There is a group of aborigines saying, they only have dreams if they want to. They are asking a question in the evening and ask for a dream, and then they have one. Their theory is that we, in our western world life style are only having so many dreams because it is not accepted in our society to dream during the day. And I think that at least this last part is quite true. I really am a dreamer and I dream on every occasion there is (preferably at school and on the bus, or even better somewhere outside in the sun or while listening to calm music), but I have experienced it very often, that if someone saw me, they waved their hand in front of my face to bring me back to reality. How much I hate it, it's nearly as if being woken up by an alarm clock!
There is, by the way, a really great book (in my opinion) about an (american) woman's journey with a group of aborigines lasting three months. It's called "Mutant Message Down Under" by Marlo Morgan, who claims to have experienced this (which I personally believe). From what she says, these humans are extremely spiritual and have many (or all, or more?) abilities, that Isobelle Carmody describes in her Obernewtyn Chronicles. I wonder if she read this book, it would fit so well. These aborigines are communicating by "reading" or "sending" thoughts. They know if a fruit or vegetable is ripe by holding their hand above it, they communicate with the animals they hunt so the oldest one of these who is ready to die offers their life. They can heal serious injuries with their mental powers and songs and they are able to find water by "imagining" to be be water themselves. Besides they can create illusions (like Dragon) like making it look as if they were an enormous group of people to fear off attackers or making themselves invisible.
Still, the book is not only about this. In it, there are also some vital moral questions and discussions, introducing the point of view of this group of aborigines on our way of life, our society and our problems, as well as presenting the way they (used to) live. This book is really nice to make people think and possibly even inspire us to change something about it.
Anyway, let's not drift too far away from the topic of this thread. I am having true dreams as well, not so often, but I think that in every dream, no matter how obvious or incomprehensible it is, there is some kind of hidden message, even if this message only concerns some aspect of ourselves. If we open ourselves to them, they might teach us something and I'm sure that whatever it is, it's probably a lot more important/useful than something that is taught at school. One of my true dreams was me, sliding down some kind of a stake which led down vertically into a hole in the ground on a field. It was like falling down and down, so fast, I couldn't control it anymore. Only at some point deep down in the earth, I felt I really needed to stop if I ever wanted to get back up so I made the effort and started my way back up again. But when I was nearly there I realized, that where the opening of the whole was, there was a fire burning as well. I was really scared and wondered how I should get out again. So I gathered all my courage and climbed out of the hole through the fire. And in the end it didn't hurt me or anything, all was fine.
I have had this dream several times and it was a friend of mine who suggested it's possible meaning years later. It even seems quite obvious once you considered it: sliding down: something's going bad in your life; thinking to stop: realizing that there needs to be a change; stopping: starting to change something; all the way up: working on it and optimizing it; last bit through the fire: last and final hardest part of the work, but one realizes afterwards that it was worth it and wasn't even so bad after all.
Besides these dreams, I am also convinced that I am able to communicate with animals and coerce people. This ability might not be extremely powerful in me, but I am actually using it everyday and it has already worked so often. This started already long before I had read the aborigines' book and Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles. It was autumn and I was outside. It was quite windy, but behind the clouds I could still spot some blue sky. So I tried to make the sun come out and it actually worked for a little while. Another thing was, when we were at a lake with my family and there were swans on it as well as a lot of really beautiful white and big feathers of them. I love these creatures (and many others too) and I so wanted to have one or more feathers. But they were all to far for me to reach and it was cold, so there was no way of swimming to get one. Instead I called out for the winds, stuck my eyes to one feather and waited patiently until the wind brought it to me close enough I could reach out and get it. I actually got several feathers like this and vowed, I would give one to my sister as a sacrifice although I would of course have liked to keep them. There needs to be a balance between taking and giving.
I also have an extraordinary relationship towards my cat. "My" seems to be quite out of place. While my parents and my sister regard the cat as something cute and nice, but rather stupid or unintelligent, I simply think of her as a really, really good friend, equal, and the only creature who loves me always and without reservation, as I think nearly no human is able to, me neither, though I hope this might change. I can most often feel, if she likes to be petted or not or what she feels like at the moment or if she's not comfortable because of something, like noise... She in return also feels, if one of us is stressed and it would be better to go or if someone needs to be comforted. If I'm going away for some time, I most often tell her. This "telling" works really simple and I'm sure, everyone'd be able to do it, as long as they have at least a little bit of empathy. I'd call it "thinking it to" a creature. But I think, it works best with animals, because they are open-minded and not so occupied by thoughts and stress and fears and troubles, as the human mind often is.
I think, that a lot of my attitude and my convictions are related to my overall attitude towards life and my understanding of the sense of life. The one book that started to make me think and then actually changed nearly everything I had been holding onto mentally so far, was the famous book "The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. And I am convinced, that there are no coincidences, this book did not get to me by accident, as didn't the Obernewtyn Chronicles. There simply is a sense behind everything, we just aren't able to understand it all yet. And wouldn't it be boring if we did?
Ok, this is enough for now. It was really nice to write this down to people who might be open-minded enough to understand and respect it. It is the first time I "talked" so openly about it - I know, this is the advantage of Internet, no one has to face the people reading the text, there deosn't need to be any fear of the other's laughter and skepticism.
Thank you for this site and thread!
Fay