When a dream seems more of a portal
than a fantasy during sleep

Had the strangest dream last night. This morning, actually. Monday morning, the 21st of April 2025. Seemed so real. So real. What does it mean? Sometimes a dream is just a dream, and sometimes one feels much more is going on deep down in the subconscious. Or maybe one’s dream opened into the astral realm. Perhaps the dream is prophetic. Or rich with the late Joseph Campbell’s mythos of the Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey. Then again, perhaps as Sigmund Freud supposedly declared over a hundred years ago, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” The dream is just a dream. Or is it?

Inside the Dream:
Was busy working on the sales floor at the Downtown Seattle REI store, but inside didn’t seem like any place I recognized. At the same time, however, I seem to know it anyway in some weird fashion. The store seemed familiar and purposeful even tho I did not recognize the interior as the same Downtown Seattle store I worked at in real-life, in the awakened world. I remember being aware of this contradiction while dreaming this dream. Does such self-awareness of dream while dreaming define this as a lucid dream?

Was startled and awed by the superimposition of Ancient civilization from far away phased into the same timeline and geographical place in space as Postmodern, 21st Century Seattle, Washington. I felt the ghostly shadows and outlines of an Ancient Middle Eastern civilization transposed upon the Downtown Seattle REI store. Lots of old stone, clay, and brick buildings. Tall columns with arches and layers of stairs and stepped platforms and cobblestone streets. The old city was not in ruins, but alive as if I could step across time into both. The people native to this old, long ago city dressed in a mix vibrant colors and plain clothing. They moved with mundane purpose, and sometimes with excitement. Scenes shifted as if I was in a reel of some old documentary at the same time I watched it. Shifted in seconds. Another oddity was I navigated the corridors and spaces of both the REI Store and this ancient city with ease, as if it was natural. Didn’t felt weird in the dream. Felt weird while awake after the dream looking back. Customers actually in 21st Century Seattle only sensed the Store, not the transposition of the old city. Continue reading →