From the journal, September 26, 2004
I am told of an apartment in a large brownstone that I may rent. I don't want to because I think it is too expensive. I am told that I should give it a look anyway. Whoever is telling me this is insistent enough that I feel like I should take a look, so I go ahead.
The place itself has an odd feature: it is large, as I was told, but there are passages in the middle of the house that allow you to get to other parts of the house that are inaccessible any other way. They are different from traditional secret passages in at least two respects: They aren't secret (though they aren't advertised either,) and they don't allow passage from one discrete physical location to another. They are more like portals than passages because although either end of these tunnel-like sections do open on different places, they don't seem to be connected physically.
I'm having a hard time describing this. It's a problem becoming more and more common these days. My train dream of 9/2/04, my book dream of 4/29/04, all of my heaven dreams, and many others have this quality but I'm not sure how to express it. Here is the problem: There are two distinctly separate but connected places in all these dreams. The one place is the universe we experience when we are awake (Creation), and the other is a place that is sort of "behind" Creation.
It isn't behind our universe in the way one box may be placed behind another. It is behind in the sense that it is before our universe, a foundation for our universe, and directing all the activities of our universe. The funny thing about it having "been there first" is that I also have the feeling that it is always there. I use the present tense purposefully, because in this place there doesn't seem to be a past or future, just an immutable now.
Our universe feels small compared to this place in the sense that it occupies all of the space our universe occupies and all of the space beyond that and yet at the same time the "space" it occupies is more of a continuous "presence" that is never absent as opposed to what we think of when we hear the word "space."
When I say it is a foundation, it is because it seems to contain all the mechanics that allow our universe to function. In one dream I described it as "back stage" compared to "the stage." Another example could be a YMCA. If our universe is the YMCA pool, then this other place is the rest of the building and all the people who maintain it. It is the builders who made the pool, the infrastructure, the swimming instructors, the electric company that provides power, the water company that provides water, and everything else that makes it possible, even the advertising agency that lets potential customers know of the existence of the pool.
Possibly the most relevant aspect of this other place relative to our interests in this universe is that it is inhabited by God, angels, and spirits who all seem to be cooperating in one way or another to direct, guide, and aid the efforts of incarnate spirits in our universe. They do not limit their activity to interaction with people however, but have dominion over many other things such as the growth of plants, weather patterns, the warding off or encouragement of certain calamities, etc.
Explaining all this is a long divergence from my dream notes, but I think it is about time that I made an effort to describe it. I always feel tongue tied when I try to do it, so I figure I'll do it here and get it over with. I would like to call the other place "heaven," but I'm not sure that is true. Heaven is a part of it, but I have the feeling it is no more than a part of a much greater whole. God inhabits this place, but I almost have the sense that he inhabits it in the same way Jesus once inhabited Earth. In other words, there is yet more beyond this place, perhaps even more than the difference between itself and our waking universe. At the risk of being found out to be drastically wrong, I am going to call it the "Realm of Spirit" for lack of anything better. Until I either discover it is an error or have a better idea for a name, it will be referred to as the Realm of Spirit in my journals. I may even retroactively plop the term into earlier entries if I get the chance.
