I meander into an outdoor area where a few have gathered, and I bring forth a specimen that is absolutely intriguing–a gift from the sea, it seems, a fossil of extraordinary fractal complexity, even grotesquery. It is dense and hefty as I hold it in both hands and examine it, turning it in all possible angles trying to analyze and understand it. The object seems to be crusted in sand, or made of sand or sandstone, but there also seems to be a core with some definite form. In one crevice appears some feature that is very distinct, somewhat fin-like, perhaps of bone; unclear; but organic and enticingly smooth. I speak out to call anyone’s attention to this thin bone-like vane to see if there are any ideas on what is going on with it. As I am holding the object, I see that the configuration of the sandy surfaces forming the body of the object are interlocking plates; very slowly, my eyes come to perceive that these interlocking plates are very much like the skin of a rhinoceros (as in the Durer engraving); exquisitely clear, as if I were holding a miniature, exotic rhinoceros creature transported from some bizarre parallel universe long ago. I continue to turn the object over and around, feeling its density and balance of mass. Some others are also watching along with me.

As I turn the object in a particular linear perspective, two beady black eyes become recognizable by me and simultaneously by a couple of others who call out “There’s a face! A face!” And this then becomes completely clear, this face, and the object is now clearly discernible as organic in origin and highly evolved. Just as this awareness dawns, I can feel that the object is not merely stony and rigid, but that–as if it may have been warmed up in my hands–the surface is very slightly pliable. And it becomes more pliable and malleable like warm clay. And just as I am realizing this, with a certain sense of apprehension or even horror, the rigid crust exterior begins to crack and split away and a supernally colorful, highly energetic winged creature emerges, spreads its wings, and springs out of my hands.

Someone makes a move as if to cover the creature with a blanket and capture it. I am distressed about that, but it doesn’t happen.

The dream ends with this total scene as it is. I wake up and feel very deeply profoundly engaged with sublime multidimensional synsymmetries in the total life situation as it is.

I am utterly grief-stricken, weeping inconsolably. There is a moment though, when I wonder whether I am so distraught over my friend Jason’s death because he had proven so helpful and supportive in my work. Generally, there is a feeling of loss: How can those so close to me all be destroyed in this way?

In the next sequence, Jason is no longer dead. But then, he’s left alone with his wife and I learn, after it’s too late, that she is the real culprit, that she has killed him.

There’s a sense of a murder mystery about the dream. Who is actually doing all these terrible things? Events run ahead of my awareness. They take place before I know what’s really going on.

I came upon the above dream of mine in searching for a dream of animals (I’ve had many) that might link up with John Dotson’s dream of 3/11/2010. In John’s dream, he is questioning some personal relationships, after which he is engaged “in some sort of ordeal, an arduous labor” in which he is led by an animal “in accomplishing a task.” Here is what I wrote in 2001, right after recording my own dream:

The black woman leading the wild animals seems archetypal: the Black Goddess, an instinctive force of nature mercilessly destroying my domesticated relationships and supports, and leaving me groundless and grief-stricken in the process.

In my current work, I associate the Black Goddess with the apeiron (the spaceless, timeless chaos of primordial nature). As I approach the end of writing this book [in 2001], I am more and more concerned about its publication and about communicating it to an appreciative audience, or at least one that will understand it. Lately I’ve despaired about this. Then is the point of the dream that apeiron will not allow me to write in such a way that I can maintain conventional relationships that will afford me support? Is this work killing all those relationships and leaving me isolated, cut off, as a result?

Post Script: My wife just came across an image of the Black Goddess carrying a staff, the staff being described by Jungian writer Marion Woodman as symbolizing “the incorporation of the masculine, helping the tantric practitioner to understand that in order to be whole we must embody and appreciate both the masculine and the feminine in ourselves.” The staff is what allows the Goddess to stand on her own without external supports, what imbues her with masculine energy. Is this telling me that the book I am completing must stand on its own, without the external support of conventional relationships?

