Repetition and Response In Dreams and Waking States

I cannot write of him without remembering the accident: a brutal car crash in the summer of 1971, from which it took him something on the order of a year to recover. In A Voice at the Borders of Silence, he speaks movingly of this time. He emerged from that period a different man: physically different, as his face had been reassembled and now, oddly handsome, was no longer the same; spiritually different in ways that can hardly be expressed, though his friend Soen Nakagawa Roshi told him that one accident is worth a thousand meditations.
---Except from Parabola Summer 2004, Sagal-san by Roger Lipsey

Opportunity. It comes in so many ways. Some things only happen once, and we are thankful for that or we wish they would occur again and we could have the opportunity to perform better. Other events happen again and again, and we have an opportunity to try to get it "right" over and over again. We learn. Some events can be anticipated and trained for. Sometimes we train for things that never happen or find ourselves practicing because something has already occurred.

I read about women training to deal with attacks. They had been attacked before in a variety of ways or want to be prepared in case it does ever happen to them. Each story is different. One woman even had an "ex" that is being released from prison and vows to kill her. After learning several defense routines, the instructor informs the students they are going to meet their attacker: a man dressed in protective gear that reenacts their fears and gives them a chance to try their stuff. The instructor warns them that they will feel fear simply at seeing the attacker.

The man arrives from the back of the school completely garbed in protective gear. He is wearing a helmet, pads all over his body, a neck protector and a screen over his face mask to protect his eyes. He represents the faceless man waiting in the dark alley they all wonder if they will ever meet and some have nightmares about. The students are surprised at their fear by just seeing this man… A black belt who is not only at the class to attack them, but in the class to help them. "Don’t cower away!" the teacher yells at them. Face your attacker! Don’t let him see that you are afraid! Stop cowering!"

One by one they all face their attacker and friend. He acts out their scenarios they had "failed" at before and new ones as dictated by their teacher. This is another chance, or one more of many opportunities to face and defeat their attackers in the safety of a class. It is a building of their confidence. They learn by actually getting to fight that they can really respond successfully to these situations. One woman acts out a rape scene that had happened to her again and again. This time it is different as she fights back and "wins." The woman writing the account of the class succeeds at not only disabling the attacker with a well placed and devastating hit but continues to hit the padded man while her instructor furiously blows the whistle to stop. Despite the "game over" signaling, the student drops a killer kick to the attacker’s neck, "crushing his throat." This does not actually injure the man at all, who is dressed for such possibilities, but this violent action shocks her. She learns something about herself that she never before realizes. The student writes:

"If I had been truly fearless, I wouldn’t have landed that final, unneeded blow… Protecting myself, I will hurt others. Learning to fight correctly has given me not only control, but the security needed to fight only as much as necessary and no more. This is true warrior mind."
---from the article in Tricycle, Fall 1993, Warrior Mind by Sallie Tisdale

We all learn from getting hit in the ring. Some of the people who strike us even are our dearest friends. This chance to practice something over and over again is an opportunity. We learn about others and ourselves at the same time. A lot of learning occurs in the ring. I have this discussion with a woman who became a black belt but then felt it is violent to be in the ring and actually hit others. One ex-boxer says his sport is violent and he cannot actually hit someone unless they make him angry. "Why should I hit him when he has done nothing to me?" He left boxing since he got tired of getting beat up. If they would only steal the hat his Mom made for him, he could probably beat them all. For some reason, I am able to take a strike with great compassion. I even smile just before getting a good hit at Mike, although I could never really hurt Mike. I normally do not get a chance to hit him and he really should start getting suspicious when I smile.

