Mind Tidying

When my children were young, I used a kind of `mind-tidying’ process on them when they were afraid, or about to undergo something unpleasant but necessary, like an injection. I held them tight and told them to think of the nicest thing they could imagine.

My father used to say that the only place we are truly free is in our minds. No one can tell what you’re thinking, no mind police can tell you what to think and you can go anywhere your imagination can take you in seconds. He would not have approved of Mrs Darling’s mind tidying.

As I tried to show my children, I believe the mind can be trained away from depressing or negative patterns, and that it can help us cope with unpleasantness. The mind responds well to habit. If you think habitually, ``this is going to be bad”, it generally is – if you think, ``I am strong, I can get through this,” you generally can. The Buddha said ``with our thoughts we make the world” – well, perhaps not all of it (nature is a great thought but I’m not taking any credit for it) but with our thoughts we can certainly make our own world. ``Imagine,” said John Lennon, imagining that if everyone had the same thoughts, we could remake the world.

That always reminds me of the Berlin Wall, which divided a city for 20 years. Then everyone had the same thoughht and the wall came down. At any time during those 20 years, this mass thought could have occurred – the wall was more psychological than physical, kept standing by fear rather than bricks and mortar. I believe thoughts can travel, sometimes flitting from mind to mind (so that more than one person may have the idea – that way it stands a good chance of being born, like necessary traits in natural selection) or it can occur to a whole generation.
I think of my mind as a kind of attic storehouse. Shelves upon shelves of papers, books and boxes spilling their contents, all mixed up in a frightful clutter with no filing system. Anyone venturing in there bent on tidying would face a daunting task.

But I don’t need Mrs Darling anyway – journaling, writing and art are my way of mind tidying. Ever written a good idea down then lost the bit of paper? Try as you might, you can’t recall it. The mind, relieved of the burden of having to keep yet another brainstorm on the front burner, has tidied it away into one of those boxes. You wrote it down. My work is done.

But sit down with a journal, or a pile of collage material, and just let the mind find its own lost stuff. Suddenly, all kinds of things pop up. ``Remember this?” shaking the dust off of some long forgotten memory or piece of trivial information. A rusty old projector cranks up and pictures flicker across the screen – this was the view from the mountains over Avila – this was a Scottish morning with the mist lying in the glen like steam on a giant teacup. This was a face you loved dearly once and have not seen for decades…

There’s a comfy old chair in my mind’s attic where I can sit back and watch the movies of the past, or read through one of the crammed folders in the file boxes. Unless I journal or draw it, I’ll probably forget all about it again, but once I have done that, it becomes magically tidied. Since I joined the Soul Food community, I have found this process comes much more easily.

Of course, in every attic mind, there is a basement – a place where all the childhood terrors and adult fears are stored. It’s murky down there, the light bulb gives off about two watts, and if you’re not careful you’ll come out bleeding.

Anna Marie seems very at home in her basement but I have to confess I need one of those miner’s helmets and a lot of happy thoughts for protection. My fear of heights is the first thing to come up and grab me as I peer down into this dingy space. I know I will have to write about it – put myself on the edge of a precipice, or going down with the Titanic, but so far I have only squealed, jumped back and given it a paragraph or two.

But it badly needs tidying. Or least a better light bulb.

Travel into your dreams

ATC Dreamer
Come close your eyes
and take a trip into the world of your dreams
Be ready for the ride of your life.
you never know where you will travel
or even how you will get there.
Will it be a pleasure cruise or a nightmare ride to doom.
It changes so fast you could go a hundred places in one night
or revisit the same place over and over.
Its not something you can excape it will take over at some point
as we all must sleep and the dreams come in our sleep.

