I've been suffering some role confusion lately. One of the reasons is
because members of The World Dreams Peace Bridge neglect no opportunity to
gather in physical reality, since most of our communication is done online.
On Wednesday, October 25, I kicked off the IASD Bay Area Lecture Series with
a lecture on "Group Dreaming/Dream Activism." I was happy to see an
audience of twenty-five people in the beautiful Dream Institute building in
Berkeley--but there among the IASD members (most of them being IASD members)
were members of The World Dreams Peace Bridge, a most welcome addition to
the evening.
There was Jody Grundy, all the way from Cincinnati, and seated beside her,
May Tung's good friend, photographer Roxanne Worthington. Lana Nassar was
there and, most remarkably, Joy Fatooh, who had driven over the mountains
from the eastern part of the state, to meet us for the first time in waking
physical reality.
All of us Peace Bridge members have a tendency to meet in dream reality,
something that has inspired me to say that the Peace Bridge discussion group
is the world's longest-lasting online dream journal and also the
longest-lasting group dream experiment. In fact, Joy became a member of the
Peace Bridge due to sharing dreams with Ilkin in Istanbul, although the two
of them have yet to meet while awake.
There was much joking and laughing and hugging going on among the Peace
Bridge members in Berkeley that night, particularly when the Peace Bridge
ladies discovered that they had all been suffering similar pains in the same
knee, shoulder and hip. (We hope this is not a result of dreaming together.)
Then, in the aftermath of the evening in Berkeley, in a fun-filled
conversation online, Joy proposed a mystery to the members of the Peace
Bridge, and a unique use of group dreaming. She wrote:
"Just for fun, do any of my talented and curious friends out
there want to dream up 'What happens to Joy in Albuquerque?"'
"When I was 17 years old, I dreamed I experienced
something very mysterious in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'd never been there
(except for passing through once at night on Route 66). The dream was so vivid and strange that
it stayed with me... and over the course of 20 years I gradually found out
what it was that I experienced... and thus verified that it was
psi-something, but what? If it was precognitive and it's going to happen to
ME, it's taking at least 33 years to happen - because next week I'm going to
be in Albuquerque for the first time since the dream!"
This was a request to group dream about the results of a dream! No Peace
Bridge member is going to pass up this kind of a challenge, so the dreams
began to come in. Mary Pat, having joined the Bridge shortly after the
recent PsiberDreaming Conference, dreamed about Joy meeting with gnomes in
Albuquerque, something that seemed very puzzling until Joy reminded her
that the Dream Telepathy conference at the PsiberDreaming Conference where
they first met involved a piece of art including gnomes. Rita dreamed of
being in Albuquerque. Jeremy, who reminded Joy that the deadline for
dreaming had already passed by his house in Seoul, Korea, sent an article
he'd found on the Internet which claimed that joyous thinking created
joyous people. It was also interesting to note that several people in the
group had connections with Albuquerque, although these connections had never
come up before.
The mystery is not solved. Joy is only now on her way to Albuquerque, on
her business-related trip. But before she drove away, she left a message on
the Peace Bridge list, telling us the dream she'd had at seventeen that has
stayed with her so long:
"When I was 17, I dreamed it was a calm dark night and I was rising straight
up into the open air over Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’d never been to
Albuquerque, other than passing through once on Route 66. But I knew it was
the lights of Albuquerque receding below me. The visceral feeling of rising
straight up, with the cool night air all around me, was absolutely vivid and
real. Looking down, far below me but high above the city lights I saw a huge
white globe glowing softly as if lit from within."
Even learning years later that Albuquerque is the Hot Air Balloon Capitol of
the World has not taken the mystery away from her dream, Joy said.
"It was
an unforgettable dream from the moment I woke. So vivid! Such a gently
thrilling feeling. Why Albuquerque? Why rising straight up? How? What was
the incandescent globe and how did it get to be so high?"
What are these dreams (sometimes called high dreams, yes, or peak
experiences) that so capture our attention, and what if anything does this
type of dream have teach us about group dreaming? Tune in next month, when
Joy herself has agreed to write The View From The Bridge. Maybe she will
give us some answers.
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