Introduction: The Romance of Sleep & Dreams

Throughout the course of history there has been an intriguing and unifying belief circulating amidst our global population, and it is one that has managed to repeatedly transcend both the borders and barriers of culture, race and creed; establishing not only a common ground between disparate peoples, but also an enduring testament to our inherent sameness as human beings. It is not the belief in a God or a Supreme Being or a Higher Power, although that, too, has achieved the same effect; but rather it is the somewhat less popular and less recognised belief which is that: every single place – every single continent, country, settlement and site – has a subtle energy, or animating force, or ‘spiritual guardian’. Indeed, there have been many people throughout the ages who have experienced profound reactions to certain geographical places, sacred sites and well-worn trails (reactions that have often been physical, emotional and/or psycho-spiritual); and this phenomenon has been a consistent one across differing demographics of people – from the rich to the poor, the nomadic to the settled, and the agnostic to the religious. The Chalice Well in Glastonbury, or the Kaaba in Mecca, or the Western Wall in Jerusalem, would be three such examples of a site that engenders powerful responses in it’s visitors. But on a more mundane level, there are millions of people who have also experienced the related phenomenon of simply being in a location – whether it be by accident or by intention – that has a palpable vibe to it; a palpable, unexplainable and/or spine-tingling vibe that seems to dissipate as soon as they put some physical distance between themselves and ‘it’.

It is no surprise, then, that many of us subscribe to the idea that each and every place has a subtle energy, or animating force, or ‘spiritual guardian’ – and that this guardian has a distinct personality and energetic signature; so much so that it not only influences the atmosphere of it’s designated environment (and the topography of the physical landscape itself), but also the humans, animals and plants who inhabit it’s territory as well. In ancient times the Romans referred to this phenomenon as the genius loci, which means the ‘spirit of place’, and it was a phenomenon that they not only acknowledged in their everyday lives but one that they also weaponised. Stories have trickled down to us from antiquity in which the Romans are said to have enacted certain rites and rituals to break the ‘spirit’ of a place before invading it (an energetic example of ‘breaking and entering’ if you will); but there are many other stories – ones that are far more positive and uplifting – in which the relationship between human beings and the ‘spirit of place’ is described as one of respect, appreciation and blessing. These beautiful stories are most often preserved, and sometimes even hidden, within the oral histories and wisdom teachings of our indigenous lineages (like the Waitaha lineage of Aotearoa New Zealand, for example, wherein the elders strictly preserve their most sacred baskets of knowledge for the adepts who have been initiated into their ‘lower jaw’ and ‘upper jaw’ teachings); but stories about the genius loci – and it’s influence on human beings – can be found all over the world, in every single culture on earth, and there seems to be a veritable abundance of them within the folkloric and bardic traditions of Europe and the Celtic diaspora.

The notion of a genius loci has always fascinated me, and I have often wondered if it could be true; if there could indeed be an animating force or ‘spiritual guardian’ presiding over each of the countries that I have lived in, and whether or not it has shaped my identity – and the direction of my life – without my knowledge. Between the ages of four and twenty, for example, I was raised in New Zealand, and then from the age of twenty onwards I spent most of my time living and working in England. These two nations have therefore had the most powerful impact on me, in terms of shaping my psyche and my personality, and at a certain level I can understand the magnetic pull that I have always felt towards Britain given that my genealogy is entirely Celtic; that is to say that it is entirely Scottish, Welsh and Irish. However, there is one significant location from my past that has always intrigued me, because I can never get a solid grasp of it’s relationship to me or my relationship to it . . . and that’s because in the June of 1987 I was born in a land Down Under, in a place of shimmering heat, and white sand, and red dust; but I only have a handful of mental images from that place and time (only a handful that are clear and detailed in my mind’s eye at least), and they actually register more within my memory bank as felt experiences, rather than visual pictures.

Indeed, my earliest conscious memories are those of giant dragonflies and laughing kookaburras and rainbow lorikeets; of blistering sunburn, back-yard sprinklers, and prickly bindiis underfoot; but whenever I ask my three-year-old self for more information about that period of my life, she simply looks up at me with a shy smile and whispers: ‘The animals are magic . . . this place is like a dream’. And therein lies the rub, because it is precisely my dream-like impression of Australia – still so vivid in the mind of my toddler self – that makes me wonder: is it possible? Is it possible that a genius loci or ‘spirit of Australia’ exists, and that it permanently altered me somehow; that it left an indelible mark on my developing psyche and imagination? Because if there is, and if it did, would that explain why I’ve had a lifelong interest in dreams, and the dreamworld, and the Aboriginal concept of the Dreamtime? Would that also explain why the Aborigine people themselves have a strong relationship with the dreamworld?

