Thursday, March 29, 2012

Scholarly Kitten


Consciousness Exploration Journal
3/29/2012

I had woken up to around 2am to let our dog out. As I was falling back to sleep, I set my intent to project. 

I was in the middle of a dream that had been going on for a while. It was nighttime and I was in a large tent with two open sides. Beyond the two covered sides of the tent was a thick, dark forest. Beyond the two open sides of the tent were various large structures that resembled something along the lines of Greek or Roman architecture. I had the thought that the woods would be a challenging place to venture into and that the closed sides of the tent were protecting me from making that choice. I considered venturing into the woods anyway to create a potential learning opportunity, but decided against it. Instead, I walked out toward one of the buildings. As I did, a large elk jumped out of a bush and darted away. Shortly after, as I was recovering from being startled by the elk, an orange cat ran into the scene. He was panicked, crouching low to the ground, and with ears laid back. Then two more orange cats arrived in the same state. Then three black/gray cats arrived. The bizarreness of the the scene caused me to become fully lucid. Immediately I had the sensation of what I would call a pre-OBE state. I became partly aware of my body laying in the bed while still taking in the cat scene. I tried to relax into the state shift. As I did, I began floating into a horizontal position and then slowly down to the ground near the cats. The cats seemed to be watching me. I was a bit nervous (unnecessarily so) that the cats might attack me. I let go of that fear and continued to let the state change lead the way. I began to zoom through thick darkness.  I could hear the air whipping by my ears. It was very exciting. I repeated to myself, “Be fearless. Be fearless. Be fearless.” Suddenly, something banged into my knee. It jolted me from the experience and I found myself back in my bed. My wife was rolling over next me. I’m not sure if I actually bumped into something in the experience or if my wife kicked my knee in bed. Either way, it startled me and ended the journey. 

Later in the night during another dream, I was outside getting something from my truck. It was raining, and I was rushing to get back inside. As I approached the door to my studio, I saw a small gray/black cat soaked with rain. I opened the door and encouraged him to come inside the studio with me. He hesitated, but eventually came it. I picked him up and started drying him off with a towel. As I did, he began biting my finger. I felt slight pain, but knew that it would stop hurting if I ignored it - so I did. Still holding the cat, I walked over to a mirror. I was slightly lucid up to this point, but the crystal clear reflection caused me to snap into full awareness. I was amazed at how crisp and clear the reflection was. I had the thought that I could cause the reflection to morph if I wanted. Instantly my face began to shift and change throughout various caricature-like versions. Now in a playful mood, I looked at the cat and asked him to talk. He turned his head like a defiant child and said, “no!” Then, as if reconsidering, he looked at me in the mirror and said, “well, I could recite some poetry if you like.” I got the sense that he was willing to play along and have some fun. On the desk next to us was a small book of poetry. I grabbed it and began searching the pages for something fitting to have the cat read. As I was trying to make out the words on the pages, I had the sense that there was a message for me in the words. I “read” (more like heard) a few lines of a poem. I heard it clearly and found it to be very profound and useful. It was complex though and took some effort to understand. All I can recall is that the first line had something to do with keeping life simple. I tried to decipher more of the message, but the experience faded. In hindsight, I should have repeated it back several times which has helped with recall in the past.