Controlling The Dream

I woke this morning from an awful dream. In it I was watching a passenger plane coming in for a crash landing. I yelled at my best buddy, who happened to be driving, that we needed to speed over there.

 He asked me, “What for?”

That stunned me. This gentle, caring man had effectively told me that a plane crash didn’t matter.

I told him, “ To help with assistance. There’s going to be dozens of injured and probably fire and who knows what else.”

“Clauds,” he said, “you’d just be a hindrance and most likely become a casualty, too. Your eyesight won’t allow you to do that kind of stuff, and you know it.”

I awoke from that nightmare feeling totally helpless and adrift. And angry. How dare he tell me something like that!

That’s when my more logical and less visceral self took over. My self-defeating self had just tried to high-jack my future plans in order to nullify my desires and intentions. I thought about how worried it must be about losing control of my life if it was willing to make such a grand and blatant play to stop me from going forward.

I must really be threatening it, don’t you think? Me, too.

That made me feel very good. The fact that the mind used one of those early supporters of my dream to be a writer to derail me was a big mistake. He has always called me his inspiration. If such an event ever happened, he would be right there with me fighting flame and fumes to get at those who needed help.

The hindbrain miscalculated big-time on that one. It also tipped its hand too plainly, especially by flaunting my tenuous vision in the dream. I have never allowed that to make much difference in my life.

All of this brings me to the issue of Who’s In Control.

I did several things yesterday to further my writing. I managed to get out a crit for one of my group members on an article for children that she’d submitted. I sent a short story I’d written a couple of months ago to a lit mag that likes the quirky and unusual pieces that touches on human interaction and response. I submitted a writer’s article to a writer’s mag. I did market research for other pieces that I have on hand waiting for a home.

Perhaps I’d threatened my fear with that blast of purposeful energy and intent. Just maybe I was in danger of actually dropping off that tentative writer’s fence onto the side of I AM A WRITER. I mean, it’s all well and good to say it, but to mean it a person must walk the walk. Yesterday I walked in those shoes. They fit well, too.

Julie Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” has taught me to recognize when fear wants to drive my life again. Once a person’s aware of the subtle devices used to affect a change of driver, the outcome doesn’t fall automatically on the side of FEAR.

Don’t get me wrong. I probably have as much fear as the next person, and I can be as overcautious an any hen with an egg. Nevertheless, my life was tempered in the fires of an autocratic family structure which brought out the obstinate in me. That’s my secret weapon now.

All I have to do is envision FEAR as a person and remember defiance. That’s my ticket to self-direction. I hate having people tell me what I can and cannot do. That’s all FEAR is doing. Really. As soon as I give it a human form it loses all its power.

I get to drive my own life where I will and for how long.

So, let me ask you, dear reader, who’s in control for your dream? And why? Feel free to share the answers, or not, as is your pleasure. The questions are there, though, and you’ll think about them whether you want to or not. That’s the lovely reality about that bit of punctuation. It’s a hook that always catches something/someone.

Until later,

Claudsy