{Dreams and Prophecies [continued(4)]}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:20][19860907:0612o]{Dreams and Prophecies [continued(4)]}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

A similar event quite definitely caused resentment and also illustrates the difficulty of separating significant dreams and some waking states: I have mentioned this at least once before [in this journal]. On the basis of growing misgivings, I once (and once only) read Tarots for the future*; and advised my mother not to got to Rhodesia with my [youngest] sister [L].

On the strength of this my father advised her not to go. She cancelled her trip; some days before she would have gone, she went to hospital with stomach problems: which in fact sorted themselves out, but only did so because one of the best surgeons available had the confidence not to operate. Had she held to her plan, the trouble could well have been postponed (as illnesses often are) until she relaxed – after arrival; had she been taken ill in Rhodesia, the chances are that she would have had the major operation in a relatively primitive country.

But some time later, she expressed her resentment that I had advised her against going, and that nothing had happened in Rhodesia when she would have been there.

*[[Redbook2:185-186][19810628:2240]{A Tarot Reading}[28^th June 1981]]

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{Dreams and Prophecies [continued(3)]}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:19-20][19860907:0612n]{Dreams and Prophecies [continued(3)]}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

I have experience of this* myself: some years ago I had a vivid dream** about waiting outside a hospital*** door, from which my father came to say: '[B] is dead. They let him out too soon.' (Many years before this my father had told me of his experience with army motorcyclists who were let out too soon after training, became overconfident, and killed themselves).

To the best of my recollection, the point of this is was that [B] was in fact about to buy a motor-cycle; but that I did not know this until a few days after the dream. When I did know, I mentioned this to my mother, who told my father, who spoke to [B] about the dangers, but advised against mentioning the dream. [B] was not killed or injured, and I sometimes wonder whether this [incident] helped to destroy my credibility with my parents and even contributed to the[...] shameful treatment of us over the flat; but of course the point is that I had the dream before I knew of the motorcycle (if my memory is correct) and that the dream as a warning may have served its purpose.

*[See last previous entry]

**[[Redbook2:333-334][19840515:1715b]{A Dream – of Warning? – Let Out Too Soon}[15^th May 1984]]

***{assumed to be a hospital}

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{Dreams and Prophecies [continued]}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:18-19][19860907:0612m]{Dreams and Prophecies [continued]}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

Logical problems occur with the validity of dreams when conclusions (or information) are presented by the dream but derived from information not available to the dreamer's normal waking mind. The borderline* is often more difficult to define in practice than one might expect. From my own experience (supported by the recounted experiences of others) I am inclined to think that this does happen (with validity in terms of the waking world order) but I cannot show evidence of any particular mechanism to make it possible.

What I can do is to offer a solution to two problems over 'prophetic' dreams, the predestination objection and the false prophecy problem. The first objection is that a prophetic dream implies a fixed future. It is quite possible that the future is fixed from a viewpoint outside Time but fluid from a viewpoint within Time; but apart from this, it is possible that prophetic dreams are warnings of a future that may happen rather than one that will. This would also account for false prophecies, and the two problems would cancel each other out.

*(i.e. between information available to the dreamer's waking mind, and information not so available)

[continues]

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{Dreams and Prophecies}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:18-21][19860907:0612l]{Dreams and Prophecies}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

It is perhaps worth stating (or re-stating) my views about these dreams; these views are likely to change. I am fairly certain that the dreams provide a form of access to parts of the Mind to which it is difficult to obtain access during normal waking life. What these parts of the Mind are, and what is the validity of their insights, is not certain. The access seems to be under the control (if that is the right word) of the parts of the mind accessed, or at least not of the normal waking mind.

Conclusions arrived at in, or as a result of, such dreams are likely to be presented in symbolic terms. Where they are arrived at solely as a result of knowledge possessed by (or through) the normal waking mind, no logical problem arises in accepting their validity: where the conclusions are verifiable in the short-term, many people have attested to the success of this process (not least scientists)*. This does not mean, of course, that they have to be right; merely that they often are.