We often get caught in the recurring patterns in our lives. Some of them do not seem so bad. Others of them are "alright," which means they work, but they are not the ideal responses. One time, I almost won against Mike. It is in our rarer moments with grappling which I am good at for some unknown reason. I suddenly realize that there is a way to "get" Mike and I spring on him. I start pushing his chest down to the ground. As quickly as I see the opening and attack, my teacher jumps into the ring and starts picking me up by the scruff of my uniform neck. "You can’t muscle Mike! HE IS THREE TIMES YOUR SIZE!" my instructor yells. I continue to push Mike while I am pulled in the opposite direction by my instructor. "OK!" I yell back trying to get rid of him. My body is floating up into the air inside the harness of my uniform against my wishes. I grab Mike again and grab my instructor by the uniform too. I am still floating by my uniform being too light when I am trying to be heavy. My instructor pulls on me harder. Mike is giggling on the floor and not really fighting anymore since a lot of the pressure is off. His soft laughter is a strange and funny contrast to his amazing strength. "TOO MANY PEOPLE IN THE RING!" I cry out from my losing battle. "ONE AT A TIME!" I add. "Iron Filings" Mike is much larger than me and both he and my instructor have a lot more advanced training than I do. My instructor tosses me out of the ring. I am really surprised he lets me stay in as long as all that, but I am a very sincere person.

I want my chance to go back in and get Mike back "right where I had him." "You are not listening to me," my teacher says as he stands between Mike and I, "You cannot fight Mike head on." I must have had that dog look from the cartoon entitled, "What Dogs Hear." (Apparently it is an intelligible "bark, bark, bark," whenever you speak.) I look over at Mike still on the floor lying on his side with his head propped up on one arm, still broadly smiling. "You are going to do the same thing again…" my instructor adds, eyeing me with great suspicion. "You have to learn not to muscle everything. You are actually a small person in a world of much larger men. Even if someone is not larger and stronger than you, some day you will be older. You could get hurt as you age is you do not learn the more subtle ways," the instructor reasons with me. I know this is true but I really felt I had Mike right at that moment when I was interrupted.. Me fighting Mike is like a small Toyota trying to get a Mac truck. I would have to surprise and bash him ten times really well for him to notice it. When he taps me, often my feet go right off the floor and he sends me on a small journey. But I only comprehend what my instructor is saying to my point own point of experience. Honestly, I thought that by the time I was 80, I would possibly start aging and the subtle ways would come naturally over this time. I was not worrying about them when I could squat press 350 while speaking about quantum physics in an easy voice with my friends. People used to stare at me and ask questions like, "What do you eat???"

Our fears, nightmares, and difficult times that happen in our lives can pop us out of these repeating patterns into a different type of realization. I did win against Mike once in the ring. I won by one point in sparring that I barely squeaked in. Everyone responded with shocked surprise showing on their faces and not a sound was made. Myself, I could not believe it. No one said anything, but we all looked glazed. "How did I do this?" I wondered to myself. I had been ill and it was my first return to the ring finding myself surprised to be facing Mike already. I was so happy that I came back so quickly, since my illness had been extreme. I was told, at the time, that I would never get better but I did. My surprise is so great at the ring event outcome, it takes me awhile to get to sleep that night after the fight. It is so wonderful to get back and find everything as I left it or, impossibly even better. This surprise probably would have lasted for days if I did not receive a great distraction from it. The very next day my car accident occurred, where I am struck by a much larger vehicle… a truck... something much bigger than Mike, running a red light. Now I have the rest of my life to work on subtle ways, since I have injuries. I am a bit younger than 80 too. How well I do is up to my response now and resolving that great puzzle of how to respond.

Sometimes we get to see and practice our responses in the light of a different realm. We can see our patterns in a movie. We can break out of them in an inspiration in a way they can occur in a dream or special moment. Once in astral, I thought I was being attacked. I see a little yellow fuzzy thing. It tries to get near me. I avoid it hard but not so efficiently that I leave the area. In my panic I do not just change locations. Instead, I try to bob and weave like I do in the physical realm. The fuzzy thing has skinny little arms and legs that are insignificant to its bright fuzziness. The thing's finger extends and I back away from it. The finger manages to touch my side and I cringe with the full panic and agony of defeat. "You have cancer," it says as it touches me. In my distress, I think it had given me cancer! Suddenly I am in a car and the little yellow fuzzy guy is driving through the sky at a frantic pace. I am in the back with this biker dude skeleton that is staring, concentrating straight ahead. We are in an old Chevy. The yellow thing is driving like our lives depend on it and the skeleton only looks straight ahead without responding to any distractions with so much as a flinch. I start yelling, "OUT! OUT! OUT!" and as I do this I whack the biker skeleton guy with baby toys. He does not even notice, simply keeping his eyes on the road. I wake up horribly distressed from the events of the dream. Although, the dream does not repeat itself, I have my response starting in my waking life.

