{A Dream: Inappropriately Undressed}[26th September 1989]

[Redbook6:272-273][19890926:2135]{A Dream: Inappropriately Undressed}[26th September 1989]

19890926.2135

A curious and rather embarrassing – in more ways than one – experience the night before last (I think): on warm nights, which it was, I generally sleep naked.  While still asleep, I became aware of myself lying in bed, with a feeling related to that sense of integrity which I used to experience in dreams of a particular significance:* almost describable as a feeling of grace, as though I was in a real (not just an actual) Church in an inner sense.  But I was also embarrassed to be naked, in bed: I did know that I was in bed.  The embarrassment was not so much social, as a feeling of spiritual inappropriateness.  I awoke, wide awake and rather hot, as I often used to after dreams of a particular significance. 

This is fascinating.  I never used to bother about sleeping naked while dreaming those dreams, nor did I think of myself as naked in the dreams.  Nor did I – nor do I – believe that nakedness is, in itself, wrong.  Can it be that what is appropriate then, is simply no longer appropriate?  – See Michelangelo’s Putti on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.**
***


*[ref eg [Redbook2:176-177][19801126:0050a]{(A Dream of Teaching [continued]:) ...and the Vehicle.}[26th November 1980];
[Redbook2:222][19820215:2340]{Integrity}[15th February 1982];
& cf [Redbook5:302][19880817:(am)]{Integrity}[17th August 1988]]  

**[There does not seem to be any other reference to this in these Journals;*** but it presumably refers to the point made by commentators that the state of dress/undress of the attendant genii tends to progress from one end of the ceiling to the other, and may be symbolic of spiritual progress or condition.]

***In fact, as a symbol it is at a particular stage appropriate ((ie J~-G~-R~-C~ increasingly, and (perhaps decreasingly, perhaps not) c-r~-g~→?). Although I have always imagined (S~)[xA](s~) as more fully clothed than anyone else – only face and hands showing, and a garment like a monk’s habit; hood usually down – I suspect that the dream has more to do with actual (and absurd) concerns about the appearance of being a parish priest: I had previously checked myself from wondering (ridiculously) whether a p[arish] p[riest] ought to be naked in bed! There is an after-echo, of this dream having been in a church; I do not know whether that is contemporaneous. <891002>
{cf IV [[Redbook4:221-222][19871213:2005e]{Walking with the Fair-haired Girl [continued (5)]}[13th December 1987],] 221}

****[But see [Redbook8:122][19901208:1843a]{Ritual Nakedness}[8th December 1990], fn=*<20221101>]

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