Trawling the World of Dreams

You only have to read Samuel Coleridge's Kubla Khan to appreciate what can be done with material that has been trawled from the world of our dreams.

huddled, naked without identiy
upon a precipice, the gateway
to the eighth continent
I scan, searching for small signs
that will embolden me to
go against the flow
free falling into the abyss
of my nightmares
to fearlessly ride
the foam edged rapids

It was Sigmund Freud who dubbed dreams 'the guardians of sleep' and explained that they were all to do with wish fulfillment. No wonder nightmares and severe anxiety dreams did not manage to dovetail into his philosophy. Freud was forced to treat them as problems of neurosis rather than straight forward dreaming. Maybe they are a way of revealing more about ourselves and our resiliance in times of crisis. We may get distressed but we survive to dream again and if we don't close our eyes or try to push these dreams from our minds maybe we will find specks of gold that will form a nugget.

Check out the old section on Dreams that I have at Soul Food for some more activities.

Night Hag

Nightmares were often given names such as Hag-riding, Wizard-pressing, Mare-riding, Witch-dancing etc. The Night Hag rides her mare through the realm of the eighth continent. In the worst of situations the rider feels in jeopardy, experiences an over-riding terror, panic, total vulnerability and the inability to distinguish between imagined and internal aggressors and external reality. But this is not to say that one should not ride the night mare in search of the light which lies within the dark. Here le Enchanteur is the Night Hag riding in search of a truth.

New Order - Mindsort Dreaming

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

Nightmares for Children

Nightmares got me thinking of how night is for children, often full of

scarey things misunderstood. I remember once a ball I had taken with

me to bed (probably after a favourite game and it was wonderful) seemed

frightening in the dark. It was pale blue rubber and had all kinds of moons and stars

raised on the surface, so I guess it might have been like a world to me.

It probably started out near the pillow, but ended up a monster near my feet.

Waking from a particular nightmare, finding it crammed under the tightly tucked

sheets (no doonas in those days!), the soft ball shape upset me

in the dark, because I had no concept it was there, and I howled and my parents came

running, of course! My mind had conjured up black shadows on the walls, no doubt, and

taken them into my dreams. The black figures in my dreams seemed real and very nasty.

Very embarrassing to find out it was only my favourite ball.

It was amazing how scarey it was to a child in the night, however:-)

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

Night Mares

Night Mares from le Enchanteur's Chamber of Horrors Dream Journal
Visit the largest and most mysterious continent on the back of a Night Mare and explore the shadows of the mind.

Rummaging Through Our Minds

Visited by the Mind Housekeeper
by Heather Blakey

"Mrs Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect. lingering humourously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing them out of sight. When you wake up in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettiest thoughts, ready for you to put on."
J.M. Barrie Peter Pan

As you sleep here at the Land of Dreams someone tidies your mind. Draw or write about this process.

Nightfalls in The Land of Dreams

Cadavers and Crypts, Empty Graves and Dark Deeds...If you spent a night in The Chamber of Horrors what Tales would you tell the next morning... if indeed there was a next morning?

In the Chambers of Horrors are infamous things like the Plague Church, a Night Staff recruited from the Hospital's Graveyard and all of this is run by a Devilish woman named Doctor Delphine Heller who believed there wasn't a problem that couldn't be fixed with surgery...lots and lots of surgery.

Delphine, her psychotic husband and her Demonic Night Staff still haunt the Chamber of Horrors. They are the stuff of nightmares. I should know I've lived with them all for years now.

Go ahead, give it your best (worst) and tell us what happened to you on that one night you came upon the Chamber of Horrors.

Post it here or better yet write in your own Nightmare Journal and bury it.

for your edification and amusement here is the original version of
my very own Chamber Of Horrors:

In the Land of Dreams

I came out of the hole in the cloud behind Moonface and the first thing I saw was an old woman, offering me a poppy.

With the flower in my hand, I gazed around at an extraordinary landscape undulating like a patchwork quilt thrown across a vast bed.

I looked around for the others, and the woman with the poppies, and realised I was alone, in the landscape of my dreams.

I walked on, wondering how I would get back to the Faraway Tree. Maybe I would dream my way back to it, or maybe I would never wake and remain here forever.

