Story 3: Tree of Life Dream

3 Tree of Life Dream

Some dreams are remembered only as ending fragments (most in my case), but some are fairly involved stories which can be recalled years later. This one took place around 2015; I was then living in Nova Scotia, Canada which is where this one took place. The dream:

Times were changing. There was some sort of war in the background which the Dreamer could feel coming in, like an army of storm clouds on a distant horizon, brooding, looming. The Dreamer decided to go on a meditation retreat in a small house surrounded by pine trees and spent a few weeks there but then one night knew it was time to leave so began walking to the nearest town in the dead of night because times were now dangerous.

As he approached the town he gazed up at a bright full moon visually counterpointed by occasional wisps of silvery cloud scudding rapidly across the dark night sky. On the other side of fields just in front was a small medieval style town encircled by a thick stone wall about twelve feet high with a main entry door of ancient wood planks and cast iron.

The Dreamer glanced to the field to his left. Serpentine long grasses languidly waved in the dappled moonlight and a hundred yards away he saw a large circle of twelve men in 1930’s style working class garb listening with rapt attention to a speaker also in the circle. He was exhorting them to do something – perhaps storm the town? At some point he started gazing and gesturing in the direction of the Dreamer who stood very still, glad that he had not yet stepped into the field where he would be starkly visible but was still at the edge, blending in with dark tree shadows. The group might regard him as an enemy and hunt him down and now he wondered if they were on patrol to prevent outsiders from getting in. Things felt dangerous but he continued to watch, waiting until it was safe to brave crossing the moonlit field to enter the town where he had an important message to deliver.

The speaker started gesticulating wildly building to a crescendo and then with ghastly inevitability he pulled out a gun and all the other men around him did the same. Then he slowly pointed the gun to his temple and all the other men around him did the same. Then his voice rose to a climax and all twelve men pulled the triggers and dropped down dead whilst he remained standing, still gazing towards the Dreamer as if this horrible drama had been a message especially directed at him.

The Dreamer started walking across the field knowing that if he no longer looked at the fanatic leader that nothing would happen to him. He was at the wall looking to find the main gate when he noticed a small window in a curved turret-like wall with warm, buttery light creaming forth. Peering inside, he saw a cozy living room with a middle-aged lady sitting in her armchair in front of a cheerfully crackling fire – a classic Christmas scene feeling. Although the lady did not resemble anyone he knew in real life, in the dream they were dear old friends. She looked up smiling and was about to invite him in and tell him how to handle the Gate protocols when he noticed a small two foot high Christmas tree on the side table next to her. His gaze was drawn into a living network of pulsing white, red and blue lights coming up from the roots of the tree and then spiralling to the top and back down again. A bead of light would pulse into life and then move along its spiralling pathway and a few seconds later another one would pulse into being and follow the first so there were dozens of these beads of living colourful light pulsing up and down the tree. It felt extremely good to gaze into this magical, beautiful little tree in this magical, beautiful little living room.