I am in a large house. A couple and a small but efficient robot are trying to kill me. At one point, we are all in the same small room, they get distracted, and I am able to escape. In the next scene, the robot is using a saw to cut everything apart to find where I am hiding.
I am seeing the dream as a movie, from a camera point of view. I am the guy they are trying to kill, and also see it from a more detached perspective.
This dream brings up a lot.
DAILY LIFE
This kind of restless dream may come up because I (make myself) feel a lot of pressure in waking life. I have had several nightmares lately, likely for that reason.
There is a lot to do here at our land in the Andes, and a lot that’s urgent and require our presence. (Solar energy system, water filtration system, location of a garage to allow for a future road, 1/3 of the roof of our small house collapsed and almost killed us in our sleep and a lot needs to be taken care of, and so on.) I didn’t want to have to deal with this now, but others are involved in the project and have a different timeline than me, these projects have to be taken care of now and we have to be here to plan and oversee it, and the roof collapsed.
At the same time, my family in Norway want to sell the house and don’t seem to have much understanding for my situation here. They want me to come back immediately to finish getting the house ready, or they will throw away my things and the things I am hoping to have from the house. (I was hoping we could have rented out the house to a couple of friend of mine, but they said no. At least, I had hoped they could be more understanding.)
Then there is my health (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) which requires me to rest a lot to be able to function at all. I know from experience that if I am under too much stress and feel forced to do too much, it can lead to a dramatic and lasting worsening of my health and capacity to function.
DAY RESIDUE
Yesterday, I ate chicken in a restaurant. I don’t like eating meat, and it’s felt wrong to eat meat since I was very little, but I do it occasionally. (Flexitarian.) As we had our meal, I viscerally saw and felt myself as the chicken, living that life and being killed so humans could eat me. I can’t help it. It just plays itself out.
This is not exactly day residue, but the dream reminds me of a couple of other things: The same happens when I read stories from Ukraine. I viscerally live the lives of the ones killed. Something similar to this dream happened to someone I follow on YouTube and social media, and the same visceral living of that situation happens when I heard an interview with him or think of it now.
Also, the dream reminds me of the dream I had in my teens. (It strongly felt like it was from my most recent life.) I was a Russian intellectual in the 1850s and 1860s, with a life in Russia and Paris. I got involved in one or more anarchist groups, heard of plans to use violence, and told them that if they planned to go ahead with it, I would go to the authorities and do everything I could to stop them. This led to them killing me with a bullet through the head. (In waking life, I much later realized I have two birthmarks on my head, where the bullet entered and exited in the dream.)
THE WORLD IS MY MIRROR & EVOLUTION
Everything in the dream is me, of course. I am the killers as much as the killed, the hunters as much as the hunted.
The world is my mirror. Everything I see in the world is in me. As I have often written about here: I can take any story about anything or anyone, turn it to myself, and find genuine and specific examples of how it’s true, including in the moment I have the stories (apparently) about someone else.
In terms of evolution, we are, of course, designed to be both hunter and hunted. We are biologically and psychologically primed for both. We have both in us. We are ready to be both, and we already are both.
IDENTIFYING WITH THE VICTIM, AND SOMETHING IS MISSING
At the same time, I notice I tend to identify more with the victim.
The dream is like a movie scene, but I identified with the victim. In Ukraine, I tend to identify more with the victims. With the chicken, I identified more with the chicken than me eating it!
Of course, I know I am both. A little further in the background, I know I am the killer and hunter too, but that’s more uncomfortable so it remains more in the background.
HOW IS IT TO EMBRACE THE HUNTER AND KILLER IN ME?
How is it to embrace the hunter and killer in me?
How is it to more fully embrace that I am the cause of the chicken being killed? That I could be a soldier in a way killing others? That I am the killers in my dream as much as the killed?
That I sometimes hurt others in waking life? That I say things that hurt them. That I do things that hurt them. That they sometimes are hurt far more than I imagine or realize.
That I hurt and kill beings all the time, just by being alive and living my life?
HOW MY PSYCHE HUNTS AND WANTS TO KILL PARTS OF ITSELF AND EXPERIENCE
The dynamics in the dream also reflect how the different parts of me relate to each other.
Some parts of me hunt and want to kill other parts of my experience.
Some parts of me are willing to do whatever it takes to remove what seems undesirable – discomfort, anger, the killer, the hunter, the Trump in me, and so on.
The dream suggests that these are both “masculine” and “feminine” parts of me, as well as thoughts (robot) doing this. In other words, all kinds of parts of me.
TONGLEN
Tonglen has been an important thread in my life since my teens, and the recent US election is an invitation for me to bring it even more into my life.
It’s a visceral way to find in myself what I see in others.
HAPPENING WITHIN AND AS WHAT I AM
At my human level, the word is my mirror. Whatever story I have about someone or something in the world, also points to something in me.
In a more fundamental sense, it’s all me. The consciousness I am forms itself into the experience of all of it. To me, the nature of it all is what I am.
That’s noticed and recognized, and I also notice that my human psyche – which is part of the content of experience and what my nature forms itself into – says that some things are more me than other things. I am more the victim than the perpetrator, more the hunted than the hunter, more the killed than the killer, and so on. That’s good to notice. That’s a hangup of my human self, which is understandable and natural, and also not what’s most true. What’s more true is that I – at all levels – am all of it.
NOT NEW
None of this is new. It’s what I have been exploring since my mid-teens, and there are no hard borders here. I am aware that I am all of it, and yet parts of me tell me I am a little more some things than other things. The dream invites me to take a look at what’s left.
This is deeply ingrained in most of us. Our culture tells us some parts of us are good and desirable, and other parts of us are not. This is a characteristic of a culture that’s more on the domination side of the domination-partnership spectrum. It’s a characteristic of most agricultural cultures, and it has been and still is a big part of Western culture in general. They split instead of focusing on the whole and see the parts as dynamics within the whole.
WHY EXPLORE THIS?
Why do I explore this?
It’s mainly because it just makes sense. It’s more comfortable than the alternatives. It’s more closely aligned with reality.
Also, if I don’t embrace these parts of me, they will still be here and come out in ways I am not happy about.
When I embrace them and get to know them here, I can relate to and make use of them more intentionally and consciously. They become an ally rather than an (imagined) enemy.
WHAT TO BRING INTO DAILY LIFE
I like to find one simple focus to bring with me into daily life, from dreams and inquiry and any exploration.
From this dream, I think it it’s this:
Notice how I am the perpetrator, the one who hurts, hunts, and kills.
When I see it in the world, find it in myself.
When I act or speak, notice whether and how I hurt others in small and big ways.
Notice when parts of me wants to dismiss, hunt, kill other parts of my experience.