*e.g. the structure of Benzene? <930120>

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{A Dream: [(7)] The Church Militant}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:16-18][19860907:0612k]{A Dream: [(7)] The Church Militant}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

(7) This morning, I dreamt that [W] and I were standing at the corner of (I think) Royal Hospital Road and Chelsea Bridge Road*, when I was suddenly aware of the beginning of my next novel, which was to draw attention to the expanse of the Sky above Cambridge.** (In waking life I derive this from a comparison I made of the size of the Sky on the hilltop here with that in Cambridgeshire: but it fits well with the developments expected later in the book.) In the dream I could not at first find the exact word I wanted to describe the expanse of Sky; but I suppose that ?I must have found it, because I wrote about half a page on the pad I carried.

At that point a car came round the corner from Chelsea Bridge towards Chelsea rather fast, and nearly hit our Fiat Panda [4x4] – which was parked near the corner where we stood. I was so incensed at this that I threw my yellow biro at the car and hit it. The car immediately pulled up – on our side of the road – and four black-garbed*** clergymen got out. They were perhaps slightly aggressive about my action and insisted on a proper exchange of names and addresses (as at an accident). [W] was about to give them my pad to write on but I hastily took it back, not wanting them to see what I had written. I turned over the page – in order to find a blank sheet – but uncovered only an earlier and rather childish drawing of railway lines**** which I tried to hide. One of the clergymen saw this, and said something rather sarcastic.

The street corner filled up with a small crowd who seemed to be involved with repairing the road (or the pavement) on the corner. I had an idea that my brother [B] was there. After the crowd had gone, the road (or pavement) had been repaired and the clergymen and their car had also gone.

At this point I woke up, feeling rather pleased about the book.

*{On the North Side of Royal Hospital Road, actually.} A warning against memory: I now 'remember' this as the Smith Street/[St. Leonard's Terrace] crossroads <900405>

**19870326: The actual opening [of [2]] [as originally written] was rather different, but the Sky certainly features in the book, and is crucial (in its expanse) to the Propagation Experiment.

***{hassocks, are they called?} [the black garb, not the clergymen – cassocks (what they kneel in) not hassocks (what they kneel on) nor for that matter cossacks (what they might have to kneel to...).]

****In lectures at Cambridge I used to do[odle] this! i.e. primitive Jungian Mandalas (pre-Circles). <890929>

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{A Dream: [(6)] of Madness}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:15-16][19860907:0612j]{A Dream: [(6)] of Madness}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

(6) In waking life, I have been unable to shake off my pre-occupation with, and resentment over, the way in which (as I believe) we have been cheated and deceived out of £30,000 of the proceeds of our flat by my [father]; and the more I think about it, the more clear it seems to me.

I think it was two nights before last that I dreamt I was in a hospital, and the a Nurse was trying to give me an injection: I was giving her a very hard time, alternately thanking her for being so patient and accusing her of malpractice; she was reacting in a human (suppressed) kind of way, which only made me furiously angry, in a way in which I can only recall having been in dreams – and usually with my dream-parents, siblings, or even a cousin. At one time I seem to recall she tried to inject me through a coat I was wearing.

A Doctor appeared: and also a detached, superior-looking fellow in a white coat who stood slightly apart, looking on in a manner both aloof and interested: even, one would say, slightly amused. I went up to him and said: 'Am I addressing...?*' He nodded; but before I had time to say (or hear) more, the Doctor called me over.

The Doctor (had?) initially pussy-footed; but suddenly his approach changed and hardened, and he began to describe the history of a pre-historic tribal boy, outcast in some way I think, whom I believe he called Mogadon**; he also slipped in a reference to one or two names and characters which silenced me completely, as I realised that these were schizophrenic symptoms of mine. In a moment of detachment I realised that my sudden silence was in itself characteristic evidence to him of my illness, of one of those typical moments of lucidity when the patient realises that he has been behaving in a fashion which is psychiatrically diseased: by a horrible irony, the moments when he is not mad are those moments when he is most acutely aware that he is. At that moment, in the terrible realisation that I was mad, I woke up.

