not many dreams – some reality

For a long time I tried so hard to give up the ’self’ – the mind-created fictional definition that my ego has created and continues to polish, refine, and propagate. I think I shared P’s fear that loss of ’self’ would include loss of edge – of joy of living, of a sense of humor, the enjoyment of an occasional humorous, cynical or sardonic moment. I don’t think that’s how it is anymore. I think the trying, striving, wishing and reaching are antithetical to truly letting go of all this stuff, even if what you’re reaching for is ‘enlightenment’ or ‘presence’. Newsflash – you don’t reach for presence, you just do it. It’s all there is – right now. It’s like asking a tree or a robin what their plans are for next Monday afternoon.

dream of trip through snowy south and meeting at restaurant/lounge

I was on a long car trip with someone as we made our way toward an unspecified location. We drove through small southern towns, but it was snowing and messy and everyone seemed aggravated. We finally made it to a large restaurant with common seating where I and a group of people I was meeting were introduced to the rest of the patrons as persons who had finished some sort of quest or challenge to be here. We were supposed to receive something in return but it wasn’t forthcoming.

dream of audio/video montage created in crowded restaurant

I’m standing in a dimly-lit dining room of a crowded restaurant. There’s a device in front of me with a large screen that I can use to create animated video and music montages. I start making one on the fly using the faces of people in the restaurant. I finish in a couple of minutes and start playing it back. Very few people are paying attention but they seem to like it. The main character in the montage is a middle-aged woman who looks like a banker. The woman’s also present in the room and I start to feel worried since I made her look haggard and ugly in the video. She doesn’t say anything about it, though – she just keeps sitting at her table.

dream of resort and insult of john scofield

I was at a resort of some kind – a mountain spa or the like. For some reason the people I was with had invited the jazz guitarist John Scofield to accompany us. I walked up to the vehicle they came in, and saw John in the back of the truck. We started talking, and for some reason I said that I thought for the longest time that he was the worst person in the world. His face changed immediately and I started to verbally backtrack as fast as I could because I could see that he was infuriated and insulted. I kept apologizing but he wasn’t having any of it. I offered to shake hands at the conclusion of my stammered apologies, but he just stared at me. Everyone went off to try and enjoy themselves but I was consumed by guilt and remorse about insulting John. Stronger, though, was my horror at being someplace with someone who had such a low opinion of me – though such an opinion was deserved. It was an abject and absurd sense of insecurity. I haven’t felt insecure in my normal life in so long that I didn’t know what to do with the feeling.