I cannot help but muse about the notion of an Australian genius loci or ‘spiritual guardian’ (and the subtle ways in which it might have fostered my interests and aspirations), because not once, in the nearly four decades that have passed since my birth, has my fascination with dreams abated. In fact, ever since my formative years in Australia I have actually experienced a stream of revelatory and premonitory dreams during my sleep – powerful ones, that I can still call forth to this day, even though many years have stretched out between the dreaming and the remembering; and those dream experiences have not only carried me down the rivers of time, to this present moment, but they have also culminated in the whirlpool of stories that now make up this podcast. So even though they are sporadic, and even though long passages of time can drift between each one, my revelatory and premonitory dreams are in fact the most significant and defining features of my internal life; and I have not only come to treasure them dearly, but I have also learned to pay attention to them whenever they occur.

In this introductory essay I will therefore share a little bit more about my personal experiences with the dreamworld, and present you with some of my own ideas about the capability, potentiality and deeper purpose of dreams; which I hope will serve as an informative backdrop to the fictional tales that await you on the show. That said, if you are champing at the bit with eagerness and you would just like to dive straight into the first official tale – entitled The Love Is in The Blood – then please be my guest! I hope that you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed writing and narrating it. For those of you who would like to stay with me, however, please make yourself as comfortable as possible in this sonic house of mine and allow me to take you on a wee journey – a journey that will shape all of our podcast adventures to come.

I’m A. K. Bonn . . . and this is the inception of Dreamhouse Row.

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I mentioned briefly that I have experienced a stream of revelatory and premonitory dreams since my formative years in Australia, and for the purposes of clarity I am referring to those dreams that are truly out of the ordinary (to those rare, one-of-a-kind dreams that have a distinct ‘messenger’ vibe, for want of a better term); and you will know without a shadow of a doubt if you have experienced one of them because they nearly always leave you with a visceral sense that you have been duly foretold or forewarned. Indeed, these are the sleep experiences that can often impact you so powerfully that you feel compelled to mention them to other people at the first opportunity. They are very direct and personal, so much so that they somehow manage to take up residence within the walls and floors of your psyche and then continue to haunt you for a long time afterwards . . . long after you’ve shaken off the night and stepped into the day.

It would be impossible for me to calculate the sheer number of times that I have dreamed such dreams as these, and it would be equally as impossible for me to list the many ways in which they have given me profound insights or greater levels of clarity into the past experiences, current issues and upcoming events of my daily life. I have found that – without fail – my revelatory and premonitory dreams have always opened up new lines of inquiry within my mind, or new ways of perceiving things, and they have consistently offered me ‘sneak-peeks’ into the various undercurrents of my real-life relationships and environments; showing me the things that I would otherwise remain unaware of in my awake state. In fact, I have often wondered whether or not there is an evolutionary impulse within the core of the subconscious mind, and whether or not that impulse is specifically to provide human beings with extra-sensory insights about their conscious reality (to provide human beings with discreet and timely tip-offs about their daily life, in other words).

If the subconscious mind does indeed have such a catalytic impetus or primary aim, and if the phenomenon of dreaming is it’s tool of choice to achieving that aim, then our dreams are – in effect – an ingenious way for the subconscious to prod us and prompt us into evolving. Dreams are a private, confidential, sound-proof, bullet-proof and encrypted means of relaying crucial and urgent communications about our daily lives; and they are even packed with multiple layers or angles of interpretation (with each layer or angle being just as valid as the other ones), which means that dreams not only speak to the dreamer directly, but also to whomever might interpret the dream on the dreamer’s behalf. Well, that has certainly been my experience to date! ‘Thought you might like this . . .’ my subconscious will gently nudge, before slipping a sealed envelope into the pocket of my dreaming mind; and even if the message contained within the envelope is hard to accept or assimilate when I wake up, I have nevertheless found that these discreet tip-offs are benevolent in nature – like tailor-made gifts that arrive just at the right time to offer me encouragement, validation, relief or excitement, during the sometimes difficult challenges of mundane life.

