True account to the best of my recall. (Because the memory function rapidly deteriorates immediately upon crossing the membrane from sleeping to waking — the sudden influx of sensory inputs taxes one’s will in an overpowering way.) Note: look here to see other dream narrations within this series.

Preface Notes

The experience related here is very different from a dream in the usual sense. Whereas dreams occur in an altered, and most would agree diminished, state of consciousness which is marked by a complete shutdown of the normally operating physical senses and their replacement by something ‘else’, the experience described here happened in total wakefulness. Yet I cannot honestly assert that it occurs under the usual form of consciousness for certain. It carries the feeling of the beginnings of something new and less tied to usual physical sensory inputs. Beyond that, it seems easier to simply narrate it.

I am in bed near the beginning of the night. Senses are quieting and the world, in other words my consciousness, is starting to turn inward. Thoughts of the day no longer intrude but I am clearly not yet asleep. I simply experience, observe, be. Then images begin to become apparent cast upon the inside walls of my closed eyelids… They resolve quickly into human faces. The images are not in color but also not exactly black-and-white. They vaguely resemble a series of sepia photographs. A series of faces, one appearing out of the previous one and then dissolving into the next. This continues, there are maybe thirty or more of them in sequence. Nothing else, no backgrounds. The faces are all real, not 2-dimensional. Almost like quick living head sculptures. I have the distinct impression these are images of real people, individuals from the past. They all are mature men, mostly bearded, and appear in the manner of distinguished or learned people from three centuries ago or so. All are European in manner. I cannot discern enough from each, or from any, face to imprint it within my memory. Nothing to grab hold of in a more permanent way. They simply flow past each other in a fixed manner offering me no preceptual control. I strive to pay attention but can discern no meaning or message. At no point do I ever lose or have dimmed the sense of being fully awake — of not dreaming. The ‘movie’ holds my interest till the end, there is no thought to kill it by opening my eyelids. I wonder about these real peoples’ relationship to me. Because there seems no doubt that I am surveying a series of actual people from some period in the past.

When the sequence ends it is almost as though my cognitive energy has run out and that I cannot endure to be shown anymore. It is clear I have little volition in the matter. I am going to be shown a certain sequence at a certain speed and there is nothing I can do to alter this; I can wish but cannot do. I can only accept with humility and whatever gratefulness I am able to consciously muster. When it is over I am still in a pre-sleep condition, my eyes remain closed and my sense activity remains dormant. I am certain that nothing was ‘imaginary’. I just wait and witness the onset of sleep.

Waking Thoughts

I will say some more qualities that this inner experience possessed, since it really is diametrically opposed to the typical dream state. First, I want to mention that it has been repeatable but with one interesting new feature. I have had this experience dozens of times going back over perhaps the past ten years. It always would begin shortly after lying down for sleep at night, but definitely before actual sleep or seemingly even drowsiness. It was never voluntarily summoned or willed on my part; it always had the feeling of visiting itself upon me. It was strongest near the first years, sometimes running through thirty or forty facial images, always similar. The mood of each person was always somber and serious, like the formal manner in which well-off Victorians used to pose for a portrait. Almost always I had the wish for the sequences to slow down such that I could better study the faces and form memories about them. But the visitation never complied with this wish. It ran through the series and then the theater upon my inner eyelids finished as ephemerally as it began. At no point was there ever the slightest doubt that I was ‘imagining’ anything; the visual representations were there — not memories in any usual sense, and not inspecific either. The faces always seemed to reveal actual human characters. Perhaps past ones, but real. It was difficult to get any moral reading from their expressions although I sometimes tried out of curiosity.

The most recent occurrence, which made me decide to post about it, carried a unique new element. It was a humid midday, and I took a brief afternoon nap next to a revolving fan. In the past few years these facial sequence movies had decreased markedly in frequency, and also to some degree in clarity. But on this day I tried to activiely initiate or wish for such an event. I closed my eyes and formed a quick brief thought prayer image about apologizing to the gods and to Christ for not fulfilling my ideals very well. Nothing maudlin. Just a quick acknowledgment of the need to do better. Then, very soon, the sequence began. The same style of faces cascading by my inner movie screen. Always male. Always classical looking, not Biblical, bearded, distinguished, individuated. I retained complete inner freedom during the ‘film’ to direct my inner consciousness towards any desired direction or question. (Quite unlike as in a dream.) I asked the universe: Where do you come from and how are you related to me? What do you wish to show me in this? Then, at once, a somewhat larger image of Christ’s face appeared, As described above. This had never happened before. And the movie was briefer than usual. 20 seconds tops. Once the Christ face appeared it remained throughtout the remainder of the usual squence of faces, but in the background. Like an overlay of one visual image over another slightly less vivid one. It was as though a new clue as to the significance of the communication had been granted me. But I feel entirely inadequate as to what more to bring to these events. I am left with a cautious conservative feeling — not to try deliberately ‘asking’ for the sequence too often.

_______RS

Image : detail from Marc Chagall’s 1940 oil painting ‘Dreamlife’. Chagall maybe as much as any other well-known artist devoted himself to subconcious elements and dream imagery in his work.

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