For anyone who is reading this, please forgive me for taking liberties in the middle of a dream journal entry, but now that I've got one foot in, I've decided to dive all the way. Another term I would like to define is "awake." As I am writing this, I feel awake. But when I sleep, I am sometimes aware that I am sleeping, and feel more "awake" than when I am "awake." So, am I awake when I am typing or when my body sleeps? Here is what I think is going on: I think we are all more or less continually conscious. We are however, alternately bound, and then freed from, our physical bodies on a nightly basis. When bound, our consciousness is forcibly limited to those aspects of its surroundings that may be detected by its five physical sensory organs. When freed from the body when it takes its rest, we enter the realm of Spirit. This place has the effect of removing perceptive limitations. We become more alert, more conscious, more "awake" in the sense that we are more aware. The difficulty arises because when we rejoin our physical bodies (except for those pure spirits who do not have this limitation) it is difficult or impossible to retain a coherent memory of the Realm of Spirit. For that reason, the time spent there becomes a blank spot, confusion, or unconsciousness. I don't know why it is difficult to remember this time, but do not consider it germane. I don't have to know why to know that it happens. My inclination is to describe our "bound state" as being "awake" (because I only type on my word processor in that state) and our "free state" as "asleep." There is a monkey wrench to that however. I have had more than one dream that describes our bound state as "asleep" and vice versa. Because my sense of consciousness, awareness, alertness, and all other qualities normally associated with wakefulness are always stronger in those dreams where I am aware of being in the Realm of Spirit as opposed to our physical universe, I feel obliged to believe it is the more correct definition even though it goes against conventional wisdom. For the purpose of this journal however, I will define it only from my point of view so that the reader is not confused. Let's get back to the dream:
As I was saying, someone advised me to look at a large brownstone that I wasn't much interested in. Because he insisted that it would be good for me to follow his advice, and convinced me that he felt strongly about the issue, I decided to look. When I get there (an instantaneous transit) I discover that the brownstone is much more than it seems. A helper is there who shows me a layout of the house. Overlaid on this layout, he shows me that one may enter certain passages within the building to transit between the house and its counterpart in the Realm of Spirit. Now I didn't understand this when he said it, but figured it out later. He was really telling me that I should go through one of these passages immediately, that was why I had been brought to this place, but I thought he was simply trying to explain the layout of the house. I was confused at this point. Although I acted on the recommendations given to me by these two helpers as if I understood them, I did not. At this point I still thought in my confusion that they were realtors trying to sell me a house. If I had bothered to think about what they were saying and doing, I would have known that was an incorrect interpretation, but I didn't stop to think about it. So while I respond to their every statement as if they are realtors, they ignore my responses and behave as if they are ranchers working on gently but firmly convincing a reluctant cow to cross out of the road before it is hit by a car. At the same time, I, being the cow, follow them without understanding why and perhaps thinking that I've decided to cross on my own to find a better patch of grass to chew. In this case I went through the normally accessible portions of the house first, and was done with them quickly. In fact, I may only have thought of looking at the "normal" portion of the house before electing to follow the helper's advice.
I am told to enter the passage alone. It feels to me quite natural to act on the suggestion and approach this passage as if it is my own idea, but really it is the helper who guided me to do it. As a result, I barely notice any of the features of the brownstone itself apart from the clear fact that it is extremely large and that there seem to be horses on a bridle path just outside the ground floor. The passage itself is not at all what you might expect from a secret passage in a proper Victorian mansion. I did notice some of its characteristics, but did not find them curious enough at the time to pause and reflect. Whereas the brownstone appeared to be a completely normal though inordinately large building, the passage seemed to be simultaneously narrow and vast. It was both endless in length and so short the distance couldn't be measured. It was featureless in that it didn't seem to have any limits. I saw no floor, ceiling, or walls, but felt as if I was being squeezed through a tiny opening. I did have a sensation of time passing between entering and exiting the passage, but it was very brief. How I managed to cross the distance in that tiny instant of time is something I didn't question. It was, like everything else, innocuous.
At the far end of the dimensionless tunnel, I see an opening. On the other end, the interior of the portion of the house that exists in the Realm of Spirit. I am there as soon as I have seen it. As I step into this place, I realize that I am now at the very top of the house. It is beautifully made and well-furnished. The decor is primarily made of contrasting bits of handcrafted dark hardwoods polished to a shine. The building is much vaster than I could have imagined. Rooms extend away from me in every direction except up. The rooms themselves appear as if they may be further broken down into more rooms, as if the larger room they are a part of is a mansion all its own, while all of them reside in the larger structure. A large chandelier hangs down over a central stair [see illus,] providing light to the entire building in every direction. The stairs themselves descend farther than I can see.