Every now and then, however, I will experience a particularly bad nightmare (one that feels unusually negative or malevolent), and it will rap at the door of my psyche like an uninvited guest, proclaiming dire warnings or stark reminders or disturbing possibilities. ‘Hey!’ it shouts. ‘Are you aware of X, Y or Z?!’ And so I find that whenever this type of psychic event happens I always wake up feeling anxious and out-of-sorts, with a sense of urgency or a pressing need to take some kind of action. But again, for the purposes of clarity, I am referring to those nightmares that go above and beyond the ordinary journeys of sleep (to those one-of-a-kind nightmares that really jolt you awake and leave you feeling stressed or even fearful); and thankfully, touch wood, I only seem to experience them during significant or critical periods of my life.

I was about seven when I had my first revelatory dream and I can still conjure it up within my mind as if I only just dreamt it last night. The dream started with me climbing a spiral stairwell (a wide stone stairwell that snaked around the inner column of a castle turret), but the first thing that really struck me about the dream-scene was the eerie silence and the sense of desolation. I was the only person in that wing of the castle – as far as I knew – and although I wasn’t scared, I was nevertheless on guard; because there was one particular person whom I didn’t wish to chance an encounter with, but I presumed that he was lurking somewhere outside, on the castle grounds. Safely outside, I mistakenly thought. Safely outside. My bare feet slapped upon the flagstone steps as I persevered up to the top, and in eager anticipation of the view that I knew was coming, I trailed my child fingers along the cracks and slabs of the curved stone wall beside me. Like reading Braille, I thought with a smile, as I neared the end of my climb.

Rounding the last bend of the stairwell I finally beheld a broad, empty landing; and directly above this landing – built into the masonry itself – there gaped a tall, narrow slit which served as a window to the outside world. But it was only when I peered out of this glassless window, to the familiar vista beyond, that I realised how dark the interior of the castle was. For the sky outside seemed awash with living light, and beneath it’s sapphire arc I could see bright rolling meadows lying just beyond the confines of the boundary wall. They were wild and free, those yellow-green meadows, and when the noonday sun shifted it’s gaze towards them they skipped and ran to the encroaching edge of a dense, emerald forest; but the forest was not ominous in any way, for it was teeming – I somehow knew – with the hallowed enchantment of an ancient and knowing magic. Home, I yearned, looking across to the line of watchful trees. That’s the home to which I was born, and the home to which I belong. And it was then that I remembered that the time of year was autumn, for the wafting scent of a bonfire told me that this was the season of the bountiful harvest – and the brutal, merciless cull.

Tearing my eyes away from the view, I turned to face a rickety wooden door that stood slightly to my left, just a few paces back towards the spiral stairwell. For beyond that door was a vacant, disused chamber, and it was this chamber that marked the highest point of the turret – there was nowhere else to go; but when I gripped the black iron handle with my small, child hand I was confused to find that the door wouldn’t budge. Indeed, the lock had been locked from the inside, and the bolt had been bolted across, and so in one sickening split-second I realised that the very person whom I had most hoped to avoid – the very person whom I had presumed was safely outside – had not only gone before me, but he had barricaded himself in. It was then that I heard the slow, retreating shuffle of his gout-swollen feet as he backed away from what I could sense was the middle of the room beyond. My step-father was a bully at best – but a coward? This took me by surprise. Frozen with tension, I listened to the sound of his scraping and scratching as he hefted his fat, rheumatic body up onto the ledge of a much wider window within. Scared, I realised, with a degree of shock. He’s scared . . . of me? Almost in answer to my own internal question my step-father then perched on the edge of his craggy sill – more crow than human by this point – and readied himself to jump. But it was only thanks to my dreaming eye that I was able to perceive this spectacle of him through the solid, wooden door; and I was immensely grateful for this quantum mercy, for it meant that I didn’t have to face the man directly.

Without wasting any time he awkwardly leapt out into the wide enveloping blue, turning in mid air to look back towards me, and for the briefest of moments a step-father and a step-daughter beheld one another through the charged, annihilating space of the Dreamtime. One experienced the relief of surrender, whilst the other one experienced the surrender of relief; and then at last, with one powerful gust of wind, the vision of the suspended man was blown right out of existence. A white smudge against the sapphire sky. A black smear against the family name. And then nothing – nothing that was, or ever had been, or ever would be again. My eyes flew open, smarting with tears, and it took me a moment to realise that I was was back in my bedroom (my bedroom in the ‘real world’ that is); in a sleepy house, on a sleepy street, in the sleepy suburb of Murrays Bay. The curtains were pulled tight, and the room was an indigo black, but the pounding in my chest said: ‘You must tell Mum – you must tell Mum!’

