During the Equinox, when the temple was in a terrible commotion, I dozed off one evening and dreamt that a priest approached me in the curtained enclosure by the altar. This priest, whom I took to be the Intendant of the Temple, wore a vestment with a blue design, a brocade cowl, and a pair of brocaded shoes. "Engaged in senseless trifling," he said, "you are risking your future salvation." Having delivered this scolding, he disappeared behind the curtain and I woke up.

I told no one about the dream and left the temple without giving it any further thought.

Mother ordered a one-foot mirror to be made for Hase Temple. Since she was unable to take it there herself, she decided to send a priest in her place and gave him the following instructions, "You are to stay in retreat for three days and you must pray for a dream about my daughter's future." While the priest was away, Mother made me observe strict rules of abstinence.

On his return the priest reported to Mother, "I did not know how to face you if I came back from Hase without a dream. So I prayed devoutly before the altar and performed all my observances with the utmost devotion. Then I went to sleep and dreamt that a most beautiful and noble-looking lady appeared from behind the curtain, dressed in splendid robes. Raising the mirror that you had dedicated to the temple, she asked, 'Has a Statement of Dedication been presented with this mirror?'

" 'No, Madam,' I replied. 'I have no such document. I was simply ordered to present the mirror.'

" 'Very strange!' she said. 'There should have been a statement.' Then she pointed to your mirror. 'Look what is reflected here!' she said and began crying bitterly. 'The sight fills one with grief.' In the mirror I saw a figure rolling on the floor in weeping and lamentation. 'Very sad, is it not?' she said. 'But now look at this!'

Then she showed me the other side. There was a dais with fresh green hangings and, from under a curtain of state in the far end of the room, emerged a profusion of sleeves and trains of many-coloured robes; beyond the room one could see the plum blossoms and cherry blossoms in the garden, and the singing warblers were flying from tree to tree. 'This makes one happy, does it not?' said the lady. And that was the end of my dream."

Though the dream concerned my own future, I paid no attention to it at the time. So indifferent was I to such matters that when I was repeatedly told to pray to the Heavenly Goddess Amaterasu I wondered where this deity might be and whether She was in fact a Goddess or a Buddha. It was some time before I was interested enough to ask who She actually was.

"She is a Goddess," I was told, "and She is enshrined in Ise. It is She who is worshipped by the Provincial Chieftain of Kii, and She is also enshrined as the Guardian Deity of the Sacred Mirror Room."

Since I could hardly go all the way to Ise to pray to the Heavenly Goddess and since I had no access to the Sacred Mirror Room, it occurred to me that at least I could offer my prayers to the light in heaven.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Sarashina's dream is just one of many she had prompting her toward a religious life, not one at court, where she was never happy. So her mom has reason to worry.

What I find odd here is how Heian Japan treats dreams as entirely external, sent by the gods, to the point where one can simply send a stand-in to the temple (well, a sleep-in, I guess) to dream for you! I often criticize the extremist model of dreams taken for granted in the West from the Enlightenment on--that dreams are always and totally personal and internal. That's an unproven assumption, one every other society rejects. But these folk go to the other extreme. It's all external.

And yet... it works. The priest gets the same message Lady Sarashina repeatedly did. The goddess wants Sarashina dedicated to her, to the religious life. Not that Sarashina acted on such dreams. She hovered in and out of court, though she'd have been happier in a religious community. In old age, she regretted it; after her husband's death, her last years were lonely. On the other hand, that solitude gave her the time to write up her journal--one of the oldest dream-journals surviving.

Source: As I Crossed the Bridge of Dreams by 'Lady Sarashina', 1971, p78-80 (translation by Ivan Morris of Sarashina Nikki by Takasue no Musume, c.1060)

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