On a Clear Day You Can See Downtown Cleveland: Abstract Translation in Dreams.

I've had a couple of dreams about someone in the past who was what would now be called a "Third-World dictator". I've always been intrigued by such personalities, and I would find it fascinating to have the memories & experiences of such a lifetime, and use them to gain a deeper understanding of history and the creation of mass events. So I'm choosing to align with the belief that I either already have such a past-life focus, and/or am in the process of adding one via mergence. Since time is nonlinear, I'm not especially worried about which.

So, as I went to sleep, I meditated on the word "dictator" (perhaps not what most New Agers would consider the most enlightened of mantras). The aim was to generate the energy of a general concept without filling in the blanks, but leaving the specific details up to the unconscious. One is more likely to gain an authentic past life through this method; if you specify details prematurely, there is a greater chance of "confabulating": creating thoughtforms which, although real on their own level, do not correspond to physical events. I have nothing against thoughtforms, but I want to manifest a lifetime that shows up in the history books.

I didn't dream specifically about the dictator that night, but I did have one dream which was powerful & significant:

I looked toward the direction of downtown Cleveland (which, in the physical world, cannot be seen from my house), and saw the buildings in the city's center as clearly as if I were right on the highway approaching it. I realized I was witnessing a rare meterological phenomenon: if the sunlight was bright enough, and the weather conditions right, it was possible to see things at great distances, as if the scene was magnified & projected. The city was so bright & intense, I could see the individual windows. I was filled with a sense of awe & wonder. I pointed at the city and tried to get my relatives to look at it, but they weren't interested.



Now, my interpretations:

For me, a large city is a symbol of collective reality. It is a visible, tangible expression of mass consciousness materialized in physical space. Skyscrapers are a symbol to me of mankind's highest ideals & achievements. I recall seeing the two tallest buildings in the city, the Terminal Tower & the Key Tower. To me, these two towers represent the concepts of competition & duality, and the roles these factors have played in humanity's advancement.

Seeing something clearly at a great distance represents perceiving/constructing reality via the inner senses, which are nonlocal and unaffected by physical time & space. Therefore, this dream experience involved connecting to collective reality via the inner senses.

The enhanced visibility was said to be due to exceptional brightness of the sun. Sunlight represents consciousness and awareness -- so this symbol was saying that it was really my own heightened state of consciousness that allowed me to use my inner senses in this way. In the dream, however, it seemed to be dependent on external conditions, indicating that I am still largely dissociated from this aspect of consciousness. I have not yet learned to say "I" to it enough to include it within my conscious doing-and-choosing.

As I thought about this, I realized that I had actually manifested a dream about my chosen topic, only at a higher level of abstraction. By meditating on the concept of "dictator", I was asking my subjective to connect with the lifetime of someone who played a public role in history. My subjective answered the request, only it went up one node higher in the file directory. "Oh, you want the part of consciousness that interacts directly with collective realities? Okay, here's the folder. Let me open it and pull out a file."

Commentators on dreams & other unconscious phenomena have often remarked that the subjective sometimes seems strangely literal, and sometimes weirdly metaphorical. I think the reason for this is that the distinction between "literal" & "metaphorical" belongs to the conscious mind, & not to the subjective itself. The abstract level is not necessarily less real than the concrete but is, in a sense, even more so, more pure & potent, closer to the source, like a stream that is just beginning to wind its way down a mountain.

I am beginning to move in the direction of what I want to manifest. Becoming able to recognize successful manifestations, whatever form they take, is one of the exciting steps on this journey.