*[Presumably a name was spoken here but not remembered]

**Isn't this a drug – perhaps for schizophrenics? <930120> [No – it is for anxiety and insomnia. <20150809>]

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{A Dream: [(5)] Dunnet Head}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:14-15][19860907:0612i]{A Dream: [(5)] Dunnet Head}[7^th September 1986]

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[continued]

(5) At some stage between dreams (1)* and (2)** above, I dreamt that I visited Dunnet Head House, entering from the ?West; found it to be bigger*** than we expected, but said that it was not the right place; turned left and (?)Northwards at right angles to cross some water (more like a loch than Sea) by a narrow bridge onto a hill at the other end of which (but very close) was the light of where we must go....

*[Redbook3:9-10][19860907:0612b]{A Dream: The Bishop, the Priest and the Pale Spirit}[7^th September 1986]

**[Redbook3:10-11][19860907:0612c]{A Dream: The Black-faced Rector}[7^th September 1986]

***(inside)<860924>

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{A Dream: [(4)] Profaning the Church}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:14][19860907:0612h]{A Dream: [(4)] Profaning the Church}[7^th September 1986]

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[continued]

(4) The night after we saw the Rectory from the outside, but the night before we visited it, I dreamt that I was at a party at which a girl was doing something sexy and vaguely party-ish; but I raised the question of whether we should really be doing this sort of thing in front of the altar in the old Church.

This experience [sic], and the series of dreams, encapsulates my problem with the Church: that I love the idea of the Church, but cannot cope with clergy and congregations; and that I love to go into Churches, but only (normally) when they are quiet and empty.

{I was attracted by the idea of being the caretaker (or even “owner”) of the lovely but disused St. Luke's Church at Greystead.}

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{Kielder Water [continued(4)]}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:13-14][19860907:0612g]{Kielder Water [continued(4)]}[7^th September 1986]

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[continued]

The second* curious (and rather unnerving) aspect about the Rectory (which turned out to be far too expensive and quite unsuitable in other ways**) was that the owner turned out to be the widow of the writer Grierson***: she spoke about him as though he had only just died: how he had been called to the Bar and done his pupillage; how he had decided to write because (as he said) he could never be as brilliant as his pupil-master, Denning****; how they had come to the Rectory with his mother, and lived on the top floor so as to have some privacy from her; how the present owner had only one daughter, born when she was nearly forty, and now thirty-four years old; how they had carefully put their money from film rights etc. into a useless insurance policy instead of cleverly into land.... Her predicament and history had so many parallels with mine that this alone would have quite put me off buying the Rectory. I felt extremely sorry for her and rather unnerved.

*[See last previous entry]

**She intended to live in the stable block, which was therefore excluded from the sale [but not from the sale particulars.] {930120}

***[Crime/detective story writer; Edward (1914-1975), I think, not Francis (1888-1972), and certainly not Francis (b1848)]

****[Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning, OM, PC, DL, QC (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999), commonly known as Lord Denning: an English lawyer and judge.]

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{Kielder Water [continued(3)]}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:12-13][19860907:0612f]{Kielder Water [continued(3)]}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

In waking life*, we travelled North through what was (although we did not discover that until Kielder) the tail end of Hurricane Charlie: we did in fact pass through the flooded valleys of the Yorkshire Dales, saw flooded caravan sites, ploughed through flooded moorland roads, and had some difficulty in the winds on the higher moors in keeping to our road at all. When I saw the rectory across the valley near Kielder I said to [W] words to the effect of 'It only needs to be for sale' – and it was. It was also on the River North Tyne. Everything seemed to fit so exactly that for a while I thought I had found the place [sic]: but after a while I thought of that first dream** more carefully: the curious fact was that the River North Tyne was about the only local river not to have been flooded, and I imagine the reason to have been that it is controlled by Kielder Water. The only circumstances which I could envisage in which the River North Tyne would seriously overflow would be in the event of some catastrophe at Kielder Water, which could conceivably affect the Rectory (or the Churchyard).

