The Shaman and The Lemurs

There are dreams that are common for everyone: relationship dreams, teeth falling out, bathroom dreams, tornado dreams, and dreams about sex. The latter does not make you a perverse person or some kind of weirdo. They are common and most times normal.

However, a dreamer related to dream experience that I’ve never heard of. To tell the truth, it was a little scary.

The dreamer’s a college student in her waking life. In one of her courses people of different religions were invited to her class to speak. One day a Shaman visited her class and she had a dream experience that she never forgot.

The Shaman introduced himself and explained a bit about Shamanism then told the class exactly what was going to happen to them in the next few minutes.

He asked for the classroom lights to be dimmed and everyone to lay their heads down on the desks. Next, the Shaman told them they were all going to dream. In the dream they’re going to see a doorway of some kind. There might be a regular door, or it might have the look of trees or tall bushes forming a doorway.

The Shaman told them all to find it and walk through it.

When the dreamer told me that all kinds of red flags went up inside me, primarily because I have a personal conviction. My personal conviction is that I don’t walk through a door unless I know exactly what’s behind it and never walk into the light unless I know who flipped the switch.

Anyway, the dreamer found herself in an open meadow.  To the right was a small lake and almost directly in front of her, offset a little to the left, were two tall trees forming a doorway.

She was drawn to the water so she headed for the lake.  Within a few steps, a pair of lemurs came out of nowhere and started to dance between her feet. They tripped her several times indicating that they definitely did not want her to go anywhere but the doorway.

Sounds like manipulation to me.

When she turned toward the tree doorway the lemurs left her feel alone and ran alongside. She tried to turn back to the lake several times, and each time the lemurs did everything in their control to force her to walk to the doorway. Fortunately she woke herself up before she got there.

 There’s so much going on in this dream experience that its hard to know where to start. No better place than the beginning I guess.

First off, the Shaman. He seemed to predict what was going to happen to everyone in the class.  He said they were going to have a dream and they did. Thing is, the dream our dreamer speaks of in this experience appears to have one purpose and one purpose only: to get the dreamer to walk through a doorway.

As in life, doorways in dreams are a way to get from where you are to a place that’s closed off. You want to get inside your residence when its raining you use a door framed by a doorway. There are also doorways in zoos.  Some of them lead to the lion’s cage.

One of the problems I have with this dream experience is that the Shaman doesn’t reveal to the dreamers what to expect once they get on the other side of the doorway, and neither does the dream. It could be the most rapturously enjoyable experience a person could ever have, or it could lead to death. It’s a crap shoot.

Next, this does not have the feel of a naturally occurring dream.  Dreams that happen naturally have a certain feel to them, a certain flow. They’re very personal to the dreamer, and contain symbols and situations that mean something to the dreamer. When someone tells you that you’re going to have a certain dream and then you have it, the dream seems forced, at the very least. I would categorize this dream as a false dream.

Lastly, there are these cute lemurs. I’ve got to admit that the song from the Madagascar movie “I like to Move It” kept running through my mind as I was writing this. Here’s the thing about these dream lemurs, they might appear to be cuddly and cute but they don’t allow the dreamer to go where she wants to go.  Not only that, they direct the dreamer to go where the Shaman wants her to go.

I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of expert on Shamanism, I am not. But from what I do know about Shamans they have a strong link to the spiritual world. When you apply that dynamic to the dreamer’s experinence it takes on a whole different dynamic. It’s hard not to think of spiritual manipulation.

I think I’ll stick to dreams that occur naturally, thank you very much.

EB