving past a place called Moti Bagh ( those who know of Delhi will be able to visualize the area with govt. houses and nothing out of ordinary but he the place I associated with Moti Bagh had a series of road side shops dealing in iron stuff especially  utensils, keys, huge locks and the dominating thing was iron griddle (tawah) , loads of them kept upside down, their shinning metal catching the brilliant mid day summer sun.

We are driving on this usual route and suddenly my hubby who is on the right side drive leans out of the window on the left side and picks up a huge bundle of old keys.

“That’s stealing, WTF you think you are doing. “

I am stunned. The next moment he notices a low floor A/C  red color bus following us. We take a quick turn in to an area called R.K.Puram which again is a familiar place with Govt. Flats.

The bus keep following so I open the door and start running towards the market. Strange , because I have no idea what made me jump and run. I meet a man who guides me towards a park area which is safe. ( who is this man, why does he guide me )?

I run until I reach the park gate , it is late evening by now but the light is still there. I am tired . The park is empty and I see a gate leading to the other side and cross it to face an open road , dusty, never-ending and lined with old havilis and some portions of old forts etc. Hardly a tree is visible. I do not know what’s on the other side but I can feel the sand.

It is hot, humid and dusty. I run blindly on that road. I can hear noises of jeeps and some other vehicles but see nothing.

After a mile or two I spot a better looking haveli with nice winding stairs leading up to the terrace. I  take a turn and start climbing the stairs .My calf muscles ache( they really did ache, I kept rubbing my feet and could feel the heat and sweat) .

After climbing at least three-story , I come to a terrace where there is a mother dairy booth. ( mother dairy is the name of a govt milk booth in Delhi). I go inside . It has only one section where a man is sitting with all the machines, the other section where the milk is sold does not seem to exist.

The man does not seem to be bothered by my sudden appearance and on asking for a safe place he readily agrees to hide me there. I look outside from the Jharokha (a type of overhanging enclosed balcony used in Indian/Mugal architecture) and see a few open jeeps standing at the road. there are some men running around and one tall person wearing a maroon Kurta and jeans with dark round sun glasses on his eyes is giving instructions with his arms. I do not know any of them. ( Are they searching for me ) ? From where did this Mother Dairy spring up on top of the terrace ?

All this I have no idea.

My heart beat quicken and I look at the man next to me. An old man in simple white shirt and black pant. He smiles and tells me that the glasses have films that makes sure that people from outside can not see inside. Amazing I thought, technology in the midst of old ruins.

I watch the scene below and suddenly there is a sound of footsteps. I look around the tiny room for a place to hide. The man opens a small door in the back area and I enter a vault kind of thing. the door is left slightly ajar.

From that crack I see my elder son .

W TF I say . “where did he come from and how did he know I am here?”

He inquirers about me by showing a picture and weeps. I come out and hug. No words are exchanged.

We hear the roar of engines and the jeeps go back in direction from where I had come.

I thank the man and we run down . It is dark but we can still see the steps.

On the road again we start running towards the same direction from where we had come. There is no place to hide. The havelis on right side appear ghostly , on the left it is an abyss. Dark and unfriendly.

We spot a gate which seems to be freshly painted in white. I do not remember seeing it while I was coming on that road earlier in the evening.  Again a question mark.

We enter the Haveli through a spiral staircase. We knock on the heavy wooden door and you won’t believe who opens the door.

Gul Panag. ( She is an Indian film actress)

What it is she doing there?  Again a white shirt and blue denim). Without a word she lets us in.There is a table and chair with some papers . Maybe her working table. We run up the stairs leading to first floor. There are tourist. Some monkeys are sitting on the jharokhas with their little ones.

I look at my son. He has no answer to this. Suddenly a child throws a stone at a group of monkeys and hell breaks loose. people are running ,screaming, moneys are attacking and snatching their things. We manage to run down and meet Gul Again .She too does not seem to be perturbed by all this  as if it is the usual thing

I ask her what is she doing at this God forsaken place and in reply she opens a back door.

There are children, old men, women , a family living there with a patch of kitchen garden etc. Normal household stuff. Kitchen Garden in desert area ?

She closes the door and we leave the place.

Out on the dark road we are left alone. Where have all those tourists gone ?

It is quite. very quite.

We begin to walk slowly.  There is a phone ringing somewhere. It seems a familiar ring tone  of a mobile phone.

I suddenly realize that it is my phone. I wake up with a start, the phone is right next to my pillow ringing loudly.

Later when I thought about this dream I noticed many similarity between this one and the last two. Same, intermingling of past and present, old Havelis, me on the road and much more. Many questions remain unanswered. I had not watched any movie of Gul or seen her Picture etc any where in past many weeks.

I wonder what it all means and why I keep having these dreams. Maybe some one can explain.

apparitions, past life and dream symbols

I have read a lot about magic spells, dream symbols, past life analysis and psychic connections, apparitions and spirits. This is an area which has fascinated me since childhood and when I am not writing I try to read something on any of these topics.

During last one month I have seen apparitions of a loved one who is not alive anymore. He was close to me and I woke in the early hours of morning with a feeling of some presence near my feet. Slowly as I opened my eyes I saw a white apparition and the first name which came to my mind was his. I could feel warmth near my feet and we looked at each other for a few seconds. I closed my eyes and slowly silently prayed for him and requested him to go back to his world but somehow something remained connected between us. Although I felt his presence once more I regularly saw him in my dreams for a long period. Each time he was trying to say something, as if extracting a promise or wanting to stay on. The dreams were nothing related to our past but the places were the same, only incidents were more complex and related to our lives ..especially his.
We were mostly seeking solutions.