The soft grass under my feet gave way to something cold and crunchy. I looked down and saw the ground was covered with snow - but it wasn't cold. I gathered a handful to make a snowball but it didn't feel like snow either. I licked a bit off my fingers - it was salt. I was walking through drifts of salt, sparkling in the moonlight.

There were footprints in the salt and I followed them to the edge of a vast ocean. It was black, tipped with white capped waves, and the footprints led straight into it.

Suddenly the surface of the water broke into a shower of sparkling drops and I saw a head appear. It was a girl, with long hair drifting like seaweed across the surface of the the water.

``Come in!" she called, but I hung back. She leapt from the water and flipped in the air and I saw her shining fish tail as she dove back in.

Of course, I thought - she has legs on the land. She must think I am a mermaid too. I thought I would just paddle in and show her that I was human but as the water came over my knees something strange happened. My legs gave way and I fell over. I gave me a fright and I struggled, but my movements propelled me further out. I gave a mighty kick with my fish tail and dived under the water.

I saw her in the distance, beckoning me - but it looked so dark and deep that I didn't want to go further. I turned back and swam into the shallows, and once again I had legs.

I thought I was heading in the right direction, following my own footsteps back through the drifts of salt - instead I found myself wandering through a maze of streets filled with curious shops.

I went inside one of them to ask my way and found myself in a very curious bookshop - the books had no words on the pages but when you opened a book it sang you a story. One of them told me the most beautiful story I had ever heard - but I can't remember what it was about.
When I came outside the moon had gone and the sun was shining. I was near a park where children were playing an there was a road winding up a hill with a house at the top. I followed the road and as I approached the house, the door burst open and I heard voices from inside.
``Oh, it's you - you're here at last - welcome home!"

I ran forward eagerly but just as I was about to cross the treshold, I heard a loud ringing noise. It echoed across the Land of Dreams and though I tried to ignore it, I couldn't. Next thing I knew, I was standing near the hole in the cloud and Moonface was holding an alarm clock.

``Sorry," he said, ``But's that's the only way to make sure you come back from the Land of Dreams."

As I followed him down the ladder, I asked, ``Moonface, are dreams real? Sometimes they seem more real than being awake."

He winked at me as we reached the Faraway Tree.

``Wait til the Land of Know-It-Alls comes by," he said. ``they can tell you."

A NIghtmare

Some time ago I wrote these poems to express how it feels as I support my husband in his battle against cancer. Last week he had a follow up scan after six months of chemotherapy and we had to go to the doctor to get the results yesterday.

Neither of us went expecting the cancer to be all gone, or for the doctor to say he was cured, but we did go hoping that the treatment would have stopped the growth and that the doctor would give him a break from treatment.

Waiting for news like this is excrutiating and I remembered these poems that I wrote last year. Being in a waiting room is a bit like entering the world of nightmares because a few words can throw your life into turmoil

The Waiting Room

not a noun
but an adjective
describing the place
I sit waiting
waiting, hoping
that he will be
one of the
seventy percent
whose cancer responds

join the queue
welcome to the
suffering of
human kind

It is the waiting that really gets to you. How to fill in one's time during the long waiting hours? I pack a bag and take a pen, my journals, a magazine and a book but it is a bit like taking these things with me when I go to the beach. I am distracted and cannot concentrate and I end up staring at the silent walls, wondering. Sometimes I journey off into another world. Every so often the fog that surrounds me is pierced by and idea and something emerges on the page. This is from my 'Waiting Room' journal.

If The World's A Stage

If the world is a stage and I am a player
would the director of this ruddy melodrama
in which I have taken a lead role
for five long years
please find a replacement.

If the world is a stage and I am a player
would the director of this theatre troupe
acknowledge that I have done melodrama
and Greek Tragedy very well and need a turn
at some light hearted romantic comedy.