One possible further missing link has just fallen into place. I had been puzzled about my dream being in Trafalgar Square: but when we were looking round the Rectory, the owner told us that it had been built after the Napoleonic Wars, along with others nearby, to provide jobs for ex-Forces Chaplains; hence, possibly, Trafalgar?

*[See last two previous entries]

**[See last previous entry but one; and cf. [Redbook2:304][19831007:1430]{A Dream: The River North Tyne}[7^th October 1983], but see long footnote. So far as I am aware Kielder Water and the Rectory remain unscathed!]

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{Kielder Water [continued]}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:12][19860907:0612f]{Kielder Water [continued]}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

(b)* I was travelling Northwards**, almost as a refugee; the land behind me to the South was flooding, and water was rising in all the narrow valleys. Once in the hills, however – which reached out in spurs from the northern highland between the flooding valleys – I was able to turn round on what I took to be the narrow highland and watch the flooding [of the] South from safety. Turning North again, I saw that a whole new high country opened up: a Country of light, refuge, and new beginnings.***[sic]

*[See last previous entry]

**See note to II.327 to re-orient this [i.e. as relative directions only]. <871223-4>

***{This last phase is not in II.327 (cf. Doris Lessing's science fiction).} [Redbook2:327-328][19840119:1030b]{A Dream: of Floods and Highlands}[19^th January 1984]

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{Kielder Water}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:11][19860907:0612e]{Kielder Water}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

In waking life, before this series of dreams started, I had the curious experience of finding a rectory for sale at Greystead, near Kielder. The experience was curious for two reasons.

First, many [sic] years ago I had two dreams (or was it two parts of one dream?) which I recorded: that journal is now in store (I hope) but so far as I can recall they were as follows:

(a) I was in Trafalgar Square; but (and there may be other parts forgotten) I walked through a Churchyard in the North-west corner. The churchyard began (I think) to quake, and a voice said: 'The River North Tyne is overflowing its banks'.* [sic].

*[Not quite: see [Redbook2:304][19831007:1430]{A Dream: The River North Tyne}[7^th October 1983] (and footnote).]

[continues]

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{A Dream: [(3)] Church Accounts}

[Redbook3:11][19860907:0612d]{A Dream: [(3)] Church Accounts}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

(3) Inside a Church*, during a Service, the congregation are making a noise among themselves; I am studying an Accountant's 14-column sheet with black and red figures**. The clergyman stops the service and asks the congregation whether they want him to continue; they tell him No, and leave in a body.

*Possibly a new church at our new home: in that [=this?] dream { – Which? <890929>} the clergyman is very tall and looks remarkably like the Rector who christened [d] (but isn't).

**My resignation as Church Warden at [The Cross] {c9011} was the result specifically of a disagreement with the Secretary and other Church Warden (who were sisters) over the way the accounts were kept, as well as being due to the general practice [not by the Minister Canon [XQ]] of excluding me (and my English predecessor) from any discussions involving the church. <911100>

[X[Q]][The Minister] has now also [sic] retired, c92 Summer. <930120>.

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{A Dream: [(2)] The Black-faced Rector}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:10-11][19860907:0612c]{A Dream: [(2)] The Black-faced Rector}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

(2)(a) I returned to a local Church in Chelsea, and encountered the Rector who had christened [d]. To my great surprise, he had a black face: not a black body, nor even a black head, but specifically a black face, as though painted. I said to him (while passing his Church door): 'I will be back.' He said: 'Perhaps'. This comment made me (or was it [W]?) angry; but I had to admit the truth of the possibility.*

(b) Inside the Church, everyone else still seemed to be in black. We sat in two seats at the side, with other seats in front and behind, but ours were the only seats in that row on our side of the nearest aisle (to our right). On our left I was taken aback to see an arch with what I took to be a door in it, on which were written the words 'The Bishop': I was afraid that I would be blocking the Bishop's entrance. I then realised that the words were not inscribed in a door, but in a blank section of wall: there was no door within the Arch.**

*After [d]'s Christening, we had been encouraged to return; but had done so, I think, only once <930120>.

