I had a dream last night, and the vibration of it was so powerful that it woke me up. As I sat there in bed at 4 a.m. going over the whole story of it, it seemed like the most natural, normal thing to have dreamed:
***
I am at an outpost with a group of professional oceanic treasure hunters, and we are beginning to run out of fresh water, but through the work that we have already done, we have already made seventeen million dollars that is stashed in a cabinet that slides back and forth across the floor of the big house that we stay in by the beach.
But there is something else, a bigger picture that the others aren’t really aware of other than as a sort of inaccessible myth. An immense treasure lies buried beyond the shipwrecks, but we don’t have the materials, the diving equipment, etc. to be able to go and look for it.
There are shamans with us on this expedition, though they are not so easily recognized among us. It is only once we are all in a room above a sunken ship that looks to be an old spanish galleon that everything goes into slowed down motion, then stop motion, that the truth is revealed to me.
A giant yellow dog is stopped in mid-air as he lunges for me. Through this stop-motion, I get to see that the dog will bite me, and that in return I will be shown the route to the treasure beyond the shipwrecks. The motion starts up a bit and the dog begins to bite me. I scream from the fright and the blood, begging someone to help me, to stop the dog. No one steps forward to help and I try to hold the dog’s jaws closed.
Then the motion stops again and I am once again given the choice: Are you willing to give up your hands for your tribe? Yes, I say, and the dog is set into motion and the blood flies as he tears up my hands.
I pass out and my spirit is taken down into the depths of the earth through a series of caves, past the shipwrecks of this time, past the shipwrecks of the times before this one and the next and the next, past the different tectonic shifts and beyond that the earth has been through over its millions of years.
The shamans accompany me, and we go deep into the earth, through cave after cave, towards the treasure that lies beyond them. As we travel, I am told that it is important that we do it this way, at this time, because every million years or so, the earth shifts and the route through the caves changes. Another big shift is coming again soon and in order to access the treasure before the current route is gone, the way in must be made known. For some reason, the shamans can accompany me and show me the way, but can’t bring back what needs to come out.
Once we get there, I am not shown the treasure, just the complete route to get to it, and as I come back to consciousness back at the spanish galleon, my hands destroyed, I open my mouth and the shaman pulls out a brilliant amethyst and pearl necklace that was given to me to show as proof of where I had been. There is a smaller one for me to wear, to keep.
***
I wrote all this down last night just minutes after I came out of the dream, and as I typed, my hands felt very odd and numb. I had to stop and keep rubbing them together. I don't really remember the dream right now, but the amethyst and pearl necklace I can see as if it were right here in my hands . . .
