I Just Went On the Most Amazing Investigation...

[Brigham]

...in my dream. I just woke up from this, and it was amazing, and I need to get it down before it fades.

We were in an allegedly haunted location. Karl and I had just finished up work in a bedroom. The decision had been made at some point that we were going to sleep on-site. Apparently some reports indicated that people wouldn't witness paranormal events if they stayed up, but that they'd be woken up by them and find evidence of items being moved.

As a sort of off-the-wall thought, before Karl left I pulled out a sheet of blank paper and a pencil, and drew a large circle in the middle, and said, "I'm going to leave this out for you, in case you want to make any markings, scribble, draw, write... what ever you can manage to communicate with us. I'm leaving it on the dresser here," Karl gestured toward the pale wood furniture as I spoke, "so just use it if you like." It seems like I knew this kind of activity was common, though it was never explicitly indicated in the dream. I got into the bed in that room, and closed my eyes before Karl left.

After a time, I woke up and looked across the room. The entire paper was covered in writing. I couldn't read it from so far, but I guess I was only partly awake because I kinda closed my eyes again. I sorta assume that Karl had written at least part of it, even though he clearly would not have disturbed evidence like that, and laid my head down.

After a moment, I felt something tap my knee. I opened my eyes slightly and looked down the length of the bed, and I could clearly see the yellow #2 pencil I'd left on the dresser floating in the air, bumping against me. My eyes flew open, and my breathing became heavy, but I remained calm. I watched quietly as the pencil floated up around by my face and then back across the room. I got up to follow it. I remember saying, "thank you," many times to whomever or whatever was doing this for me.

I yelled Karl's name, and he called back, "I'm on the phone!" from another room. I wanted to tell him to hang up and come look at this, but when he's on his cell it's usually serioius business, so I let him talk undisturbed. The pencil dropped on the counter in the kitchen/bar area, by my laptop. Somehow, I knew it wanted my to put on my headphones, which were still plugged into my computer, even though the power was off. I did, and I could hear an indistinct, staticky voice. We exchanged greetings. It asked if I would like to see it, and I said yes. It told me to go into one of the other bedrooms.

I entered the bedroom, and the covers of the bed started pulling down, just as if someone had grabbed the lower edge and began to pull it smothly of the end of the bed with one hand. The bedding material was pulling toward a dresser, and in particular, a small novelty mirror with a corporate ber logo embossed on it. When I realized it was the mirror I was supposed to be looking at, the bedding fell limply to the floor. I stood over the mirror and looked down at it. I saw my own reflection, and at first I thought I was seeing the ghost. We expected the presence at this location, if any, to be the ghost of a middle aged man who was a close friend of one of the residents, and the male features immediately caught my eye before I realized it was me. So I picked up the tiny mirror, looked into my own eyes, and then slowly retated it so I was looking at the room behind me and slightly to the right in the reflection.

I saw a young blonde woman, 20 - 30 maybe. She had a bandanna or kerchief on her head, holding some of her hair down, and a tattered denim vest with the sleeves cut off. Her hair was dirty blonde with lots of complex highlights, slightly wavey, long. Her skin was pale. Her eyes were large and bright. She looked real and solid as anyone else there. I can still see her so clearly, as if she really existed. It kinda makes me sad that over the next several hours to days, her face will fade from my memory, and she will no longer exist.

I turned around to face her, expecting the apparition to disappear upon looking directly at her, but there she was. I was astonished, but I managed to say, "We expected you to be an older man."

She laughed, and said, "Thank you, Le?n!"

I was blown away. Somehow, looking in a mirror had allowed me to see her reflected in it, and once I'd done that, I was able to see and hear her directly. It's as if after breaking a barrier that separated myself from whatever other level of existence ghosts were on, it no longer held us apart in general, at least for a time. I asked, "Why did you just now call me Le?n?"

She smiled and laughed, and said, "I call everyone Le?n!"

And then I woke up. I remember thinking that this was a very silly person I was talking to. Little quirks like this really humanized her for me. I never got her name, or found out who she was, where she'd come from, why she was there. I'm kinda bummed about all that, despite the fact that none of it was real.


So...  what do you make of that?

[PPI Karl]

Holy crap, Brigham, what a fantastic dream!  I'm so glad you wrote this one down.  I have a hugely active dream life, myself, and when realer-than-real dreams like this occur, I'm all over them the next day with dream analysis, always speculating about which parts of them might be connected to something real and which parts were inspired by the things I encounter in daily life.  (How disappointing when I realize that a scene in my dream has been plagiarized from Drop Dead Diva or some other made-for-television drama. ()  By the way, the diacritical mark didn't come out in the name "Le?n"; I'd love to know what I'm missing there.

Is this your first paranormal investigation dream, or have you had others?  Just to gently remind you, you've suffered a loss recently, and that puts you "in touch" with the other side, whether literally or figuratively, in your subconscious.  Are there any aspects to the dream that remind you of your grandmother or other people you may have lost?  When we return to the Page residence, I'll be very curious to know if any features of the woman in your dream remind you of Debby Page, who claims to be a clairvoyant in a long line of gifted psychic women.

To put a bit of dream analysis onto your dream, though, here are a couple of ideas to get you thinking in a more psychoanalytical way about this otherwise very cool and spiritually significant dream:

• The Mirror Woman:  your animus/anima, typically represented as the opposite gender if you're straight; same gender if you're not; you never got her name because she didn't need one.  Rather, she recognized you and called you by that name (which you've got to explore further).  Because she's you, you recognize the little quirks and idiosyncrasies that you like about yourself.  (Okay, cue Michael Jackson's "The Man In the Mirror.")


