I'm looking at sketch maps of Salt Lake City and a suburb called "Upper Temple," up a winding river--the Jordan? And one other town, Ogden I think--not too far. My drawing includes blue-green ink wash for woods as well as a deeper blue for water. It's not just a map, but a CRITIQUE of the city's planning and architecture. I've circled trouble spots and healthy areas. People here are taking my proposed reforms very seriously, even though I'm an amateur. The holy city of the Mormons can be changed...

Now I'm soaring above the plateau country of central Utah. I'm following a highway at about the speed limit, but a hundred feet above the road. A spectacular swift view unrolls. Brilliant colors, not just the breaks and canyons, but the trees: autumn. The aspens look like explosions, bursts of fire. Mountains and farms and forests... I soar on, with no effort, on and on... I'm astonished the fertile strip up the center of the state is so BIG... I knew it from maps, but it's another thing to see it. Overwhelming.

And the color balance keeps shifting as if I'm on psychedelics... the whole scene slides bluish, greens become vivid, reds purplish, then it all warms up and brightens, greens yellow and rocks flame... The sun is popping in and out of clouds but that's not the cause of this. Whatever it is, it's so powerful my MOOD swings from somber to happy and back...

Slowly I start to pay attention to the oddness of my hawk-flight. Why am I going BACKWARD? The bright land pours up from under my feet away from me, stretching north hundreds of miles.

I wonder if I've passed Cedar Breaks yet. Getting far south... I slow at last... and stop. I'm over the edge of a plateau, looking down into hot-colored hoodoo and cliff country. The plateau is so green in contrast. Fields up here, but right at the edge... brush. And something weird hidden in the bushes... Like a giant Mohawk hairdo in fleshy red-brown-green... no, a vegetable. A giant redleaf lettuce! Curly, fleshy growth of a young plant, but huge.

I know instantly it's a political statement, aimed to shock and galvanize the man-was-put-here-to-use-nature Mormons. This man is an eco-warrior. He plans to defeat the powers that be. And he may do it. He's found his life's work. As a Lettucehead.

IN THE MORNING

I had no idea what this dream was about, with its desert freedom-fighter against land-rapers and Mormons and imperialists.

At breakfast, my housemate Lily told me that Alan Rasmussen, who runs the Hospitality Exchange (we're members) had just called to say he was flying in from Phoenix tomorrow! Alan was raised Mormon, rebelled, and is now a counterculture type. I knew immediately the warrior had been him. Why he had red lettuce on his head, though...

A YEAR LATER

Lily tells me Alan's casting about for a new job like expanding the Hospitality Exchange and making it his mainstay. Bored with his dayjob, respiratory therapy--his co-workers are a conservative bunch! He went in drag to their Halloween party, his ex-girlfriend helped him do a really great job, and they were all very UPSET...

I recalled the dream and told it to her. She started laughing when I got to the part about the red lettuce hairdo: "Alan just bought a wig!" I wonder what color... Communist red no doubt.

I suppose this dream won't convince you ESP skeptics. What it predicts is more character than events, and it's all cast in image and metaphor. But then, dream insights are. Why should we expect ESP to be the exception, to convey its info literally?

Also... I'm collecting dreams that seem to know they're picking up unusual information. That weird overflight of all central Utah (where I haven't been for 20 years), the psychedelic lightshow, and my aerial perspective revealing what's hidden from everyone else, all hint that the dream is self-aware, aware it's psychic not psychological. Looking out not in.

This isn't a lucid dream (when you-the-ego know you're dreaming), but a subtler thing: self-flagging.

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites