This is how I dream

Brief but visual, and intense in its effect. The dream fragment is so clear, I can still see it. I can still feel it – the fear, the exhilaration, the journey.

Beautiful, rustic surroundings. Mountains. I thought, “Nepal”.

I was on a massive bus, loaded heavily with passengers and belongings. I noticed the rich, brown earthen roadway, the blue sky, the dusty passengers, the foreign vista. Then I felt the bus approach a massive, declining hill, and its nose dipped…

But this hill was unlike any other I had ever traveled, as a driver, passenger or pedestrian – and it was steeper than I even thought mechanically possible for the rambling old bus. Nonetheless, the driver took it with speed, confidence and even familiarity.

Together with the other passengers, I inhaled sharply and dreaded the potential outcome…

There was a suspended silence and a stomach turning sensation. In the same moment that I wondered if the back wheels of the bus were still on the road, my fear turned to a kind of bliss. We were making it… and it felt like floating. I was free, and perhaps faith alone was carrying the entire load.

The vehicles ahead of us (which seemed too slow at first) now cleared obstacles for us, and moved with perfect timing…

We flew down, endlessly down, and eventually met level roadway again.

I woke in that moment, with an actual breathless laugh escaping my lips… I felt as though I had literally just journeyed that dangerous road; I felt accomplished and brave.

And I felt as though I had just received a very important message…

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I’m a big believer in keeping “dream journals”; as they often become a retrospective teacher on your own life. Each time I revisit an old dream, I marvel at the life experiences that unfolded all around it – the dream becomes ripe with relevance and meaning, now that I am appreciating it all from a completely different vantage point. This particular dream was recorded on January 25, 2016 – not long after my third trip to Nepal. At that time, I was heartbroken to have left Nepal again (which is my heart’s home), but the dream challenged me to reframe the entire experience of leaving it. After all, an “ending” never diminishes the experience… Everything ends, but it’s the lived experience – the unrepeatable, perfect, chaotic and breathless experience – that forever remains.