**When the Archbishop visited [The Cross] Church [in about 1989?], I was seated in the choir with my back to the high arch which communicates with the vestry (once a doorway) through which I heard the Archbishop talking to [X[Q]] (but not what he said!) <890915>.

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{A Dream: [(1)] The Bishop, the Priest and the Pale Spirit}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:9-10][19860907:0612b]{A Dream: [(1)] The Bishop, the Priest and the Pale Spirit}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

[continued]

(1) A bishop visits a priest who has a failure-to-cope problem (like alcoholism, but probably not that). * Together they travel to a different place, at right-angles to the original place, where the (pale) spirit of a person formerly living on Earth comes to their assistance. Following from what they do there, an image and a message of significance are revealed: the image of an infinite succession of mothers, loving and naked, holding their naked new-born babies; and the words: '...No mother need ever again be separated from (/lose?) her Baby.' Waking, I had an appointment to meet next day an Auditor, a man whom I knew to have lost his daughter. In the context of my moving to Scotland, he talked to me about religious matters, the loss of his daughter (who was 13, and died in March, within the space of about three days, from pneumonia), and the help he had received from people during this period. After some hesitation I told him about this dream: he seemed moved by the message (which I think I got slightly wrong); but I felt strongly that I was at a critical moment in my own development, which I must not refuse. Afterwards I felt (when driving home) at first moved and elated, then rather flat and anti-climactical [sic]; finally dazed and very tired. I did try not to feel pleased with myself.**

(Here I may have missed out some dreams of significance – what a beautifully ambiguous expression – there was at any rate a gap in time between the first dream, soon after arriving at [C], and the next series, which happened close together, starting either just before or just after we arrived at [The Round House].)

*I am at the moment being put forward by Canon [XQ] *** to Archbishop [FM], the two being close friends <890915> . [X[Q]] was in his 'semi-retirement' parish following 1 or 2 heart attacks due to stress <930120>. I met [FM] (now retired) with [X[Q]] after they had come together from [X[Q]]'s house to [The Cross] Church [<930120>(?)]

**[How did he feel, really?]

***[Also (formerly?) the Diocesan Exorcist.]

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{Scotland}[7th September 1986]

[Redbook3:9][19860907:0612]{Scotland}[7^th September 1986]

19860907.0612

Since leaving the flat [in London] (on 13^th/14^th August), and particularly while living and travelling in the Land Rover [caravanette], I have been fairly pre-occupied with problems of a practical, financial and emotional kind; but this has not stopped a succession of dreams which seem significant in one way or another, starting soon after we left London and continuing with greater frequency since we arrived here (on the 2^nd September) at [The Round House]. So far as I can recall them, they are as follows (and, so far as I recall, in the order in which they occurred):*

*Actually the order in which they now occur to me. [See next entries]

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{Dreams of Lines and Landscapes: (3) The Hill}[5th May 1986]

[Redbook3:8][19860505:2012d]{Dreams of Lines and Landscapes: (3) The Hill}[5^th May 1986]

19860505.2012

[continued]

A high and massive hill or mountain of the Scottish type: sometimes I am wandering about on its dark lower slopes, sometimes I take the wrong path up it (e.g. up a deep wooded valley), sometimes I start on the right path but take the wrong turning and travel through an area of lakes and woodland on the near face before ending up further along the same side, down at the bottom again. Once or maybe twice, quite recently, I have approached the place where the right road goes over the high and bare shoulder of the hill, and I have seen the bright Sea on the other side; if I turn right at or just before this point, I come to a large Hotel: even larger inside than outside, and from the windows I looked back down to the area of lakes and woodland on the near face of the hill, back down in which I shortly found myself to be.

However, I do seem to be getting nearer! – or rather, further.

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