Slipping out from the warmth of my bed I crept towards the nearby door of my mother’s bedroom, which was conveniently situated right next to my own. My step-father Don was snoring loudly on the other side of the bed, thank God, which meant that I only had to sneak a couple of paces in order to reach Mum’s curled, sleeping form. Placing a hand on her shoulder I gently shook her awake, and it was almost a miracle – looking back – that she didn’t jump up or cry out. ‘Baby?’ she whispered, her eyes wide with concern; and so I leaned in as close as I possibly could and whispered urgently: ‘Don’s heart is like a locked room, but he’s thrown away the key!’ It took Mum a few seconds to absorb what I had said, but in the darkness of that moment, as we held each onto other’s hands, I knew that the tiniest chink of light had just penetrated our pit of hell – and that the emerald forest was calling us home.

A few days or weeks passed after that night (the specific time frame is a blur to me now), but on the morning of Easter Sunday – which occurs during the season of autumn in New Zealand – I awoke to the sound of my mother and Don fighting. As I sat in bed, quietly unwrapping the tinfoil from a chocolate Easter egg, my two older brothers came silently into the room and took a seat beside me. The three of us sat there for a few minutes, not daring to say a word. My eldest brother Ivor was tense and expectant, ready to intervene if he absolutely had to, but my other brother Mark was just electric with adrenaline. I could hear his thoughts as if there were my own, because in all truth, they were my own: It’s over! It’s finally over! When a coffee mug went smashing through the dining room window, and my mother’s footsteps went pounding down the stairs towards the front door, the boys burst out of my bedroom and leapt into action. It was a few minutes later that Ivor reappeared in my doorway and handed me a black rubbish sack. ‘Pack what you can,’ he said evenly. ‘We’re leaving.’

I’ll never forget that departure from 21a MacNay Way: how Mum floored the gas on our rusty station wagon and tore up the driveway like Burt Munro; how the boot was so jam-packed with black rubbish sacks that we couldn’t see anything through the rear-view window; how I felt nothing but love for the three other people sitting in the car; how my fingers were still sticky from the chocolate Easter egg. But what hovered above that crisis like a holy ghost was the serendipity of my dream and it’s astonishingly accurate symbolism; because a short while after we left that address my Mum tried to retrieve some more of our belongings, but when she returned to the house she was unable to get in. Don had changed all of the locks. So that scene from my dream – where I’m gripping the black iron handle of the rickety door, and I’m confused to find that it won’t budge – couldn’t have rung more true. And then of course there were the words that I urgently whispered to Mum afterwards, at her bedside: ‘Don’s heart is like a locked room, but he’s thrown away the key!’ How could I have possibly known, at such a young age, what lay beneath the taut veneer of their marriage – or what events would soon transpire over the Easter weekend?

Truly, that revelatory dream cemented something in me, and I can look back at it now – thirty years later – with a deep sense of appreciation and fondness. For it was my first real encounter with the great mystery of mysteries; my first memorable, significant interaction with a Higher Power, or sentient force, or intelligent design. So if my hunch is correct, and if there is indeed an evolutionary impulse or primary aim within the core of the subconscious mind (to provide human beings with extra-sensory insights about their conscious reality), then that dream, for me, is absolute proof of such an impulse. Which really does beg the question: who or what us sending us these subconscious tip-offs?

