While working on this chapter [on Tibetan yogic dreamwork] I experienced a weird hallucination-type dream:

In the dream I am part of an audience. I see men high in a balcony of the huge auditorium throwing small pellets into balloons, which burst and release a drug into the atmosphere. The lights go out. I close my eyes and can feel the effect already. "Oh, yes," I say knowingly.

I float up in the air into the balcony level and, hovering in the air, observe myself in a mirror. I know the image will be distorted because of the drug (I've never experienced drug hallucinations but have read descriptions of them and heard experiences related). Sure enough, my face appears in a series of bizarre forms. In one of the reflections, my face is covered with a network of scars. In another, I appear wild, with long flowing hair, a bikini top, and a native skirt. Waves of passion flow through my lower body as I move and my eyes are wild and staring.

Such views of myself would ordinarily be very disturbing in a dream. In this case I am not afraid, in part because I expect the distorted images. I think how afraid I'd usually be. I say to myself, "Remember, all this comes from your mind! It's a good thing I was prepared by the Yoga stuff." I have moments of almost slipping into the feeling and becoming frightened but manage to stay on top of it. The story continues.

NOTES

Awake, it is easy to see the symbolism--a concern over my aging reflection, the wrinkles-scar network, a view of the sexually wild part of myself. These are truly pictures of my thoughts; they are my "thought-forms." I do not find them frightening when I "recognize" them. In my dream I saw them vividly at the same time as experiencing them (a mirror provides the opportunity to simultaneously see the image and experience being it). Yet, I was able to "recognize" them. Ability to feel fearless in the face of frightening images is indeed a worthwhile skill.

As you recognize your own frightening images as your thought-forms you will free yourself from fear of them.

--Patricia Garfield

SOURCE: Creative Dreaming by Patricia Garfield, 1995 ed. (orig.1974), p.196

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