We all have things that keep us from surfing through life, but few of us have the excuse of having our arm bitten off by a shark. Would you get back up on your board if that happened to you? The truth is, most of us stay on the beach, where it’s calm, quiet, and we are not regularly bashed by big waves. But then we miss out on the adventure, risk, and growth that living at the edge of our abilities can offer us. Here is an interview with Linda, who has been bashed by her mother’s inner voice for years, telling her she is worthless and criticizing whatever she does. Her challenge is to die to that voice and to be reborn a surfer in her daily life. We can learn a lot from her! Here is Linda’s dream:
“I am in a jail. I have to take care of people on death row. I’m not a prisoner but I’m not a caretaker. I’m something in-between. I am taking care of people in the last hours before they go to the electric chair. One of them is a former male friend. He knows that he will die in a few hours. I have to cheer him up. (Crying). It’s not a good time for me. It’s dark with all the fear of losing him. I have to tell him that I love him and that he’s a good guy. I have to cheer him up for his last hours. It’s awful. Then they take him out of the room and take him to kill him. I have to stay there until they bring him back dead. I try to wake up because I realize it’s a nightmare, but I can’t stop dreaming. I knew I was dreaming but I couldn’t wake up; I couldn’t stop it. The next person is my grandmother. I have to take care of her. They take her and kill her and I have to wait for the body to come back on a stretcher. Then I woke up, went back to sleep and the same thing was happening to other people. Even with waking up I couldn’t stop this nightmare.”
Linda: “I really don’t know why I had this dream. I am always afraid of losing people, but this is a former friend of mine. We lost contact. My grandmother is dead now for twenty-five years. I really don’t know.”
Linda chose to interview the dead bodies of her former friend, Willie, and her grandmother.
Willie: “I was sitting in a wheelchair. I’m now laying on a stretcher, dead. Linda has to prepare me for the coffin by washing me, combing my hair, and making me pretty again. My body is damaged by the electricity. I lost control of my bladder and bowels. I have burn marks on my head. My muscles are very tight. I look funny. It’s over now. Fear is over. (Cries) I’m very calm. I don’t have to care about anything. It’s not me crying. That’s Linda.”
“I would have preferred not to smell so bad from losing control of my body. I don’t have any weaknesses now that I’m dead!!!! I’m a real person but Linda created this dream environment. I represent the part of her that wants to have a certain calmness. Before they killed me I represented her fear of death. Now I don’t have that any more! I don’t want to be alive in my previous life. If I can have everything I want, I would prefer to become a surfer on a big wave at the most beautiful beach in Hawaii. It feels good! I feel the sun, waves, ocean. I am a very good surfer! I have a drink waiting for me on the beach, a nice cocktail!”
“On a scale of zero to ten I score myself a ten in wisdom and acceptance, a 9.75 inner peace, and nines in confidence, compassion, and wisdom. If Linda scored like I did in these qualities she would be with me…it’s pure living! There would be a BIG difference because she’s worrying so much about so many things. She wouldn’t worry so much. She would come to a normal level of worrying. She’s worrying way too much.”
“I would like to figure out for Linda how to stop this nasty mother voice in her head. I don’t have one; I’m free! I’m a surfer! I just wait for the next wave. No need for a nasty mother voice. Besides, I’m imaginary. I don’t have a mother! Regarding her weight, I don’t have that problem. I’m free. You only weigh too much if you are not free, and I’m free. Regarding her nasty inner mother voice, she needs to know the other inner voices instead of just paying attention to the nasty one. She needs to figure out how the other voices can deal with the nasty voice. I would deal with it by going out and surfing! I am too busy living my life to be concerned about it. I would go out for a good ride! Regarding her fear of being too slow, when I’m not fast enough the wave gets me! It’s always the same at the beginning of something: you only see the mountain of work; you can’t see how you can climb the mountain. You do one step after the other and hope it will work. If it doesn’t, the reason may be that at this time it shouldn’t be. Who knows? I didn’t give up just because I got slapped on the back by a wave!”
“I would recommend that she focus on surfing! More patience! Calm down! Don’t put so much pressure on yourself! Things will come together! It would be good for Linda to become me when she thinks she can’t do all the work, to calm down and catch the next wave!”
“I have come into her life as a reminder of her Phoenix (from a previous interview)! Death is not dead! Sometimes it is becoming something better. Sometimes people need to die! Linda needs to die in many ways (Tears). She needs a lot of new life energy, especially to die to this ugly mother voice. Her own bitchy witch voice! This would be a HUGE difference. Life would be so much easier and joyful! She continues to listen to it because she is so used to it. Everybody told her that she’s not allowed to be happy, that she’s a bad person. I say, BULLSHIT!!!! Did she kill anybody? She didn’t do any more ugly things than others. She’s just a common human being.”