• The Spirit Guide/Shaman:  I'm humbled to have shown up in this role, but I guess it's not altogether unexpected since you're using the hierarchical structure of our group as the official "protocol" by which you allowed yourself to experience the spiritual moment in the dream:  the discovery of the shaman in yourself.  You see me as a spiritual "medicine man" who facilitates the investigation and the experiment that will eventually lead to your dream-quest.


• The Test:  you've put a set of conditions in place to test yourself in the dream, and (this part I really enjoy) you've had a dream about dreaming, in which you must go to sleep in the dream in order to reach the dream state that gives you access to the real test.  I love it.  I've had a hand-full of such dreams in my life, and I always wake up from them thinking I've just experienced something holy.


• The Underworld:  try to remember the architecture, the atmosphere, and the dynamics of the place where the woman (and then you) were standing in the mirror; that may become an archetype for the underworld that you'll recognize in future dreams.

Seriously, if you were discuss this dream with Deborah Page, I have this very strong feeling that she'd be interested in it.  In any event, profoundly cool dream, Brigham.  Thanks for sharing the details of it with us.

[Gary]

Brigham,

I too read this dream of yours this morning, and was rather impressed with the detail that you were able to remember.  The portion of your dream where you were sleeing also stood out to me.  I personally have never experienced that.  I do know that a lot of times, dreams are like television shows.  They sort of fade into the next scene with the same people, with no explanation of how they got to be there.  (maybe just a personal experience).  I wanted to ask you if when in the dream, when you went to sleep, if you remember any visual detail or was it dark as if your eye were shut?  I only ask because very rarely, in my dreams, the "camera" if you will, will go from first person to third person for short portions of the dreeam, and sadly I can't remember any particulat occasions.  Thank you for sharing this.  We should have a dream forum where people can post their dreams.  yours was fun, like a story!  I mean it kinda was, right?   

Karl.  I am REALLY excited to discover your interest and knowledge of dreams.  I would really LOVE the opportunity to actually sit and talk more about this topic, and ask some questions about my dreams.  I will ask them here also, but I would need to actually make some notes.  My dream memory fades pretty quick.  But thank you for the notes on Brigham's dream.  Even though I had to look up some of the words.   

[PPI Tracy]

Brig,
Thank you so much for sharing that with us.  That was amazing.  One thing that really struck me is how open and flowing you were in the dream.  Open to instruction, to follow and to just let things play out as they did.  You were 100% present and didn't try to change the way things were or went.  You just accepted it as it was.  You had keen observation, logic and the ability to just be calm and easy going.  Not that you aren't like that when not dreaming, but sometimes in dreams we try to control our situation, as if to say, "Hey, this shouldn't be this way". The details you remembered were amazing as well. 

I remember just a few dreams that I have had in my life.  Two in particular have been reoccurring since I was a child and the others have been extremely vivid and emotional dreams.  Some frightening. 

What is interesting is that my friend Shannon has had the same "mirror" scenario happen to her, twice, while she was awake.

I have an idea that this dream you just described is one that will stay with you for a long long time, if not always.

[PPI Tim]

I would love to learn how to lucid dream.
Those are the best dreams.

[Brigham]

Tim: I have had one totally Lucid dream. This was several years back, when I was living in Seattle. I had spent several hours reading about lucid dreaming techniques online, and decided to give it a go. I went to sleep, and woke up again sometime later in the night. Except, I realized that I didn't feel cold on a winter night in the pacific northwest. In my dreams, I can touch things and feel them, but I don't feel things like hot or cold, or pain (part of the reason that typical nightmare situations aren't usually very scary for me). Once I realized I was dreaming, I directed my dream how I had planned before going to sleep, but my lucidity sort of faded rather quickly, and I just fell back into the dream as usual. Still, good dream though

Karl: As for the investigation dream, I am intrigued by your interpretations, man. As I feared, the face of the girl has faded from memory. I can sort of remember how she generally looked, but the details are all gone. I was actually kinda blown away that I could close my eyes and still see her as if she were standing in front of me after I woke up, so I feel lucky to have had that at all.

I'd like to point out here that it wasn't a dream about dreaming. In my dream, I was woken up by physically being poked by the pencil. I fell asleep, but I don't think I was out long enough to begin dreaming. Being woken from sleep might be significant too, in its own way.

The location seems to be a hodgepodge of several different houses from my past, including two of my sister's residences. The room I slept in was in the location of Brenna's room that she used to share with my sister, but was not the same room. The kitchen/bar area was just like in the condo. Further, the room I was lead to, with the little mirror, was where the laundry nook is, but was arranged somewhat like my uncle's room in the house he shared with my sister before she moved in with Brenna. The image in the mirror was merely a reflection of the physical room I'd been standing in, with the addition of the woman. I feel like the mirror, in addition to allowing me to see into the spiritual realm by gazing into it,  somehow broke some sort of barrier that was separating me from the spiritual realm. Thus, I didn't need it anymore one I saw her. The name she called me was Leon, but with an accented O, like in spanish, or maybe french for Lion. I'm not sure if the animal symbolism of name itself would be more significant, or the fact that it was in a romantic form.

I don't know any specific details about the situation in my dream, except we didn't know the people who lived there except as clients, and they suspected they were being haunted by a friend who was in his mid 40's when he died. This ended up not being the case, obviously.

Tracy: I'm intrigued by the mirror thing. You're saying Shannon has seen people in the mirror that turned out not to be there? This is a pretty typical horror-movie cliche, which I'm sure it why it showed up in my dream. Significantly, though, in my dream when I turned around she was still there. I'm sure the mirror symbolism is ingrained in the human psyche going back to when our ancestors first gazed into pools of water. I'm interested in anyone's thoughts regarding the significance of how my dream mirror differed from the similar popcultural reference.