If the world is a stage and I am a player
I am officially happy to enter by the front door and
Be ushered to the best seats in the house where I could sit
Munching popcorn and slurping coke
While someone else struts their stuff

Radiant Heated Fear

Radiant heated fear
Pulsates through blooded intestines
Pressing on my sphincter
Demanding I purge
Bloated intestinal tubes

Tubes pumping, pulsating
Razor edged emotions temporarily purged
Nervously anticipating another
Spontaneous panic filled attack
Triggered by relentless, stalking, circling fear

Fear of loss, of grief
Of utter helplessness in the face of
Chronic, debilitating pain
Fear that nothing will
Appease or palliate.

Palliate or appease the pain or
the rising bitter tasting vomit
Wedged in my throat
Unrelieved by sips of water.
Desperate I consider the gate of Mount of Purgatory

Purgatory no lofty island mountain
With indifferent angel keepers guarding the door
Demanding Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, and Justice
Bowing my head in penitence
Will not change our fate.

Fated to stand on earth
Fated to bear witness to
a multitude of injustices meted out
By the hands of capricious
Mother Nature

Posive energy from everyone here supported me as I walked into the waiting room, as did the call of raven as I approached the hospital.

The doctor said there was no growth and we would just wait and see and do another scan in three months.

I slid back down the tree from the Land of Dreams to Silky's place, grateful and slept peacefully, in a dreamless state, on her bed.

Red Poppy Woman - Strange Sights

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

Dream Lands Adventure

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

Doorways

This is an oldie but a goodie. It's actually from a journal entry and I posted it in the Mines a year ago. After I had this dream I had trouble sleeping for about a week.
Strange, strange strange....

A few years ago I had a dream, a nightmare so vivid and powerful I can still see it, after all this time the images in this dream have not faded and I haven't forgotten a moment of it.

In my dream I was staring up at a high ceiling, it was sloped upwards and there were steaks of paint, blues and golds and I thought I could make out the shape of an eye and a tree. I was looking at a painting so old that it was turning to dust.
I knew when I first came to this room the painting was new and I have watched it fade to nothing my entire life. Also this room was completely empty. There were no
doors and there were no windows. But the floor was marble and the walls and ceiling were braced with huge timbers.

Then I saw the last of the paint fall from the ceiling and as the fine powder landed on my upturned face I panicked, why had I never noticed there were no doors in this room before? How was I going to get out?

To my right a stairway appeared, it went to the ceiling and even though there was no door I ran up the steps anyway and as I neared the landing I saw it.

It was a huge door and carved on it was a macabre figure dancing around the dead. I remember being very upset at the picture; it felt like it was yelling at me. And I put my hands out and pushed the door open, because there was no handle.

I was in a room from the 1920's and a party was taking place. All of the women were wearing beaded dresses and the men all looked very sharp in black and white tuxes. I knew I didn't belong there. That's when I felt for the first time I belonged in that empty hall with no windows and no doors and that feeling made me angry. I wanted to escape, but I didn't want to be trapped in this room either.

A young man came up to me and I realized I was tall because he had to look up at me, and his expression was controlled, he didn't want me to see what he really felt. But I wasn't upset because I knew he wanted to help me. It was just taking a lot out of him to talk to me. He didn't want me to see inside of him I felt. For some reason it was important I didn't know him. "

You have to find the right doors out of here; if you don't go through the right door you'll be trapped. You were lucky this time. Next time you might not be. "

" So what am I doing here? " I asked.

And he told me, " What you've always done" and then he went back into the crowd and disappeared.

I needed to think and after a few minutes I panicked again and then across the room another door appeared against the wall. It didn't belong in this room, it was almost a modern looking door with a window covered with grit and the doorknob was nickel plated and looked almost new.

All of the sudden I felt like I was flying above the room and then I swooped down and as I did the door swung open and I was in a kitchen from the 1940's.

It was completely empty and quiet and unlike most kitchens it felt cold and sterile and not lived in. But at least it was quiet and I saw the door I had come through had disappeared and like the other two rooms there were no windows.

I idly opened cupboards and drawers and then I felt somebody walk by me. I couldn't see them, but I could feel them and I knew I was intruding and I knew if I stayed here, I would be trapped in this little kitchen forever.

