In a faraway land

Before I even begin recalling this one, all I can say is wow.

Just wow.

The dream started off with me at my mother's house. I was downstairs in the living room and I think we'd just had some kind of argument as she had asked me to leave. Around the same time, my mum's neighbour who, in real life is a gossipy old crow in her late 60s I think (I'm no good with people's ages) suddenly appeared. She was laying on the ground by my feet and she actually looked a lot younger than she is (she looked as though she was in her 30s). She asked "So what are you going to do now?", and to my mother she turned and said "I bet you'd be more happy if your son was around more, wouldn't you?" In real life, this woman is incredibly irritating because she really goes out of her way to mind other people's business and seems to live for their affairs. I responded by ignoring her and holding a newspaper I was reading up to my face. I then got up to leave.

As I was leaving, I heard shuffling and the sound of somebody moaning and knew straight away that there was a zombie outbreak. The next thing I noticed was that my mother and sister (who was also in the room) had now vanished. I knew they hadn't been caught by the zombies, they just weren't there anymore.

As soon a heard the zombies, I ran for the back door and into the garden. Unlike real life, the garden was not fenced in and was completely open, as was the back gate. I heard more moaning and shuffling from the gate and realised there were more zombies around than I thought. I ran into the middle of the garden and thought to myself "I wonder if I can fly in this dream?" so I tried. It took a few attempts, but I eventually soared into the air away from all the zombies. I was so high into the air I could see everything down below for miles and noticed there were areas of this world where the ground suddenly stopped and gave way to nothingness, as though you could just drop off those areas and fall off the edge of the world like in a video game. Those voids were the same colour as the sky.

Anyway, I kept on moving upwards and found myself flying across this world. I recognised some of the areas from previous dreams including this one. I flew past a motorway and what looked like a city busy with traffic and eventually landed somewhere a long way from where I started. My first thought was whether there would be any more zombies, but something told me there would not be, and that the outbreak was confined to the place I'd just come from. This new place looked a bit like Japan (the people there were also Japanese), but the signs (which I could actually read) were written in Engrish and some kind of weird dream language. I read a sign on a door that said 'Daivo' (which is not a Japanese word at all as the 'V' sound does not exist in that language) and a roadsign that had numbers and words mixed together. I flew over to what looked like two carousel horses sticking out of a raised platform. They looked a bit like the small amusement rides for children you get inside large supermarkets. On one of the horses was a black guy who resembled Kanye West. He was wearing a black suit and stood out because he was the only non-Asian I could see and I just felt I had to talk to him. His eyes shone, but they didn't have the same lustre as the "person" from this dream.

I went over and said "Hey Kanye, what are you doing in my dream?" (despite somehow knowing that he wasn't actually Kanye West, but a being who had assumed his form for some reason). He responded with something like "Never mind about that". I then said "Why am I here?" and he said "You are here because you are changing and you know it". That struck a chord with me instantly. I knew what he meant (more later). I then asked him "What is this place? Where am I?". He didn't answer that question. Instead, he leaned over and put a coin in a little coin box next to the carousel horse as if he was trying to activate the ride. And that was where our interaction ended. He said nothing more and I felt as though he was communicating that I already knew the answer to the question I'd asked.

I flew away from him and back down into the main town square and then thought I'd woken up. I was lying on a bed I didn't recognise and waved my arms in front of my face and said something like "I am part of all the planets of the cosmos... they are all a part of me and we are one". There was another person in this room, a woman who I used to work with. I then realised that I hadn't woken up at all and found myself back in the Japanese town. I entered a supermarket that also sold electrical goods (there were some nice large, HDTVs) and just browsed this dream world. I exited the shop via a glass door by which stood a Japanese security guard (who opened the door for me) and strolled around the square. I came across a shrine tucked away in a little corner. It had large clay figurines of what looked like zombie creatures. The most distinct was a terracotta figurine that had a twisted face with disembodied hands all over it. Something told me that I was not to hang around this place for very long, so I moved on. In the corner opposite that one was a stall that sold souvenirs and sweets. I was actually aware of the fact that I was dreaming and that souvenirs would be no use to me, but the woman at the stall (who was also non-Asian, a white woman in her late 30s) told me that she sold special sweets that once eaten, would enable the dreamer to remember everything they dreamt. I liked the sound of this so I bought one. She put out her hand for the coinage and even though I had no money, I went through the motion as though I was dropping something in her hand and when I did, a coin just appeared. She wrapped the sweet in a paper bag. It was large enough to hold with both hands and was purple. I was eager to eat the sweet, so I started chomping on it before I'd even taken it out of the paper bag, and I then woke up.

It seems as though the sweet worked, because I remembered everything.

Thoughts: First of all, if you're reading this I apologise for the length but I have a lot to write down. This dream is very significant for me because it has come at a time in my life when I have changed more than I ever would have thought. I was raised in a catholic and later christian environment, but I became disillusioned with the religion some years ago and ceased following it. I have not told this to my mother (I know she would never udnerstand), but at the same time, I have also been made aware of spiritual realities that are far greater than the limitations of religion. To that end, I have been receptive when my mum gives me verses or books to read, even if I don't always agree with everything she says or gives me to read.

I have come to realise that God is not limited to a particular religion and have started embracing other spiritual ideas which previously, under christianity I had no time for, was wary of, or simply dismissed as "satanic" having been scared into believing that thinking out of the box was a one way ticket to eternal damnation (in other words, it was always safer to tow the line even when it didn't make sense). However, now that my understanding of the being that created the universe is beyond the christian perception, I KNOW this not to be true. Thus, my thinking has completely changed from the way I was indoctrinated (represented in the dream by me falling out with my mother, the tenets of my old beliefs represented by the zombies I was so eager to escape). I have also started embracing things like meditation, psychic realities and out of body experiences because, contrary to what christianity teaches, I now know these things are part of us and we part of God; therefore there is nothing about these things that is "wrong" or "evil". They're certainly not "satanic" because I've come to realise that satan as we udnerstand him doesn't exist. We create our own devils by our selfish actions that hurt others. I've also come to see that a lot of the christian admonitions against such practices were based on deliberate misinformation and in some cases, sheer hypocrisy. Japan in the dream represented a place/culture that was "foreign" and very differnet from the one I knew which is a metaphor for the way in which my beliefs have been transformed. What's more, these new experiences leave me feeling peaceful and I feel much more in touch and in tune with the creator (who is not the same angry man-god of christianity) in a way I never have been before. I definte myself as a spiritual free thinker. I appreciate that all religions serve a purpose and may be necessary for some souls to advance, but neither one is the "right" one because all are essentially man-made and therefore fallible in some way. I feel as though I have woken up and, just as the guide in this dream told me, "I have changed".

And yes, I believe he was also a guide, just like the one from the lion dream. And so, this dream was about my ongoing awakening.