A dream about dolphins last night has prompted me to
relay a vivid dream I had years ago, shortly after my arrest in 2005. As far as
dreams go this one was one of those ones that stand out as inspirational and
significant to such a degree that I should have written about it long before
now, but never did for reasons that are beyond my conscious knowledge.
Speaking of conscious knowledge, I should first
observe an interesting common dream interpretation that I was not aware of when
I had this dream, but has a clear and distinct influence on its possible
meaning. It seems that while many dream symbols and circumstances are best
interpreted by the dream themselves, since they often depend on an individual’s
own personal life experiences, some symbolisms appear largely universal and can
be commonly understood. One of those is bodies of water, which are said to
represent mind and consciousness. A dream about being underwater is typically
interpreted as relating to the unconscious realms of mind. Likewise, dreams
about being on the surface of a body of water (either swimming, or in a boat;
or even in some cases, walking on water) are usually taken to symbolize some
conscious aspect of our mental experience.
That being said, and considered for whatever it may be
worth, I will now relay my dream without further interpretation.
The first thing I remember from this dream is swimming
like a dolphin in a crystal clear bay. It was not a very large bay, only about
20 meters deep, but wide enough to accommodate a medium-sized cruise ship that I
could plainly see from beneath the surface as if it were simply floating on a
shimmering thin layer of mist (the surface) up in the sky.
The ship was docked off to one side of the bay, which
left me plenty of room to romp estatically like a child just released from some
unpleasant confines. I did not realize at first that I was a dolphin, but as my
body sliced through the water with such ease and I was able to move with enough
speed to jump up through the surface barrier into the air meters at a time, I soon
realized that a dolphin I was.
And I wasn’t alone. Several other dolphins similarly
frolicked in the bay, which was so clear that I could see all my companions as
easily as if through ordinary air, though most were far away.
Then one, a female dolphin, began swimming with me. Not
alongside, but in an intertwining dance-like manner that made her presence a
great pleasure and very intimate. We “danced” like this for several moments,
even leaping from the water together as if of one mind. And then an incredible
thing happened. We leaped together, as if we both knew and understood what must
happen next, straight up out of the water (instead of a normal arching jump) with
our bodies intertwined in a kind of dolphin embrace; and then suddenly, as we
now flew magically through the air, we became a man and woman (human) locked in
such a powerfully intimate and loving embrace as we kissed that life itself
seemed trivial, and nothing mattered but our dance, and our love.
The whole experience was very trance-like, but as we
floated magically above the water the trance for me broke as I suddenly became
lucid and fully aware that this was all just a dream (note the symbolism of my
becoming lucid after becoming suspended above the water’s surface). I continued
to embrace my lover-companion, but looked around me in wonderment at the
incredibly beautiful and clearly magical dream world in which I found myself. Everything
was so clear, and the colors so crisp and sparkly. I saw the cruise ship, which
seemed a happy thing, and there were structures on the nearby shore that looked
like great pillars of some religious temple (definitely not Christian). Everything
was so amazing and beautiful that it made me cry, literally, in my dream.
The woman I was with saw my consternation and tears,
and asked, “What’s wrong?” with great concern in her voice.
And I told her, “This is a dream. In reality I am in a
jail cell, for raping and killing children.”
She looked at me with confused dismay, as if what I had
just said either made no sense, or simply did not matter. I felt strongly as
though I had disappointed her, not because of what I said, but because I had
broken the magical spell of our love for such nonsense.
I realized I did not even know her, or even if she was
real. So I asked her, “What is your name?” She told me, “Brenda.” (Brenda was
the name of the mother I murdered in order to kidnap the children, which was
the reason I was in jail. But, I did not make this association in the dream,
nor do I think now that it was the same Brenda.) Then I asked, “Where are you
from, in reality?” (I wanted to know if she was a real person also having a
dream along with me.)
Instead of answering my question she responded by
asking me three questions of her own. I remember that the questions where short
and easy to answer with simple facts; something like, “How many moons does
earth have?” But, even shortly after I woke up (back in jail-reality) I could
not recall her questions, or my answers. I could only recall that she asked
three questions that I was able to easily answer, as though the questions and
answers themselves had been deliberately blocked from my memory – while every
other detail of the dream remained intact.
After I answered her questions she answered mine. “I
am from your future,” she said.
What happened next is no longer so clear in my memory
as the rest, but I asked her to help me figure out what my purpose was, and
what the dream itself meant (or something like that), and she then lead me
ashore, and to a desk, where a man sat working, and told me to ask him. Then she
left, seemingly glad to be rid of me.
I asked the man the same question, and he gave me a
piece of paper with some writing on it. He told me that it was a message from
myself. But when I tried to read it I unwillingly woke up. I desperately wanted
to go back to sleep so I could read the message, but I couldn’t. That was the
end of the dream.
And just last night, I dreamed of swimming with
dolphins again, though under quite different circumstances. In this more recent
dream I remained human, and I never became lucid, but the primary symbolism was
the same, even if the “message” was somewhat different.
I was walking with an associate in a suburban area and
he suggested that I go over to a house that was built into a large hole in the
ground so that it could not be seen from the surface until you actually walked
up to it. He pointed it out, but all I could see was the crater, not the house.
So, we walked over, and as we approached I could see
that the house was actually built into the walls of the hole, so that the hole
itself remained open in the middle. And then, when I got to the edge of the
hole and looked down more closely, I saw that the bottom of the hole was a
pool, deep enough and big enough to contain several dolphins, who were swimming
about.
I’m not sure why, but I felt I needed to jump into the
pool and swim with the dolphins, though my associate (who remained anonymous throughout
this dream) warned me not to do it. It was “too dangerous”, he said.
But, of course, I jumped in anyway; or rather, I dove
in head first (always my preferred method for entering a pool in real life)
even though the surface of the water was a good two meters below the edge of
the hole.
I broke the surface and continued straight down to the
bottom of the pool where I saw a group of dolphins. All but one of the dolphins
swam away as I approached, and he swam over top of me as I swam to the bottom. I
knew that most people would panic in a situation like that, as the dolphin
seemed to be cutting off my regress to the surface and only source of air. But I
knew he was only being curious and friendly. I also knew he was highly
intelligent, perhaps even more intelligent than me (as were the other dolphins
who had just swam away).
I wanted to communicate with him, but understood that I
could not, even though we both clearly realized the other was of comparable
intelligence. I rolled over with my back to the bottom and reach up to touch
the dolphin above me with both hands. I put my hands on both sides of his head,
which had now become a cross between a dolphin and a human face, very “alien” looking,
with large round all black eyes staring out from a gray human-shaped face with
a lipless mouth and breath holes where the nose should be.
I gently held the dolphin/alien by the head with both
hands to indicate my desire for his attention, and I said, “Why can’t we
communicate?”
My question was rhetorical and for my own benefit as I
knew well that the dolphin could not understand me despite his intelligence. I then
woke up in the midst of pondering this same question. I felt as though we
couldn’t communicate only because our world, and hence our frames of reference,
were completely different. We had no common experience upon which to build a
language for communicating to each other.
And those were my dreams. I said that I would not
offer any interpretation here, but I can’t help but wonder if the dolphins in
my dreams are the symbols my own mind uses to represent intelligent beings that
live “beneath the surface of conscious reality”.
[J.D. September 12, 2014]
