Candle Vigil – Koyaanisqatsi – Jaguar Shaman – Strange Group Dream 25-07-2025

Here is last night’s dream, strangely out of context with our current life and way of living.

The dream starts in South America on the mainland, perhaps Western Caribbean, on the connective peninsula. I am walking along a path cleared into the jungle at dusk / early night. I come upon a sunken built structure which has downward going stepped stone seating, a bit like a Greek theatre

The construction is totally circular and the “stage” area is of the same grey stone at the rest of the amphitheatre. The construction is ancient South American, Maya or Aztec or some such. The radius is about 50 metres and there are at least half a dozen seating rows. It seems very familiar to me. On each step / seat is spaced a circle of lit candles in tumbler size glasses of various shapes and colours. There are hundreds of them. On the stage there are concentric circles of similar candles around a central circle empty void. The candles flicker lightly in the wind. I know this place to be a reliquary of living souls, each candle a spark of life. They have gathered to meditate on the state of the world. Against the darkened backdrop of the surrounding noisy night time jungle, here is a sanctuary.

The scene changes and I start to see scenes like from the film Koyaanisqatsi where rushing images of “normal” hectic life with its chaos and destruction are playing out on a “screen” in the mind’s eye. I hear chanting of Koyaanisqatsi over and over in a deep low voice as per the film. I know beyond any doubt that the world is badly out of balance, out of whack and out of kilter. The madness of the human “dream” is in full flow, justified to itself and thoroughly destructive. Unaware and largely uncaring. Caught up in a ceaseless rhythm of hectic.

The scene changes and I am now in a large open native kayak. There are two boats. We are paddling along the shore past jungle and two large settlements. It could be the sea or it could be a wide part of the Amazon River. We are around twenty metres from the “beach” and the jungle behind. I know we are being tracked and I catch sight of a magnificent jaguar easily keeping pace with our boats, jogging slowly in the forest. She is watching and observing. I can feel her muscles and see through her eyes. She is a totem of THE jaguar shaman, a spirit of the jungle, free and untrammelled. I see back through time to a ritual in a clearing of the jungle where I am enacting the convergence of the jaguar shaman. I have a jaguar pelt on my shoulders. As I enact I become and am the jaguar.

The scene changes to an urban setting; there are a group of people seeking to join or affirm their membership in a wider group. People have been accepted but must now make their public telephone call with their “mentor”. The sense of people wanting to be a part of is strong. I see one black man roughly my age make his call which we can all hear. In that the mentor slowly gets him to submit verbally. I think that this is coercive. Others make their call to belong to the “wonderful” organisation. The do decamps to a large pub near Hampstead Heath. People are queuing out of the door to buy their drinks. The black man is there and his mentor is going to buy him a drink, in a wait your turn fashion. I walk straight up to the bar and buy two pints of beer from one of the bar staff who know me well. I usher to the black man to join me in the beer garden. He follows and I explain that this has been cult like behaviour and he had better get the out sharpish.

The scene changes and the images of and sounds of Koyaanisqatsi close out the dream in a repetitive sequence.

The dream ends.

Golden Toblerone – South American River Dream -04-08-2024

This short dream had a marked vividness.

I know that I am in South America and a long way from coastal civilisation. It is the jungle and a tributary of the Amazon. I am on a shabby wooden boat with blue, white and red paint. The boat is anchored and facing upstream into the flow.

On the side of the boat on a table cloth is our white plastic colander. In which is a tea towel and a couple of triangular pieces of gold. The triangles are equilateral with a side around 6cm and the thickness of 1cm. They are, being pure gold, heavy. They are reminiscent of pieces of a golden Toblerone. The man on the boat speaks to me in a language which sounds like Portuguese or Spanish. He is smoking. He has a straw hat.

I dive into the river and swim to the bottom where I collect more pieces of gold. I bring these up and pop them in the colander.

I repeat this process several times. The colander quickly fills up. I have my arms on the deck of the boat with my feet in the water. I am wearing cut down blue denim jeans shorts. I note that soon the colander will bow under the weight of the gold.

I dive down one last time and pick up the last three pieces of “Toblerone”. I surface and place the gold in the colander. The gold glistens in the sun. I can see the water droplets on it. It is very vivid.

The dream ends.