portals to now and elsewhere

I'm spending the night under a giantic log with dozens or hundreds of other people. There is lots of space under it, and fires are being burnt on top, like campfires. I can see a glow of orange above where I am, and I feel afraid that the tree will collapse there, burn through and crush me with burning wood, so I scurry over to another spot. A couple I know - S and G I think - are already in that area.

That was my dream this morning. I woke up with a feeling I have sometimes, that something different and marvelous has been happening to me. I love the kind of crazy adventures you can have in the subtle/dream realm. Best of all is to be lucid, to know you are dreaming while the dream is still going on. That is rare for me these days, although I did have a brief lucid dream not long ago in which I was flying feet first through empty space, then falling down a square tunnel made of some kind of bricks.

I also love the weird things that can happen if you retain consciousness into the beginnings of the sleep state. Last night I had a bit of that. I felt my body temperature drop abruptly, whereupon I began to see circles of not-quite-darkness appear here and there in my visual field. They seemed like windows opening up into dreamspace; like portals to the subtle realm.

Also, of course, I've spoken elsewhere of sleep paralysis, which I find very unsettling, and yet I miss it when I haven't experienced it in a while. I suspect much of the fear comes from the fact that my ego is dissolving, losing control. Yet there is something very important going on there. There is much opportunity for self-knowledge and self-transcendence in these liminal realms that mix our "normal" waking consciousness with that which lies just beyond it and all around it.

Eckhart Tolle speaks of gateways to now; sometimes he refers to them as portals, which to me has a more poetic ring to it. Donnie Darko uses portals as a central metaphor. Dreams are portals to other realms of existence, and also to the depths of our own minds. Psychedelic drugs also act as portals to these same realms, as do meditation, chanting, drumming. Every time you look deeply and openly into someone's eye - especially that of a loved one - you are staring into a portal. Sex is sometimes a portal, as discussed in fascinating detail in Jenny Wade's wonderful book Transcendent Sex: When Lovemaking Opens the Veil. Portals are all around us, and you never know when one is going to open up right in front of you and take you into the unknown. And of course, waiting for all of us is the ultimate portal, Death. It seems like a good idea to practice on the lesser portals while I have the chance. :) The portal of dreams, and the portal of dreamless sleep - those ones open up for us every night. Make the most of them during the brief time when you have a body to come back to!

By the way, if anyone would like to offer possible interpretations of the symbolism of my dream above, go for it. Sometimes someone will say something that triggers an "aha!" for me. One biographical detail I'll mention: S is a close friend of mine, I love her very much and had once hoped for something more intimate; however, she has recently married G. He's a good man for her, and I approve of their union.