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Throughout my life I have met a number of people who have had similar dreams and nightmares to mine (dreams and nightmares that are of a distinctly revelatory or premonitory nature), and like me, these people have cultivated a deep and rich dialogue with their dreaming mind because of them. I therefore find it both comforting and intriguing to know that I am not alone with regards to my sleep experiences, because they can sometimes feel overwhelming and even a little alienating. The fellow dreamers whom I have been fortunate enough to meet have been almost identical to me, in that they regularly analyse the potent motifs of their dream-time; they strive to learn – and attain greater fluency in – the symbolic language of their dreams; and they deliberately cross-reference the themes and patterns of their ‘dream world’ with the everyday happenings of their ‘real world’. My mother, for example, is a fellow vivid dreamer, and she once dreamt that a light aircraft crashed down in her homeland of New Zealand. Incredibly, this tragic accident went and occurred in real-time just a couple of days later, and the story was splashed all over the New Zealand news. Then there was a totally separate and unrelated occasion whereupon she experienced a disturbing nightmare about a group of children being stabbed to death in a kindergarten; and as with her premonition of the plane crash prior, this horrific event went and transpired in real-time just a couple of days later, making international headlines in the process. Perhaps it was just mere coincidence . . . or perhaps there was a deeper connectivity at work. Either way, you couldn’t really script it.

Now if you have ever experienced a literal, premonitory dream like my mother’s ones (or a more allegorical, revelatory dream like my one), does it cause you any feelings of discomfort to consider how exactly this foreknowledge came to you during your sleep? Or does it fill you with a sense of wonder – a sense that the psychic landscape of our inner world is somehow tethered, inexplicably and miraculously, to the physical landscape of our outer world? For me personally this dream phenomenon has always inspired an immense feeling of wonder, and I have come to embrace the notion that our subconscious mind is just as sentient and self-aware as our conscious mind, and that it operates autonomously, as it’s own independent entity; both receiving information (about our inner and outer worlds), and then transmitting said information – in a non-linear time frame – via the medium of our dreams.

If this idea resonates with you as well, dear listener, and if you cherish the messages from your subconscious mind just as much as I cherish mine, then you might perhaps agree with me that our vivid dreams are extremely significant (and that it is both foolish and arrogant to simply write them off as meaningless at worst, or coincidental at best). In fact, if you are anything like me, you will have enough curiosity and self-awareness to take pause whenever a vivid dream is gifted to you. You will sharpen your senses, and suspend your disbelief, and pay close attention to the encoded messages that your psyche is offering up to you; because whether it be by intuition or instinct, you can just feel – in the marrow of your bones – that the relationship between your internal ‘dream world’ and the external ‘real world’ is an ongoing, ever-evolving mystery. Granted, this phenomenon sits within a relatively niche field of enquiry, and it is not a topic that gets regularly featured on the six o'clock news, but you and I – and a growing number of people – can nevertheless appreciate that this dream phenomenon is profound; and that it is nothing short of astonishing whenever we get given glimpses during our sleep – glimpses that reel by like cinematic scenes – which inform us about the past, present, and sometimes even future events of our daily lives.

So if you have found yourself saying ‘yes’ or ‘I agree’ to any of these musings so far, then please feel free to pause here for a quick Kit Kat break and boil yourself another brew; because I would love to propose three fundamental, key ideas about the capability, potentiality and deeper purpose of dreams – and then we can get on with the show!

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The first key idea that I would like to propose for your consideration is that the relationship between our internal ‘dream world’ and our external ‘real world’ is not just one mystery of life, but the core mystery of life; the mystery that sits at the heart of all others. For we could talk at length about the many subject areas of ‘unexplainable phenomena’ (like paranormal activity and near-death experiences for example), or we could try to reconcile some of the intriguing anomalies surrounding the Egyptian pyramids, the Bermuda triangle, the Great Lakes, the crop circles, and the m-state properties of Ormus. Indeed, if we’re feeling really adventurous, we could go even further afield: we could delve into the most popular conspiracy theories of our day (like the ‘flat earth’ theory, the mud flood theory, the Mandela effect, and the holographic moon), or we could try to grapple with some of the mind-boggling advancements in artificial intelligence. But all of this subject matter, as titillating and thought-provoking as it is, becomes almost irrelevant if we are still unable to explain – or at least better understand – the mysterious relationship between our vivid dreams and our conscious reality (not to mention the pivotal role that our biological brain is playing as the intercessor between the two).

