Dream - The figure in the tree

Back in July of 2007, probably around the middle of the month, I had a long dream with a lot of things happening in it. Earlier in the dream, I tried to help my younger brother a couple of times in a minor way, but he coldly rejected it. One time I remember he had been eating a sandwich and had gotten a lot of crumbs on his arm and I tried to brush them off with a paper, but he looked at me coldly and said I was just making it worse. The dream also had a lot of separate incidents with what were apparently pirates and odd raft-like ships made out of big metal tubes and tall masts and triangular supports that were also made out of metal.

At one point I was looking in a big hollow tree that leaned or curved slightly to one side, trying to show someone the light that was visible in the sky past the dark leafless branches of another, thin tree that was inside the hollow trunk of the big tree. The light was strange and pale, roughly circular, with a border around it like twisted or woven purple cloud, with a dark but not black nighttime sky as the background. It shown down inside the hollow tree and made a round bright area on some dark water, a lake or maybe a river, that was perhaps 10 or 15 feet underground. This time, though, I was having trouble finding the light. I just saw a broad washed-out pale area with the skinny branches of the small tree in silhouette.

I was leaning into the hollow trunk and peering upward, looking closer and moving my head back and forth, trying to find the light past the branches when I became aware that a small figure, perhaps three or four feet tall, was sitting in the tree and apparently blocking my view of the light. I moved my head closer at it, feeling somehow that I should be able to somehow see through its eyes and out the back of its head, as though there wasn't anything back there. Its face was round and broad, almost slightly square, and its mouth was stretched in a wide toothy grin. Its eyes were relatively small and very round, and were entirely black with a slight cloudiness, and looked somehow soft like round dark grapes.

As I came close to the head, looking at it and the eyes, I suddenly realized that it wasn't really alive, not as we think of life, that it had an emptiness about it, but that it was somehow nevertheless animated, though by something that wasn't actually living precisely in it but behind and somewhat above it. It gave a short laugh and said that I would never be able to look through its eyes that way.

I was fairly close to it now, and there was suddenly a feeling of great danger and of tremendous power held in check, power that could be released at any time and to any degree necessary, and that it was only letting me do as much as it pleased it to let me do, and that I should not tempt it too much.

I had a brief vision, then, of what could happen. I saw its body silently crackling with white energy going out all around it like electricity, and its arms becoming much longer and reaching out for me, with long hands and long fingers ending in pointed nails. Its face seemed more angular, but still with the wide, toothy grin and small wide open black eyes. Its face got closer to me and also seemed to somehow project inside my head, and I felt tremendous terror wrap around my brain like a fog, not the kind of terror where you run, but the kind of terror that brings you to you knees, hovering between consciousness and unconsciousness. I felt my awareness and my brain cringing, shrinking in on itself, feeling like something caught in mid-spasm, shrinking to a point and then starting to fade out, leaving only the face and the eyes and the terror.

And then I was moving my face back, somewhat nervously, and trying to look around the figure to each side, trying to find the light in the sky. I finally reached up and lifted the figure, the little man, down from the tree, but I still couldn't find the light, just a broad diffused light through the dark branches, and light that shown down softly on the dark water below. I finally left the tree and the dream proceeded to other things.


That Sunday, after the dream, I happened to watch the last half of Waterworld on the TV, a movie I had never seen. In it, the main character had a boat made of metal or metal-like pontoons and with tall metal masts and supports. Near the end, he rescued a little girl by blowing up an oil tanker run by pirate-like people. He did this by dropping a lighted flare through a wide metal pipe that led to a lake of dark oil far below. The light fell onto the oil, which then erupted into pale streamers of fire and exploded. Fire boiled through all the openings of the ship, and blew open new openings. People were running everywhere in mindless terror.

The movie had in common with the dream the metal boats, the light on a dark liquid far below, bright streamers that were electricity in the dream and an explosion in the movie, and terror.

Fears

What am I afraid of?

When I was young, there was a time when I was very afraid of the dark. Sometimes I could even seem to see things in it. The closet was a worry, too, in the dark, at least when it was left open.

Oddly enough, I don't seem to recall being afraid of the dark when I was very young. The memories I have of this are from later childhood.

I don't have a fear of clowns, though I know they can be somewhat disturbing at times. I recently wrote about a problem that developed with a Clarabell Clown doll that I had (Clarabell was a character on the Howdy Doody TV show).

I don't have a fear of cloth in my mouth. Indeed, I seem to remember chewing my shirt and chewing the sheet on my bed. They both tasted pretty good.

I used to be afraid of bugs, spiders and praying mantises in particular. I'm still wary of some spiders, but this is only common sense. I don't like bugs touching me, though. Or me touching them.

I used to be afraid of change. I wanted things to always be the same. Some of that is still with me.

I used to be afraid of meeting new people and doing new things. This faded fairly quickly, of necessity, but an aversion remains. In other words, I am more reluctant than afraid, though something of the fear still exists. I can be difficult to know on a personal basis.

I have gone through times when I did a lot of checking locks and things. To some extent it seems to go in cycles, perhaps influenced to some extent by events.

I used to be afraid of heights. It was a fear of falling, of somehow being almost pulled off the edge by the distance. It called out to me in some way, and reached out for me. I had to resist that call, and was afraid to go too close to the edge, or of being in a position where there was an edge.

Somewhere in childhood I developed a fear of failing, of somehow, and maybe in spite of all appearances, not being good enough. Some of that remains, though it is somewhat muted now with time and experience. Still, there is a concern that I could have made or could make a difference. Depending on what I do or don't do, things could go a different way.

I used to be afraid of the Biblical End-of the-World, and of somehow not being Saved. With time, though, I came to a less-than-traditional view of such things. Though I still consider myself a Christian, I do not subscribe to a fundamentalist viewpoint, and many Christians would, in fact, probably disown me.

I used to be afraid of growing up. I could see the future ahead of me, the years stretching away, and it would never be as good as it was before. I also knew that the best times had, in fact, already passed, as my life before I entered school contained the best times I would ever know.

I developed a tendency to worry about the future to the extent that the present could not be sufficiently enjoyed. I used to look forward to getting out for school for the summer. Then I started worrying earlier and earlier in the summer break about returning to school when it was over. Eventually, I started worrying about returning to school before the break even started.


Time changes things. I am over 50 years old, and some of the worries are more distant, now. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore. Too much has happened over the years. The dark can contain dangers, but it seems less important in the face of what has already happened. Changes and new things can also hold dangers, but I am less afraid of them, though I do retain, at times, a suspicion of them and even an aversion to them.

But things are not as bad as they were, or as they could be.