2001-04-22 - 1:39 p.m.

I dreamt last night that I was here in Canada and that I was visiting the preschool from my childhood (only it wasn't really the preschool I went to of course, it was someplace I had never been to in real life) - My mother was there and we were visiting huge rooms full of toys. While we were there I met two young men, a blonde and a brunette, who I recognized in my dream as two little boys that had been my playmates in sunday school when we were toddlers (of course in my real life as a child these boys had never existed) Each of the men and I were going from toy to toy and remembering playing with each one. There was one toy (which in real life I've never seen before) that was a necklace made of strings with 20 or so little velvet bags hanging at the bottom of the strings and each little velvet bag held a gumball. I put on the necklace and ate a couple of the gumballs and handed one to one of the boys who was with me. At the end of the warehouse of toys we entered a kitchen and there was my mother and some other older women there and the young men and I ended up in a prayer meeting of some sort. I remember thinking that I could fall in love with the brown haired boy and wishing we could go off by ourselves. As the women were reading aloud and praying aloud I began to cough up the gum and the gum was stuck to the roof of my mouth and my back teeth and I was pulling at the gum and trying to unstick my mouth for what seemed like ages. That's all I remember . . .

I have no interpretation for the dream at this point -- it didn't occur to me until this moment that the boys may be representations of Jim and Ryan allthough in my dream they definitely did not look like them and I didn't recognize them as such.

I went to see Beatrice last week. (I cried almost the whole four hours long and I felt exausted at the end but also relieved - Although my diary entries may not reflect it I really have been in a wonderful mood ever since - it was a positive experience and it really made me feel so good) She believes I have placed attatchments from my childhood on my friends - she says this is normal and everyone does this unconsciously. In my case, she believes I have given Larissa the attatchment of mother and Jim the attatchment of father - as evidence by the way that I have tried to live up to Jim's expectations of me and how I have in the long ago past idolized Larissa and pushed my feelings aside to make life easier for her the way I did with my mom. What Beatrice couldn't figure out is Ryan. She wanted to know who from my past he could symbolize with me . . .

Ahh Ryan, always the enigma! I can't figure that one out either. My dreams in which he appears in them are also enigmatic to me. Could he be Jesus (my mother's other bridegroom)? (Tee hee)

Meanwhile, I have been reading a book about a symposium with the Dali Lama about dreaming and death. In it the idea is presented that both sleeping and orgazm are sublimated forms of dying. In French, orgasm is called "la petit mort" or the little death. It is thought that insomniacs and those who cant achieve orgazm suffer from the same problem - an unconscious fear of losing their sense of self, which is a lesser form of a fear of death (the ultimate loss of self). This is because when you sleep you give control over yourself to either the possiblity of sleeping and never waking up, or to sleeping and becoming your dreamself without control. And to orgazm is another release of control over yourself which you give to your partner - So to give yourself to sleep or to release yourself in orgasm are both losing your sense of self and therefore like a little death.

Reading this blew my little mind and I am still pondering all the implications of this concept in my own mind . . .

And me, I've been obsessed with romantasizing and understanding dreaming, orgasm and death for as long as I can remember . . .So what does that say about me?

The Dali Lama went on to reply to that in Tibetan Buddist Literature, it is said that one experiences a glimpse of clear light in various occasions, including sneezing, fainting, sexual intercourse, sleeping, and dying. Normally our sense of self or our ego is quite strong and we relate to the world with subjectivity. But on those particular occasions our strong sense of self is slightly relaxed. In a later part of the discussion he mentioned that there were two senses of self, the gross sense of self dependent upon association with the physical body and a subtle sense of self. "But when one experiences the subtle sense of self, the body becomes irrelevant and the fear of losing ones self vanishes" . . .

So I guess that's what its all about with me (and with lots of people) - I'm seeking to experience my subtle sense of self, I'm seeking to know my essence and experience life as she does without layers, without fear of losing myself, set chat ananda, being conscious rapture . . .

Is this possible ?