Then I saw another door, it looked like the type of door you'd see on a freezer or a meat locker and I went through.

I was in a library, small library with a single table in the center of the room and a nice display of books on the table. There was a fireplace and I saw there were some logs and kindling waiting to be lit and a woman was there. I assumed she was a librarian.

" How nice of you to visit me " she told me, and I knew that despite the fact I didn't look right somehow she was still very kind. She was nervous but her smile was nice and open.

I reached out to take a book from the table and as I did she looked nervous, " oh, please be very careful with that. It's not done yet. It's still growing. "

I tried to read the title, but in all of my dreams I can never read. Not signs or numbers. In my dreams these are always meaningless symbols. But this time I could read, the title was
" A Circle of Wolves. "

As I looked around the room the titles on the spines of the books arranged themselves and I saw the letters where turning themselves around in circles until I could focus on them.

Like combinations on a lock.

" Why are you here? " I asked the librarian whom I think
was really an animal but I'm not sure what kind of animal she was.

" I’m watching these for the owner, until she's ready for them. Then I shall bring them to her."

" Can you tell me how to get out of here? " I asked her.

" You have to look for the door. "

As I turned to walk through a door that like the rest appeared from nowhere the Librarian reached out and grabbed my arm. She brought her face very close to mine and warned me, " I care very much for the woman who owns these books, be very careful in here. Do you understand?”

" I'm lost, I just want out. " I promised her and I left the library and felt that from all the rooms I'd visited that one was the most dangerous, because something was in there. Something that didn't really belong in that room was there and it was never going to leave. And I'm sure that if something went to that library and tried to harm those books that the Librarian would become something very different.
Something from a nightmare.

The kind of nightmare you scream your way out of.

This time I turned to make sure the door was gone and I was relived to see it was. Good, I thought, I didn't want that thing following me. I was outside, but it wasn't really outside.

I was standing in front of a warehouse that burned down a few years ago and some firemen died fighting the fire there.

Across the street was a restaurant where a robbery took place and several innocent people where gunned down. To this day people in this area believe this place is haunted and won't go into it. There's a bike chain lock around it in the real world and you could twist it off with your hand, but no one will go in there. Also next to this building was a bank and a driveway where in the 80's a man's severed head was found. That murder remains unsolved.

Next to that is a hotel where a woman checked into a room and killed herself by taking cyanide. She had no identification, and to this day she remains a Jane Doe.

In real life these places are several miles apart from each other, in my dream they shared a street and they terrified me. The buildings looked new and alive, they were breathing. I saw a gate appear on the corner that hadn't been there a moment before and I flew through it. I wanted to get away from these places because they were coming to life, right in front of my eyes.

Now I was in a long white hall filled with bright, bright light and row after row of doors that I knew better then to try to open. They weren't ready to be opened and they weren't mine. To the right of each door was a podium and on each podium was a book and a pen topped with a long black feather. I looked down at the books and saw they were all blank.

The light here was very pretty, but I don't know where it was coming from because there were no windows here. But it was sunlight flooding that hall and I liked it very much. I waited patiently for my door to appear when I saw beside one of the doors a gash in the wall.

The tear in the wall was a terrible wound in this place and darkness was seeping from it like blood.

" No, no, no " I was saying and I felt myself gliding towards the rip and I looked in.

Here was the heart of this place, my doorway, and my place.

The room was full of dust and mold. The walls were rotten, and scattered around the room were small black coffins, and in each of those little coffins were something that belonged to me.

This was my door, this is where I was suppose to be and I put my hands out to climb in when all of the sudden I pushed away from the wall and the wall, the doorway opened wider and I turned and started to run I started pulled on door after door and then I stopped.

I took a pen from the holder and wrote something in one of the books and a door swung open behind me and I flew through it.

Now I was outside, really outside where the grass looked too green and the sky looked too blue and that was okay. This wasn't really my place either, but I thought it could be. That idea made me very happy, and I didn't even seem to mind that I had come through a doorway that led to a cemetery. That part seemed to make things right.
I walked down a little driveway, past a mausoleum where I think I had been trapped all along. But as I walked away the mausoleum didn't get smaller it seemed to get bigger.

