Mining a Numinous Dream

The human mind is like an alluvial mine. Just below the surface of the ground, or mind is that area of mental and emotional activity which carries with it all the mental and emotional activity which have been experienced by the individual. The subconscious level, or mine, contains a volume of experience and reality. Within it are creative powers beyond belief.

A few years ago I had a dream, a nightmare so vivid and powerful I can still see it, after all this time the images in this dream have not faded and I haven't forgotten a moment of it.

In my dream I was staring up at a high ceiling, it was sloped upwards and there were steaks of paint, blues and golds and I thought I could make out the shape of an eye and a tree. I was looking at a painting so old that it was turning to dust.

I knew when I first came to this room the painting was new and I have watched it fade to nothing my entire life. Also this room was completely empty. There were no doors, there were no windows. But the floor was marble and the walls and ceiling were braced with huge timbers.

Then I saw the last of the paint fall from the ceiling and as the fine powder landed on my upturned face I panicked, why had I never noticed there were no doors in this room before? How was I going to get out?

And to my right a stairway appeared, it went to the ceiling and even though there was no door I ran up the steps anyway and as I neared the landing I saw it.

It was a huge door and carved on it was a Macabre figure dancing around the dead. I remember being very upset at the picture, it felt like it was yelling at me. And I put my hands out and pushed the door open, because there was no handle.

I was in a room from the 1920's and a party was taking place. All of the women were wearing beaded dresses and the men all looked very sharp in black and white tuxes. I knew I didn't belong there. That's when I felt for the first time I belonged in that empty hall with no windows and no doors and that feeling made me angry. I wanted to escape, but I didn't want to be trapped in this room either.

A young man came up to me and I realized I was tall because he had to look up at me, and his expression was controlled, he didn't want me to see what he really felt. But I wasn't upset because I knew he wanted to help me. It was just taking a lot out of him to talk to me. He didn't want me to see inside of him I felt. For some reason it was important I didn't know him. "

You have to find the right doors out of here, if you don't go through the right door you'll be trapped. You were lucky this time. Next time you might not be. "

" So what am I doing here? " I asked.

And he told me, " what you've always done". and then he went back into the crowd and disappeared.

I needed to think and after a few minutes I panicked again and then across the room another door appeared against the wall. It didn't belong in this room, it was almost a modern looking door with a window covered with grit and a the door knob was nickle plated and looked almost new.

I felt like I was flying above the room and seemed to swoop down and as I did the door swung open and I was in a kitchen from the 1940's.

It was completely empty and quiet and unlike most kitchens it felt cold and sterile and not lived in. But at least it was quiet and I saw the door I had come through had disappeared and like the other two rooms there were no windows.

I idly opened cupboards and drawers and then I felt somebody walk by me. I couldn't see them, but I could feel them and I knew I was intruding and I knew if I stayed here, I would be trapped in this little kitchen forever.

Then I saw another door, it looked like the type of door you'd see on a freezer or a meat locker and I went through.

I was in a library, small library with a single table in the center of the room and a nice display of books on the table. There was a fireplace and I saw there were some logs and kindling waiting to be lit and a woman was there. I assumed she was a librarian.

" How nice of you to visit me " she told me, and I knew that despite the fact I didn't look right somehow she was still very kind. She was nervous but her smile was nice and open and her eyes, even though they were dark brown and she didn't seem to have pupils her eyes simply glowed they were kind too.

But they could become very unkind in a second, I thought.

I reached out to take a book from the table and as I did she looked nervous, " oh, please be very careful with that. It's not done yet. It's still growing. "

I tried to read the title, but in all of my dreams I can never read. Not signs or numbers. In my dreams these are always meaningless symbols. But this time I could read, the title was

" A Circle of Wolves.

" As I looked around the room the titles on the spines of the books arranged themselves and I saw the letters where turning themselves around in circles until I could focus on them.

Like combinations on a lock.

" Why are you here? " I asked the librarian, who I think was really an animal but I'm not sure what kind of animal she was.

" I"m watching these for the owner, until she's ready for them. Then I shall bring them to her."

" Can you tell me how to get out of here? " I asked her.

" You have to look for the door. "

As I turned to walk through a door that like the rest appeared from nowhere the Librarian reached out and grabbed my arm. She brought her face very close to mine and warned me, " I care very much for the woman who owns these books, be very careful in here. Do you understand."

" I'm lost, I just want out. " I promised her and I left the library and felt that from all the rooms I'd visited that one was the most dangerous, because something was in there. Something that didn't really belong in that room was there and it was never going to leave. And I'm sure that if something went to that library and tried to harm those books that the Librarian would become something very different.

Something from a nightmare. The kind of nightmare you scream your way out of.

This time I turned to make sure the door was gone and I was relived to see it was. Good, I thought, I didn't want that thing following me. I was outside, but it wasn't really outside.

I was standing in front of a warehouse that burned down a few years ago and some firemen died fighting the fire there. Across the street was a restaurant where a robbery took place and several innocent people where gunned down. To this day people in this area believe this place is haunted and won't go into it. There's a bike chain lock around it in the real world and you could twist it off with your hand, but no one will go in there. Also next to this building was a bank and a driveway where in the 80's a man's severed head was found. That murder remains unsolved. Next to that is a hotel where a woman checked into a room and killed herself by taking cyanide. She had no identification, and to this day she remains a Jane Doe.

In real life these places are several miles apart from each other, in my dream they shared a street and they terrified me. The buildings looked new and alive, they were breathing. I saw a gate appear on the corner that hadn't been there a moment before and I flew through it. I wanted to get away from these places because they were coming to life, right in front of my eyes. Now I was in a long white hall filled with bright, bright light and row after row of doors that I knew better then to try to open. They weren't ready to be opened and they weren't mine. To the right of each door was a podium and on each podium was a book and a pen topped with a long black feather. I looked down at the books and saw they were all blank.

The light here was very pretty, but I don't know where it was coming from because there were no windows here. But it was sunlight flooding that hall and I liked it very much. I waited patiently for my door to appear when I saw beside one of the doors a gash in the wall.

The tear in the wall was a terrible wound in this place and darkness was seeping from it like blood.

" No, no, no " I was saying and I felt myself gliding towards the rip and I looked in.

Here was the heart of this place, my doorway, my place.

The room was chocked with dust and mold. The walls were rotten, and scattered around the room were small black coffins, and in each of those little coffins were something that belonged to me.

This was my door, this is where I was suppose to be and I put my hands out to climb in when all of the sudden I pushed away from the wall and the wall, the doorway opened wider and I turned and started to run I started pulled on door after door and then I stopped.

I took a pen from the holder and wrote something in one of the books and a door swung open behind me and I flew through it.

Now I was outside, really outside where the grass looked too green and the sky looked too blue and that was okay. This wasn't really my place either, but I thought it could be. That idea made me very happy, and I didn't even seem to mind that I had come through a doorway that led to a cemetery. That part seemed to make things right.

I walked down a little driveway, past a mausoleum where I think I had been trapped all along. But as I walked away the mausoleum didn't get smaller it seemed to get bigger.

I've spent years trying to figure out what this dream meant to me. I think I saw the place where my stories come from, but why do I have an animal in there watching that library with such ferocity? Where did it come from? In my dream all of those people and places were parts of myself. I felt that back then, and I feel that now. But the Librarian, who makes me feel safe, who guards my secrets and my stories...when I talked to her I wasn't talking to myself. Was she my Muse? Why am I afraid of her as well as relieved that she's there in that room?

Anita Marie Moscoso

The Alluvial Mine is the property of Heather Blakey and Miners who have generously shared their work. Please do not replicate any part of this mine without written permission.