The Buddha in the Basement ~ a dream

The Buddha in the Basement ~ a dream

A few weeks ago, I woke with a bad migraine. It was so bad I had to phone in sick, but something came out of a day spent in bed, dosed with migraine medication and tea brought to me by my lovely daughter each time I feebly called out.

The dream begins in a familiar enough way, of trying to escape from a building:

I dream I am trying to move out of something, a building. I have my bicycle with me but I try to ride it through what seems like a cave or similar with rough floors littered with debris, rocks and bricks. At the end of the cave, there is light and I find that there is a hole in the ceiling. I can see there is a room up there, so I manage to lift my bike up to it but climbing up myself is impossible. I’m not strong enough. When I settle back on the level, I find that I am in a house of some sort, brightly painted wooden doors, and at first I feel fear that I am trespassing but there is no one there. The door in front of me is like a cottage interior door, painted blues and has an old fashioned latch, which I lift and go through. The light inside is bluish and at first I think it’s a big wet room, or an inside swimming pool but as I go in I see that the big room is another sort of cave. There’s a kind of pond but when I look closer I see it is a kind of a shrine. That’s when the dream becomes lucid because I think, there is no one here, I am in charge of this and know I am dreaming. The pond has a big beautiful Buddha statue on one side, and a few other features. I see a fountain that is not playing so I raise my hand to make it play and a smoke machine also starts pumping out mist that is scented with incense. I wave my hand again and little lights begin to appear round the pond, again, and soft music starts to play. The shrine seems to come to life. There are fish too in the water and they glitter as they come to the surface. To one side there are other smaller shrines, and I examine those. One is built like a kind of model  camp, with a fire at the middle that lights up as I wave my hand over it. The people light up too, as if coming to life. Another is a tiny ancient looking town, and I wave my hand and see tiny lights appear at windows and doors and minarets. The people seem to be alive again too. I stand back and look at all the shrines. There is an overall feeling of peace and a gentle blue light permeates everything. The Buddha shrine seems to have a number of objects that are a deep royal blue, or midnight blue too, stones and beads and things I cannot identify. Blue lights shine in the water too, and shimmer as the fish pass over them. It’s beautiful.

Given that this dream pre-dates by some days my change in terms of depression lifting, I can only feel that on some level it was prophetic. I am still pondering this one, but if you have an insight you think you would like to share, I’d be happy to hear it. The slow returning of dreams is beginning to change my internal world, and for the better too.

I’m feeling better at present than I have consistently felt for some years. More than the simple bad year, in fact. I feel back on track, having been somehow lured off my chosen path down a dead-end. I can travel on now. It’s a good feeling.