“If Linda doesn’t trust what I just told her, that she’s not any worse than other people, then the ugly, bitchy voice will take over. Otherwise, she won’t need to listen to it! She doesn’t have to trust me. She can stay in her misery if she wants. If she’s fine with staying miserable, OK!”
“Linda had this dream to see that sometimes it’s good to die. I can see now; I can surf! I wasn’t able to surf before; I was dead!”
Grandmother, why are you in this dream?
“If it had only been Willie, it wouldn’t have been enough. She would be able to forget about it. With me and the other people, it was bad enough not to forget it. It was very important that Linda not forget this dream because she needed to do an interview and to see the results of the interview. She shouldn’t be so afraid about death and dead people. She can learn a lot from dead people! She’s too much afraid about dying. I’m not afraid of dying – I’m dead! So what? Don’t I look good? I’m enjoying life now that I’m dead! I enjoy life MUCH MORE than when I was alive! I lost all my weight, all my concerns. Everything difficult I lost. Now I’m free!”
So why shouldn’t everyone just kill themselves!
“Yes! Good idea! She should kill her attachment to her old life! Physical death would not be real death. The parts of her old life that she needs to kill are her fear and the ugly voice that’s telling her that she’s not worth it to have a good life. I think that voice was partially caused by the way I, Linda’s grandmother, raised my daughter, Linda’s mother, due to my own fear of not being worthy to have a good life. I passed on to her through her mother that ugly voice. It’s part of her family game. She needs to die to this ugly game. If she did, she will be glowing inside and feeling like she lost tons of weight, almost as if she can fly!”
“I would like to say to Linda that she really needs to remember to die to this old family bullshit that I and her mother passed on to her. I would say stay away from this family and build your own family. I don’t mean a blood family – I mean real friends. I would like to say that she should find the right man. Men are not dangerous if they are the right ones. They are out there. If she looks, she will find them. Always consult her Yellow Bear! Then she will know which is the right one!”
Linda: “I heard myself say to die to my family (cries). It is a strong suggestion and not an easy one, but I think she’s right about it. To ride a wave and not make things more difficult in life than they are. To be like the Phoenix: to die to be born into a better life. To let go of all my fear. The ugly voice is inherited from my grandmother and my mother. It is about not being worthy. My grandmother told me I should die to this ugly voice. I need to die to old habits and old bullshit stuff so that I can have a better and an easier life.”
This dream is not primarily about “shadow” and re-owning disowned aspects of self. It is about dying to identification with a toxic inner voice that has been a lifelong script. Childhood scripting is extremely powerful. It addicts us to needless drama. Willie, who is transformed into a surfer, is not a disowned anything. He is a previously unrecognized, unmanifested potential that wants to be born in Linda’s consciousness. One interview will not make that happen. It will require the practice of an ongoing yoga: the disciplined application of those recommendations of “Willie” and surfer girl that Linda finds realistic. She must grow into these perspectives by remembering to become them until the state they personify generalizes into a high-scoring stage of consciousness. This is not only possible; it occurs with some regularity when people trust IDL and, more importantly, themselves. The interview also contains powerful messages about detachment and the importance of death for rebirth. Can we say they were also in the dream? Perhaps, but without the interview, would they ever have been recognized?
While lucidity is often an attempt at self-rescue. As such, it only succeeds in keeping one stuck in the Drama Triangle. It allows domination of the dream state by the worldview of your stuck waking identity. Integral Deep Listening honors the nightmares of your life by giving it the respect of suspending judgment, listening, and applying what makes sense. Instead of changing your nightmares to conform to your assumptions of happiness, both the nightmare and your waking identity learn to conform to the culture of a transcending and inclusive intrasocial reality.
This is a pre-lucid dream; Linda knows she is dreaming but cannot stop the dream. Going lucid accomplishes nothing for this dreamer. There is no freedom, no control, no autonomy, no ability to change anything. Instead, what is experienced is that the nightmare embraces everyday consciousness, as is the case with post-traumatic stress disorders. Going lucid is a failed attempt by the dreamer to rescue herself from the Drama Triangle by waking up. Instead of avoiding persecution and victimization by waking up, it is merely extended to other examples in other parts of her life, stressing the pervasive nature of the nightmare. It has qualities of post-traumatic stress disorder, in that it is a nightmare and waking does not stop it.