Indeed, our biological brain is solely responsible for facilitating this psychophysical relationship, and it may just hold the key to understanding the cosmic relationship between spirit and matter – or mass and energy – in general. For on the one hand our brain is a highly-sophisticated central processing unit (CPU) that operates on the corporeal plane of existence, and yet it clearly possesses an extremely advanced ‘dream capability’ that operates on the incorporeal plane/s of existence; which means that it is somehow able to function in two different places or states at once, and therefore serve as an interface between the tangible and the intangible – or the natural and the supernatural (for want of a better word). Furthermore, this mysterious ‘dream capability’ is also enabling us humans to receive glimpses of the future during our rapid eye movement or REM sleep state, and to thereby anticipate upcoming events – and formulate highly accurate predictions – during our awake state; which affirms, yet again, that the grey matter of our brain is able to operate outside of the construct of space-time while being simultaneously locked within it. We need only look at the premonitory dreams that my mother experienced – of the plane crash in New Zealand and the kindergarten stabbings – as two such examples of this time-bending capability and phenomenon.

But even if we ignore the time-bending aspect for a moment (as incredible as it is), dreaming is still an unparalleled psychophysiological function of our brain and it is because of the unique way in which it operates autonomously, without our conscious participation. Indeed, dreaming is a far more advanced capability than our other mental functions like praying, meditating, visualising, imagining, fantasising, hallucinating, channelling and prophesying; because whilst those particular functions rely solely on our conscious participation, the process of dreaming does not (it is somehow happening of it’s own accord while we are asleep – or partially asleep). And to add another layer of complexity to it, one could also argue that dreaming is a combination of those other mental functions anyway; and yet – paradoxically – because of it’s aforementioned autonomy, it nevertheless remains a distinctly separate mental function from them all. It is truly in a category of its own.

So what does our brain’s ‘dream capability’ tell us about the nature of reality and the nature of being? Where does the ‘dream world’ end and the ‘real world’ begin – and how exactly are these two worlds reflecting each other with such uncanny accuracy? Furthermore, if quantum physicists are telling us that matter is not in fact solid, and that everything we see is just a confluence of oscillating wave-forms, then is there even a ‘real world’ at all? Or are we seamlessly drifting in-and-out of a dream within a dream within a dream? And if so, who or what is doing the dreaming? I personally feel that until these questions are answered, or until we can better explain our brain’s pivotal role in the psychophysiological process of dreaming, none of the other mysteries of life (like paranormal activity, or the crop circles, or the Egyptian pyramids, for example), can be properly grasped or placed within an appropriate context. Which is why I am proposing that the relationship between our internal ‘dream world’ and our external ‘real world’ is not just one mystery of life, but the core mystery of life; the mystery that sits at the heart of all others. And to that end, I also feel that the premonitory aspect of dreaming warrants far more investigation by the major disciplines of academia (not just the specialist fields of psychology or philosophy); because it is a time-bending phenomenon that is so central to our lived experience as human beings and yet still, with all of our advancements in digital technology, we cannot seem to replicate – let alone explain – the organic technology of our dreams.

This now leads me to the second key idea that I would like to propose for your consideration, and it is that our dreams are not meant to be experienced alone, in isolation, but rather they are meant to be shared. Indeed, I am firmly of the belief that both our dreams and nightmares are precious gifts – like messages in bottles, if you will, washing up from a sentient sea of consciousness – and that we are each called to treat them as such; we are each called to retrieve them from our internal psychic landscape, bring them out into the external light of day, and then share them with the ones we love or with the wider world at large. For it is my personal opinion that the cryptic symbols and encoded messages of our dreams are not only bubbling up from our own subconscious realm, but also from the shared subconscious realm of humanity as a whole; and it is only thanks to the pioneering work of Carl Gustav Jung, the famed psychoanalyst of the twentieth century, that we can refer to this subconscious realm of humanity as the ‘collective unconscious’. In fact, it was Jung who first conceptualised and coined the phrase ‘collective unconscious’, and he specifically described it as a deep reservoir or storehouse in which all of the accumulated experiences of our ancestors are contained. This certainly is a beautiful and helpful image for us to visualise when we’re exploring the field of dreams and the phenomenon of dreaming.

But if we dive deeper into this ancestral reservoir for a moment (if we dive further down into it’s fathomless depths), we may just find that the ‘collective unconscious’ not only contains the accumulated experiences of every human being, but also the accumulated experiences of every sentient being; and if that is indeed the case, then it would be remiss of us not to descend even further still – even further down into the pitch-black waters of cosmic sleep and dreams. For if we allow ourselves to sink right down . . . down, down, down into the bottomless well of universal thought and memory . . . and if we allow ourselves – just for a moment – to entertain the idea of a God or a pantheon of Gods . . . we may just find that the ‘collective unconscious’ not only contains the accumulated experiences of every human being and every sentient being, but also the accumulated experiences of the cosmic Creator/s. So if there is even the remotest possibility that this is true, then our vivid dreams are not only gifting us with an amazing opportunity to tap into the buried gold of our own human psyches, but also the buried gold of the ‘supreme’ or ‘original’ psyche/s; which means that we have an unmissable chance here, for both us as individuals and Creation as a whole, to learn, heal, evolve and transcend – with and through each other.

