the art of dreaming/ dead brother/ global warming/ bus ride phone call

recently a friend let me borrow The Art of Dreaming by Carlos Castaneda which I've been reading a lot of these past couple days and have been trying to refocus some of my energy, as Castaneda suggests, into being able to remember my dreams. I won't get too in depth here because some of what he says is too mind blowing to be read on a blog and not talked about in person, but he writes that every person has a luminous point behind their shoulder blades called an assemblage point and it is from this point that we perceive our universe because it rests on certain filaments of energy--the whole universe is made up of energy. anywho, the other night while falling asleep after reading this book, I was trying in my mind's eye to see my assemblage point, glowing behind my shoulder blades, and I woke up the next morning and remembered at least three of my dreams which is unusual for me. they were all fairly bizarre.

first dream. I'm at home, with my mom, and my younger brother has died (I have no younger sibling in real life). it is the day of the funeral, and we are all dressed in black, milling sadly about the house, trying to keep busy. neighbors keep calling and dropping by to send their condolences. my mom is a mess, understandably, because my brother was a little kid who never got a chance. at one point I am uncontrollably weeping, feeling such a great sense of loss. this wakes me up but I roll over and fall back asleep.

second dream. my dad and I are going to an amusement park in oregon! I'm excited and surprised because I didn't think they had any amusement parks in oregon. we get there and are walking around, and the sky is this purplish grey color and is filled with a cartoon rainbow with cartoon clouds around it. the sky is being drained of color, sort of like in the rainbow brite movie, and somehow I know it's because of global warming, and I think it's really sad. my dad has a pen that you click on top to get the ball point to come down, and he is clicking it in and out. somehow in my dream I equate this with how aerosol hairspray was damaging to the ozone, and tell my dad to stop clicking the pen because he's clearly being reckless and causing global warming to get worse. (this is interesting to me because my dad is pretty bad about anything environmental in real life--recycling, conserving electricity/water/gas, etc.) there are two little kids around us, playing, who are both little kids and ponies, and I understand that they are magical creatures, sort of like forest nymphs. that's all I remember.

third dream. my friend arne and I are waiting for the bus. he has exact change, and I become conscious in my dream of real life and how I don't have exact change, and the bus is almost here and I don't have my bus pass out and I get nervous that I'll hold everybody up by not being ready. arne and I get on the bus, and the driver lets me on regardless of my lack of fare. the weird thing is, the driver is not at the front of the bus, but is driving from the left side, looking straight out of the window but somehow driving the bus forward, to her right. arne and I sit down, and I am leaning forward, totally entranced by looking out the window. we are driving up the coast and it looks like california: deep blue, glimmering ocean for miles and I get caught up in my thoughts. music is playing in the background, and arne has a black, cordless phone with him and starts hitting buttons on it and is playing along with the music, putting the phone up to my ear so I can hear. he's really into what he's doing, and I'm listening, but also focusing all of my attention out the window at the sea but sort of humoring him at the same time.

all of my dreams that morning felt really vivid and intense, maybe because I intended them to, but I find that anytime I talk about/think about/exercise the dream part of my brain, I'm able to remember more of my dreams. interesting.