The situation is that I am preparing to set out on a journey, and/or continue one. Some intricate planning, packing has been involved. A van is ready. Not traveling alone. One complete scene where unexpected companions arise [arrive?]–raising some psychological complexities that I don’t want to deal with; I am terse with one fellow about his behavior, and stunned at my directness suggesting that he not stay in the van and not come along.

At one point in the departure sequence, I find myself with an interlude at the home of my good friend. I am enjoying a rest period. I fall asleep and I begin to dream. The dream sequence is clear and captivating–some sort of ordeal, an arduous labor. In some of the action, I accompany an animal; in fact, I am supporting the animal in accomplishing a task. The animal is leading the way. And then I wake up and immediately want to tell this dream to my friend prior to my departure. As I am making my way to him, where he sits under the awning of a carport at the back of his house, a large animal–like a dog, large as a small horse, but not a dog or a horse–comes up and nuzzles next to my ear. I am amazed because this is a recapitulation of an event that occurred in the dream. Suddenly I am aware that I am living out some of the various patterns and connections that I had just dreamed.

I am pulled onward, however, and must return to a few final responsibilities at work. So I am drawn out of the telling of the dream onward to attend to a final work task.

It is 3:00 a.m.

Now what.

I decide to write.

Hail begins to fall outside my open window.

When a creative sort of fellow appears. Thin and a little tall, sketchy hair, he is dressed in mixed plaids, high-water pants. Just a little bit sullied and shady. He has brought a proposal. Somehow, I am aware of this proposal already. Indeed, it was brought forth before in some earlier incarnation, but was not fulfilled. For some reason or another, I have a decisive position on moving forward, and I absolutely immediately want to do so.

I turn to him and tell him that everything is just great, good idea, good impulses, good promises. All together. And to wrap it all up, I lean forward to tell him, “You’ve gone about this in ex-actly the right way.”

He seems a little quizzical about my comment, and others around us–who know him and me and who’ve been watching the situation–seem to be a little amused. Everyone seems in on something, except me. So, I’m thinking I need to be a little more clear.

“Yes, ex-act-ly the right way. You’ve done this precisely correctly. It’s just perfect that you’ve arrived at this exact moment. I mean, you figured the situation out, you’ve connected with me here, now, exactly as it should be. It’s a wondrous connection.” Or something like that.

Once again, there seems to be some slightly nervous shuffling around on the part of the guy and others in the production area. And then it hits me, maybe I’ve read things a little wrong, and I turn to him:

“Or, did you show up now by accident?”

And it is clear that this is basically the situation: a very thoroughly prepared coincidence. The guy is reticent to be clear, and in fact he rather stumbles over his words. He doesn’t quite want to quell my enthusiasm, but he’s also not wanting to cover up the truth. Which does not bother me, really, though I feel a little diminishing of ego–that all this was not quite so intentionally orchestrated for Me.

The guy continues talking pretty much about the project. Most everyone around seems ready to hit the ground running with this, and it seems I may be the last to be brought in. The guy doesn’t really take up such questions and continues in a bit of a speed rap, speaking with some difficulty, at times with a slight lisp, and I hear him speak the word “Goats.”

“Goats?” I wonder, not at all clear what he is saying.

He continues, blurring and struggling with his expression, “Goa-ts.” He really works at it, “Goa-ts.” And utters slowly “Gho-sts.”

I do not understand this, do not get how this fits in the overall scenario here, which I’ve not been following in detail. But at the moment, the details don’t matter. It’s all ok. The guy is exceptionally creative, the connections are real, the timing is right, there is buzzing energy all around, everywhere.

Suddenly, I look down and realize that I too seem to be dressed in mixed plaids. There are mixed plaid motifs here and there on the walls. Very sophisticated really. Wild.

A young production assistant across the room has been taking all this in as if it were a fine little drama. She nods with bemusement, returning to her screen, as I get back into the swim.

In the present dream, I meet Helen - she is walking home from church.  She is a churchgoer, I am not, but I had attended Midnight mass at her church the night before this dream. I know in the dream that she has recently joined AA after a big change in her life which has to do with the initiation of women, and maybe death or revelation. There is a sense that I speak to her about this before meeting her. She is veiled softly, a pale blue or grey veil draped over her hair and framing her face. She has a necklace showing on her chest. She is pushing a pram, and her little girl and her husband and other children are walking a short distance behind her. She has an aura of stillness.