One room in particular attracts my attention. It is at the top of the stairs and is the highest room in the building. It isn't overly large for what it appears to be, a study of some kind. There is a heavy, permanent looking desk; books, and neatly organized papers stored here. It belongs to the Writer who owns the house [the Writer from my dream of the Book in April.] In a cupboard I see a number of files [see illus.] Curious, I walk over to it. Inside, this is no ordinary cupboard, nor is there anything pedestrian about the contents. First, all the files within reach appeared to be about me. I see (for instance) a packet of photos [see illus.] Each is a photo of me, one per year for all of my school years. There are photos of me as I grow up. They are all labeled "Andy J. Paquette." The "J" in the dream seemed to stand for "James" instead of my actual middle name, "John." Regardless of the slight name difference, all the photos are of me. There are objects that belonged to me when I was young, making me wonder how and why the Author went to the trouble of acquiring them. I didn't check them all, but it actually appeared as if every physical object that ever had any significance in my life is stored here.
The most amazing thing is the hundreds or thousands of papers that document my entire life. Each document is written like a report that may as well be chapters of my life. Each document is labeled with my name (as is everything else) and contains a tremendous quantity of information. The information is not limited to physically observable events, but also convey an intimate knowledge of my emotional state at the time. Even this has layers of depth because bundled up in my emotional state is a description of my motivation, my goals, my fears, and anything else that may have contributed to any aspect of any given situation.
At one point I almost dropped a file. When I did, I saw the other amazing thing about the cupboard. It really is almost as amazing that I didn't notice it straight off, because surely I could have seen this had I bothered to look. What I saw was that the cupboard had an opening into the author's study, it had shelves upon which each document rested, and it had the documents and other items that rested on the shelves. Beyond that, there was endless space. There is no bottom to the cupboard, no sides, no back, and possibly no top (though I didn't look up.) At the moment I saw this, it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't the only person the Author was interested in. In fact, I had the faintest impression that there were many collections of documents like the ones I saw with my name, but that those files are related to other people. I don't know how many, but it seemed to be an awful lot. Strangely enough, unlike everything else I see, there does seem to be a limit to the number of people in the files. It is a large number whatever it is, but it is not infinite. I also have the impression that the Author could call any file up to the cupboard's opening by wishing it. In this case, mine had been called up, but it could just as easily have been anyone else.
In the dream I thought the Author was writing a book about me. I wondered at his surveillance, amazed by it's completeness. I couldn't have done it myself even if it had been my life's work. How this Author managed to do it without my ever knowing of His existence or efforts I couldn't figure out. There is a curious feature to the files on me that goes several steps beyond the curiosities I've already mentioned. Each "chapter heading" seemed to know the hidden purpose behind events in my life, things that even I didn't know but could recognize after reading the chapter heading. As an example, one might read something like this: "Andy J. Paquette loses many things he cannot bear to lose so that he may learn to bear loss and to bear much." Or: "Andy J. Paquette learns the lesson of being a victim so that he may increase his sensitivity to others."
The Writer had somehow made clear in the way these files were written that certain important themes were worth note. The strongest focus, or theme in the files I looked at is my early interest in Science and my arrogance regarding what I considered to be my superior intelligence. The arrogance is not something I was aware of, but the Author certainly is. It does appear to be in the past, or at least it is associated with the files on my earlier years, though I wouldn't be surprised if some quantity of this trait has survived to the present.
No matter how many files I took out to look at, there always seemed to be more, as if the files multiplied by themselves but without taking up any more space than they did to begin with. If a stack had fifty documents and I took the top two, the stack would still have fifty documents.
* In my "Book" dream of 4/29/04, I encounter a Book that contains an overflowing unencompassable quantity of words that both are, and describe, every aspect of creation. The information is complete and specific. As it says in the Bible "all the hairs on your head are numbered." I saw a file flash by that was a complete dossier on myself. In the dream, I snatched it to review later. This dream seems to be a review of that dossier. In both cases I believe the likeliest identity for the "Writer" or "Author" to be God.