The Float Down

Last night I had many vivid dreams, yet the one that stuck out the most involved a climb into outer space. My memory of this dream segment began with me floating down from an orbiting space craft, through the deep blue atmosphere, diving slowly, downward, immune to the normal scorch of objects screaming down toward earth. My space friend, also wrapped in thick space garb floated down with me, impenetrable, keeping me company, to see me down safely. Both of us still tethered to space craft.

Once upon the ground, he coiled back upward, wishing me luck.

I entered into an old battered building, looking to be an old factory, although quite tall, possibly 80 stories. I made my way up through the deteriorating floors, through stairways and winding lofts, still dragging behind me the long long tether. People entered the building and watched and cheered me on.

Eventually I made my way to a small house built upon a sprawling floor on the top story. Old rocking chairs and junk were piled on top of its flat roof leading up to a hatch that opened up to the blue sky. I climbed this treacherous pile, balancing wonderfully. People still cheered. I made my way up to hatch, opened it, and waded with my arms back up to the sky, slowly, gracefully, as through water. The tether continued to trail me.

I came to the brink of the Earth's atmosphere, into outer space. The space craft trickled by. A new tether was lowered to me. I hooked onto it, released the old. It fell back to the Earth like a quick swift dart. I trailed behind the space craft in a soothing free float.

What was most interesting to me about this dream as I reflected on it when I got up at 4am to pee was how real it felt, and looked. Perhaps much more vivid than the lens through which I have been seeing everyday life as of late. And the feeling of weightlessness, how weird. What an overwhelmingly cool feeling. I never felt anything remotely close to that, not even floating around in a calm pool.

Perhaps far fetched, but I do wonder if while we dream, we visit other planes of existence, the spirit realm. I have been reading a book lately about ancient fermentation in research of the pre-industrial brewing methods to add more layers to my Whiskey Pike feature length screenplay. I find it very interesting how mindful ancient tribes were of the spirit world, in plants and even in inanimate objects. Nowadays with our pre-occupation with materialism and dismissal of the "gods" in things, life kind of takes on a bland coating. Things are just objects. Plants are just there, making oxygen for us. Studies show that talking to plants aid in their growth. Science can explain it as the exchange of carbon dioxide. But what if plants, like people, needed attention, for emotional growth which bleeds into physical growth? We really have no relationship with plants. We eat them. We breath them. We take them for granted. There seems to be a magical thinking in the days of ancient yore. I can't help but think how finely tuned their imaginations must have been in seeing a god in a flower or a bug. Our imaginations seem to be growing stale, atrophying a bit. We trade books for screens, less exercise for the imagination. The spirits may be abandoning us. We control the day with the ticking clock, with deadlines for production, for commerce. Nature, which has its own clock, we no longer listen to.

This space dream I found incredibly cathartic. As though I got to take a break from gravity, maybe even from my body? Astral projection theories often describe a string of sorts trailing the body...was this my space suit tether? The climb through the intricacies of the old factory perhaps resemble wafting through mental gunk of the day to day operations of being a person.

I've had a space dream before, floating outside of a space station. This was awhile back, but also incredibly vivid both visually and to the touch. One of my favorite dreams, like a favorite movie?