I came to realize the strange thing about this later when a very close friend told me that on the same night he saw woke up almost at the same time because he felt a presence in his room and found me standing near his feet, looking at him. He actually felt my presence and was amazed at the sight.

Somehow I found this all very interesting. We had not talked with each other about it, there is no way any of us could have known about the apparition and dreams and yet we experienced a somewhat similar situation.

It made me look up for sites that offer dream analysis and I found some very interesting material there about seeing a dead relative.

Dead, Dead People, Dead Father, Dead Mother, Dead Relative, Dead Relatives

* To dream of the dead, is usually a dream of warning. If you see and talk with your father, some unlucky transaction is about to be made by you. Be careful how you enter into contracts, enemies are around you. Men and women are warned to look to their reputations after this dream.
* To see your mother, warns you to control your inclination to cultivate morbidness and ill will towards your fellow creatures. A brother, or other relatives or friends, denotes that you may be called on for charity or aid within a short time.
* To dream of seeing the dead, living and happy, signifies you are letting wrong influences into your life, which will bring material loss if not corrected by the assumption of your own will force.
* To dream that you are conversing with a dead relative, and that relative endeavors to extract a promise from you, warns you of coming distress, unless you follow the advice given you. Disastrous consequences could often be averted if minds could grasp the inner workings and sight of the higher or spiritual self. The voice of relatives is only that higher self taking form to approach more distinctly the mind that lives near the material plane. There is so little congeniality between common or material natures that persons should depend upon their own subjectivity for true contentment and pleasure.
* [52] Paracelsus says on this subject: “It may happen that the soul of persons who have died perhaps fifty years ago may appear to us in a dream, and if it speaks to us we should pay special attention to what it says, for such a vision is not an illusion or delusion, and it is possible that a man is as much able to use his reason during the sleep of his body as when the latter is awake; and if in such a case such a soul appears to him and he asks questions, he will then hear that which is true. Through these solicitous souls we may obtain a great deal of knowledge to good or to evil things if we ask them to reveal them to us. Many persons have had such prayers granted to them. Some people that were sick have been informed during their sleep what remedies they should use, and after using the remedies, they became cured, and such things have happened not only to Christians, but also to Jews, Persians, and heathens, to good and to bad persons.”

* The writer does not hold that such knowledge is obtained from external or excarnate spirits, but rather through the personal Spirit Glimpses that is in man.–AUTHOR.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

Well I dont know how true this is but it sure is interesting.

Here is another way to look at it

Guided by the Dead

Some of the most powerful dreams we have are dreams about loved ones who have died. Men and women have changed their life paths, and sometimes their non-belief in an afterlife, based on dreams in which they felt they received direct messages from the departed.

Source: Patricia Garfield, Ph.D., President of ASD

Both interpretations are from a site http://www.experiencefestival.com/dream_interpretation_dead

I am still thinking about the apparitions I see sometimes, which even my elder son sees in different ways. Sometimes some figure in the drawing-room or some footsteps at others just a feeling of some one standing behind me or a presence in the room. There is no specific time and I don’t get scared but it sure pulls me to know more about it.

I often recall my dreams and at many times I saw a large snake mainly King cobra. The vision was so clear that during waking hours also I would put my feet down from the bed or put my hand to take something out from a dark cabinet and stop, sensing the presence of the snake coiled comfortably with his majestic hood in full display or just relaxed in some corner.

For some years now I have stopped having these dreams but the presence is felt even now at times.

My elder son found during a chat discussion with some analyst that if someone in the family say mother or grandmother saw snakes in dreams it normally passes on. I remembered ma telling me that my maternal grandma used to see snakes if some child was going to be born in the family and saw one before my birth. That I guess explained my dreams.

I have already posted in dream diary about my past life dreams. These are recent dreams and very vivid. Do read those posts to more about them.

It is a very complex and intriguing world of unexplored areas of human mind.

I try to enhance my psychic powers which I do believe I have. Some what dormant but still there. there have been instances where I have been able to see or feel something , connect with someone on some level. I am still finding answers to all this. Don’t know if I should look for answers, gain knowledge and work on it or just let it flow as it is.

Working with spells and spirits is not I what I want to do now but my ever enthusiastic boys are not giving up. let us see what they find in their new found quest.

The past life analysis is another thing I always wanted to do. The soul leaves one body and finds another and thus the journey continues. I believe in past live and reincarnation theory. I feel that our past karmas play a great role in our present life. I searched for material on this and found a site which tells about your past live.

thebigview.com

I read what people had to say about the reading and went on to check in some other sites too. My feeling is that this reading was very close to what I have gathered about my past live from various sources.

here is what it said

Your past life diagnosis:

I don’t know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Yukon around the year 1875. Your profession was that of a map maker, astrologer, astronomer.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:

Timid, constrained, quiet person. You had creative talents, which waited until this life to be liberated. Sometimes your environment considered you strange.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:

It always seemed to you that your perceptions of the world are somewhat different. Your lesson is to trust your intuition as your best guide in your present life.

Do you remember now?

I am looking for a session on past life analysis and would love to know more on it.