Relative Something

Why does familiarity breed contempt?  The more familiar I get with that phrase, the more I despise it.

In my grand acceptance of the belief that opposite realities coexist in all things, it makes total sense that familiarity would also bring respect and affection. For some reason, the classic winter holiday songs I adore –really, the only ones I ever want to hear– are the ones that are familiar to me from repeated hearings throughout my childhood. Not just the songs, though, but particularly the Bing Crosby, or Nat King Cole voices singing the songs I heard. They became my only accepted versions. It can be downright painful to listen to subsequent variations.

Another thing that reflects my belief in coexisting opposite realities is how pain can be both bad and good. What hurts us, can help us. One reality of that is emotional pain. Avoid it all you want, but that will never bring resolution. It tags along with you everywhere you go, like a trailing piece of toilet paper stuck on the heel of your shoe. But if you face such issues head on, speak about and deal with them, such problems can dissolve from your emotional carry-on, like magic.

Why haven’t I been able to get myself to act on that idea of stepping toward the pain? Probably, common sense. If it hurts, stop doing it. I haven’t learned how to get myself to step all the way through. I take that first step, meet the pain, and react defensively, often saying something that makes things worse instead of better. I find myself more hurt, and nothing’s fixed. I tell myself to never do that again. Might as well go get that toilet paper and intentionally stick it to my heel.

I was blessed recently by the experience of a lucid dream that directly reflects my idea of facing the pain and giving in to it, all the way. In my dream, suddenly there was fire. It was as if I was hovering above it. The fire didn’t appear to me as the individual pointy flames, but more as all-encompassing balls of fire, very orange. The area that was burning was very green. In the classic way that dreams can present, the image that I am left with is one of large flowery heads of broccoli. Maybe I can unpack that part later. There was a brief moment of anxiety over the threat of all that fire. Then my mind made the very quick acknowledgment that I was in a dream. This is the very precious moment in a lucid dream where I am able to sense that I am dreaming, without causing myself to wake from the dream. Instead of reacting in fear to the flames, and struggling to devise an escape, I made an immediate decision to fully give in to the flames. If they were going to burn me, then so be it. The word “immolate” suddenly filled my awareness, whether from my subconscious, as a sort of direction of my actions in the dream, or from my more lucid mind reacting to the decision, I don’t know. I held my arms out wide and allowed my dream-self to fall into the fire.

It is a brilliant moment in a lucid dream, that instant of having faced up to the threat. I’m guessing it is so dramatic that it causes me to exceed the barrier that kept me dreaming. I usually wake up at this point. But the experience is not lost, and I am very aware of the sensation that I fell into those flames and did not get burned.

It must be time for me to unload some of my baggage.