Which is why I am proposing that our dreams are not meant to be experienced alone, in isolation, but rather they are meant to be shared. For when we release our sleep-visions from the privacy of our own mind and speak them aloud to one another, we are in effect giving them the chance to set sail upon the waves of other minds; and so we have no way of knowing how far those ripples of illumination might spread into the ether, or how many beings might benefit from the raising of our psychic treasure. And if indeed the act of sharing our dreams can help to heal and integrate the unresolved psychological complexes of all sentient beings in Creation (from the subatomic to the cosmic), then who knows what blessings might be in store for us when we give voice to our dreams and pass the proverbial parcel? Who knows what surprises might drift back to us on the incoming tide?

So as we come to the end of this passage together, I would like to propose the third and final key idea for your consideration; and it is that whenever we dream we are in fact witnessing, and participating in, a psychical wedding. On one level, as we have already covered, this psychical wedding is taking place between the events of our internal ‘dream world’ and the events of our external ‘real world’, via the interface of our biological brain; and this is nothing short of mind-boggling given that our brain is somehow managing to wed these internal and external events across our past, present and future (thus proving that it is able to operate outside of the construct of space-time while being simultaneously locked within it). But this very paradox actually gives us a clue as to the higher purpose, or deeper magic, of our nightly sleep and dreams . . . for on another level, perhaps a more poetic one, there is a second psychical wedding taking place whenever we dream – and it is taking place between the dual aspects of our very own being.

Indeed, we are beings that are made of both the mind and the body, the spirit and the animal, the material and the immaterial, and the natural and the supernatural; but it is only when we are asleep and actively dreaming that these dual aspects of our being can properly come together without any interference or distraction from external reality. Thus, whenever we are fully immersed in the depths of REM sleep and specifically engaged in the process of dreaming, we have a rare opportunity to experience every single aspect of our contradictory nature at the very same time; like being simultaneously conscious and unconscious, for example (conscious of our dreams as they are playing out in our imaginal realm, yet unconscious of the external reality around us as we lie asleep in the physical realm). With this imagery as a framework, it starts to become clear that through the miraculous process of dreaming we are not only being given time-bending messages about our corporeal ‘real world’, but we are also being given moments of perfect union within our incorporeal ‘dream world’.

These moments of perfect union are sacred and fleeting, just like our human lives. So whenever we are lucky enough to descend into the fathomless depths of our subconscious realm and explore the vast landscape of our ‘dream world’, we must savour every moment of the round-trip journey and try to remember as much of it as possible when we wake up. For it is only when we are down there in that place of dreams – in that place where fantasy and reality are one and the same – that our paradoxical being can be whole unto itself; and it is only when we are down there – in that pitch-black reservoir of universal thought and memory – that our contradictory nature can be simultaneously: timeless and time-bound, limitless and limited, infinite and finite, and alive and dead (or dead to the world at least). Indeed, it is only through the miraculous process of dreaming that we are able to attain a state of perfect union, or wedded bliss, with the many other halves of who we are; which means that whoever or whatever constructed the mechanism of dreaming is not only a genius, and a gifted artist, but a hopeless romantic as well . . . and that should give each and every one of us pause – if not a tiny, weeny thrill of excitement.

So it is here at last that we arrive in the liminal realm, where one journey ends and another one begins, and I feel truly honoured to have had you join me on such a deep odyssey beneath the psychic sea. Thus, in the spirit of ‘raising psychic treasure’ and ‘passing the parcel’, I will now leave you to hold this introductory essay – and the upcoming fictional tales of the Dreamhouse Row podcast. May they bring you blessings and boons, however great or small, and may they gift you with many magical moments of self-recognition or self-illumination. Thank you so much for listening – and happy dreaming!

A. K. Bonn

Thames, New Zealand

September 2024

This episode was published on the 9th of September 2024 (NZST) when the Waxing Crescent Moon was transitioning through the constellation of Scorpio.