I speak to her in the first part of the dream about AA - but I cannot remember the words - I comment that it is clever for her to go to this church, which is a long way from the neighbourhood we live in, because it means she gets a long walk home.

The road is South Access Road, which in reality is the site of the municipal rubbish dump in our area.

Things have now turned violent. I am considering violence, or addressing a need for violence–on the order of breaking in somewhere, or breaking out. Seizing something, grasping something I need to complete my task. There are others “with me” but my choices are my own, and what must happen must be radical.  It seems like robbing a bank. And suddenly–without details (flash forward)–I have pulled it off (whatever “it” is, or was). Some crime was committed. It seems there is a bullet hole in the wall. It is not clear if anyone has been hurt or even killed. But what I have done is/was criminal. This was the required act that has changed everything. Everyone looks at me differently, and I am supercharged. On the other hand, I continue rather quietly to move along with the next phase of my creative process.

I have a thought that “Mother” will find out, and I will be in deep trouble. On the other hand, I am vaguely aware that Mother has long been dead. It actually adds energy to feel a lingering vector of her disapproval–it’s an affirmation that something actually has happened. I am back at my work desk, and there are others (again, unclear of my process, my motivations, my crime or possible crime) who are intrigued (et etcetera). I am focused on the aura of the disruption I have now incontestably caused. I go out in search of a thesaurus. Vaguely I am back at Northwestern [University] which carries a sense of beginning, and of contemplation, and adventure. My mind is drawn back to a bullet hole in a wall, that I caused, or discovered. But it’s not clear there even is a bullet hole. It may be another kind of hole. Beneath a clock. There could be blood on the wall (in my memory). There is a situation I have left behind in chaos, and have brought the tincture of the chaos with me. I feel good in my body, feel my primal senses and primary sensations. Invigorating.

I must admit though, that I myself could be doing a lot more to vitalize the website, both by encouraging people to respond and become involved, and by adding new posts of my own. So what’s holding me back?

Even when I was younger, I was never very good at multi-tasking. Lately, I’ve been devoting much time and energy to an electronic book: A work on the subject of death and transformation that I’m writing as a multidimensional text, with personal dreams and images woven into the philosophical discourse via hypertext. In many of my previous books, I’ve sought to counteract academic detachment and abstraction by bringing myself into my text in some personal way. To embody the text, I’ve tried to put my own body where my words are. But, in the past, I haven’t managed to do this in a thoroughgoing, sustained way. One of the problems is that my academic and personal voices reflect different dimensions of my being, and it has been difficult to express these distinct realms in words and images that work together on the same printed pages. What excites me about the potential of an electronic book is that the separate dimensions of myself can be effectively entwined without simply being reduced to the single dimension of the linear writing surface. In my e-book, you will be able to read a philosophical account of identity, death, and transformation on one level, and — at critical junctures in the text — to click on hyperlinks that will take you into relevant underworld dimensions of images, reflections, and dreams.

Still, my involvement with the e-book is not the only reason I have recently devoted relatively little time to the life of this website. In the very first post to Practicing PD (5/28/09), I disclosed a side of myself that looks to avoid the demands that might be made on my time and energy if I were to receive large numbers of emails from people wanting to post their proprioceptions and dreams. Perhaps I am too much the introvert. Perhaps the child in me fears “success” and the responsibilities it would bring. But then there is the adult who — despite his conflicts — is posting these comments because he does emphatically want to encourage as much proprioceptive dialogue as possible. I believe PD plays an indispensable role in embodying cyberspace, and it is a major reason for my setting up this website to begin with. It seems to me that the best way for me to encourage a meaningful response to my call for PD is to practice PD myself, even if this means making explicit the darkly regressive aspect of my personality that wishes to retreat from PD. When you read this post, you might say to yourself: “If Steven is ambivalent about doing PD, why should I bother.” My hope is that you will say instead: “In disclosing his ambivalence about PD, Steven is indeed engaging in PD, and I can do the same.”