I've spent years trying to figure out what this dream meant to me. I think I saw the place where my stories come from, but why do I have an animal in there watching that library with such ferocity? Where did it come from? In my dream all of these people and places were parts of myself. I felt that back then, and I feel that now. But the Librarian, why am I afraid of her as well as relieved that she's there in that room?

What exactly is she?

Dreams

My dreams tend to be dark and scary
if you dare enter them with me
be ready for a night of terror
there are no flying cats or starry nights
but dark spirits, and misty fear filled nights
of dark terror.
you will learn many things on a walk thru my dreams
some come from my past some from my fears and some just come
from the dark part of my mind, the part I don't allow to come forth
the part that I fight to keep locked up deep in the forgotten part of my mind
this often escapes thru a keyhole into my dreams.
Sometimes dreams are better left unremembered.
I am willing to take the journey into my dreams ,
does anyone dare to discover the deepest darkest secrets hidden in their dreams
revealed only to the dreamer who seeks them.
Then come follow me.

Land of Dreams not the Land of Daydreams

As you clamber up the ladder into the Land of Dreams, if you are greeted this woman bearing red poppies you will soon discover that this is not the land of daydreams, wishes and hopes. It is the land of dreaming and the path you must follow is sometimes known as the Royal Road of Unconsciousness.

"Mercy!" cried the voice. "mercy! Even if you are only one more dream, have mercy. Take me on board. Take me, even if you strike me dead. But in all the name of all mercies do not fade away and leave me in this horrible land."

"Where are you?" shouted Caspian. "Come aboard and welcome."

There came another cry, whether of joy or terror, and then they knew that someone was swimming towards them.

"Stand by to heave him up, men," said Caspian.

"Aye, aye, your Majesty," said the sailors. Several crowded to the port bulark with ropes and one, leaning far out over the side, held the torch. A wild, white face appeared in the blackness of the water and then after some scrambling and pulling, a dozen friendly hands had heaved the stranger on board.

Edmund thought he had never seen a wilder looking man. Through he did not otherwise look very old, his hair was an untidy mop of white, his face was thin and drawn, and for clothing only a few wet rags hung about him. But what one mainly noticed were his eyes, which were so widely opened that he seemed to have no eyelids at all, and stared as if in an agony of pure fear. The moment his feet reached the deck he said:

"Fly! Fly! About with your ship and fly. Row, row, row for your lives away from this accursed shore!"

"Compose yourself," said Reepicheep, "and tell us what the danger is. We are not used to flying."
The stranger started horribly at the voice of the voice of the Mouse, which he had not noticed before.

"Never the less you will fly from here," he gasped. "This is the island where dreams come true."

"That's the island I've been looking for this long time," said one of the sailors. "I reckoned I'd find I was married to Nancy if we landed there."

"And I'd find Tom alive again," said another.

"Fools!" said the man stamping his foot with rage. "That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams - dreams, do you understand? - come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.

There was about a half a minutes's silence and then, with a great clatter of armour the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea. For it had taken everyone just that half-minute to remember certain dreams they had had - dreams that make you afraid to go to sleep again - and to realize what it would mean to land on a country where dreams come true.

Only Reepicheep remained unmoved.

"Your Majesty, your Majesty," he said, "are you going to tolerate this mutiny, this poltroonery? This is a panic, this is a rout."

"Row, row," bellowed Caspian. "Pull for all our lives. Is her head right, Drinian? You can say what you like Reepicheep. There are some things no man can face."

"It is, then, my good fortune not to be a man," replied Reepiceep with a very stiff bow.
(C.S. Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
sourced by Winnie Cross

Try to keep a dream diary that records your visit to the Land of Dreaming

Off to the Land of Dreams

The stairs and ladder lead up, through the clouds into the land of dreams. Are you ready for an adventure?