Over the weekend I had a strange nightmare. I dreamed I was with a group of 25 people. The age ranges were probably from 25-50. All sizes and shapes. All different nationalities. We were told we had to get to this particular place or die trying.
At first, we didn't know what we were supposed to do or where we were supposed to go. The landscape we were in was vast and desolate. Everything was grey and overcast. Dead barren trees. No plant life and the ruins of old buildings and rusted out cars. Trash here and there. No animals and no other people or so we thought.
Along the way, we met a very pretty girl named April. She was about 11 years old and wearing the only color in the place (everyone else in my dream were wearing black, grey or black and white). She was dressed in a forest green plaid pleated skirt, forest green blazer, white button down shirt, little green and red tie, knee high socks and black shoes. She also had on a large forest green wrap. She was Japanese and had long perfectly straight hair with bangs.
She looked a bit like me at 11 except more Japanesy. I'm half Japanese. In fact, she reminded me a little of Go-Go in the movie "Kill Bill, Part 1." She was hiding in one of the buildings crying and we convinced her to come with us to wherever we were going. Soon after she joined us, people started dying. Most were bizarre, gory seemingly freak accidents, and then she disappeared. We realized we had to find her and set off through the landscape and broken down buildings.
One by one more people died. Awful violent freaky deaths. It was like being in a horror movie. In the end, the last three of us were running from something and we saw April in the distance. She was smiling and leaning up against a rusted out car wearing her forest green wrap. The two other people with me, both men, were very glad to see her and ran straight for her. I stopped and realized that April was evil and the one causing all the deaths. I shouted at them to stop, but they kept going. As they approached her, both men were killed (I can't remember how, but it was bloody and terrible). I ran away from her and she started laughing. As I ran, I saw an ancient white VW van pull up. The man driving was blond and pale and he shouted at me to get into the van. I jumped in and we drove away. I looked back at April and she was still laughing, and then I saw the souls of the others who had died all standing behind her. They were crying and wailing.
The blond man stopped the van and told me I had managed to survive the ordeal. He said I had two choices: I could leave now and go home or I could take the sword. He handed me the sword so I could look at it. It was heavy and shiny and glowing with a divine light. Then he leaned back in the seat and waited, smiling.
I realized the blond man was an angel (a surfer angel at that!) and the sword was blessed somehow. Without him telling me I knew that if I took the sword, I would be on a path where I would have to fulfill my destiny. In this case that meant doing battle with April, evil incarnate and a collector of souls. If I won the battle, I would be able to free the souls of the people she had collected including the people I started out with. I stared at the sword in my hands for a long time, then I looked at him and nodded. He smiled and I got out the car holding the sword. I slammed the car door and started to make my way towards April. Then I woke up.
An odd dream. I haven't had one this disturbing in a long time.
In my personal mythology (everyone has their own), there are three stages: the stage where you barely survive, the stage where you receive your weapon (in this case, the sword) and go fight for your life and, oftentimes, to save the world and, lastly, the stage where you lose your weapon all together and there's nothing to protect you. The only thing you can do at that stage is let go and let things happen as they will even if it means being torn to pieces. Sometimes you can save yourself, sometimes you get help and some times there's nothing between you and whatever you're facing. Sometimes you live and sometimes you die. Sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself, and sometimes you do so and realize that sacrificing isn't enough so you have to come up with another way.
I describe this as my personal mythology because I've written stories along these same lines. I've even started a novel based on this mythology. There's even a sword involved.
I don't know what it means, but you can bet that this dream is trying to tell me something. Since I remember it so vividly there's some treasure here to be unearthed. I just don't know what that might be.
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