As events unfold I realize that I already may already have cancer and I was responding to this information in a distressful way, making it seem like an attack. The true information is not gracefully received by me. That is all it is. Information that brings out my deep seated fear of cancer. These dream creatures are actually trying to help me. I can get away but I have to move quickly! I respond differently than my original blind panic and distress, allowing me to take positive action. My cancer is discovered very early and successfully removed. It is actually caught early enough that no chemotherapy is necessary. It is one, small "bad spot," in my physician's words. I successfully pass my next two lab exams which means that I am now free. The important point in this event is that the only factor making it an attack is MY response and MY attack! It is all fear on my side and nothing but kindness and well wishes from a scary and skeletal looking biker dude and a little yellow fuzzy ogre who is practicing Ghandi's Lower Body Workout on VHS tape a little too much. Frightening.

We all have our enemies and some of them we create all by ourselves. Some would say we create all of our own enemies. Some of these are the patterns we are stuck in because of our ways of thinking. We avoid facing our fears and find them knocking on our doors in a completely different form than what we expect. There are fears that have never even occurred to us yet in a way that we can see them. They have been in the background evolving under the bed in that secret place that only the shadow knows. They can seep into our dreams over and over again.

A repetitive dream means that our Mind, (whether you use this term as what comes from your own brain, or the larger definition of Mind) is working on a problem and trying to solve or resolve it. We have opportunities to respond over and over again and see in the mirror of our mind what the possibilities are. These repetitions may even be within the patterns of our waking lives. There are times when we look in the mind mirror and see our best friend and our worst enemy and know how close we are to being both. We can try different ideas in our dreams and solve this repetitive puzzle. In your dream you can ask questions. I would recommend taking the leap and do something unexpected in a nightmare, even if you say it is only a dream. Defeat a hungry monster by cooking him a nice dinner. Buy that angry snake headed woman a nice hat. Surround that dark shadow in the murderous dark alley with a warm glowing light. And if one day you are trying to help someone out and they whack you "really good" with a ducky, tell them Evonne sent you.

***

Addendum:

It was pointed out to me that I may not have not made a clear point. I am not sure if I have an ability to make the clear point on this matter, but here is my try.

The reason why the women practice the attack is to change the energy of their response in an actual situation. They will no longer look like a victim when or if this difficult time comes. Sometimes a battle never occurs between two people because the one assumed to be the victim gives the strong look or vibration at the crucial moment. Suddenly they become, "too much trouble." There is no longer a situation simply because someone was now confident and had the strength to walk away. This person may never have to actually fight. That is why they are instructed not to shrink away from their attacker and to face them, at least in my view.

In our waking lives, we also have situations that can be difficult to deal with. What we learn can be applied to these situations for a very positive response. Our dreaming life also shows us this energy in some way. In the dreaming sequences, one can become stuck. I remember a waiter telling me he runs and runs and never actually makes it to the table, for instance. The fear and anger energy gets carried away, since it is a difficult cycle to stop once it starts. Although I still have problems sometimes, I find if I can change the energy I have, the whole energy of the dream then changes too. This happens even when I resolve the dream in my waking state. That is why we cook a hungry monster a nice meal in my dream. Or I may wake up and say to myself, "I should have talked to that lady after dropping the toaster on her head to say I am sorry and help her." In the next dream I usually perform better.

Dreams can become lucid, where we can exercise more control and even be aware that we are dreaming. There is another step after this one too. My teacher notes that lucid dreaming is a tool for implementation of soul travel. There are Portents in every lucid dream to utilize allowing us to exit outside the dream for astral traveling. I believe the positive action in a dream allows this by accessing a higher energy vibration.