Mere Dreamer
Senior Registered
I had a vision experience during meditation earlier this year that I have come to think of as essentially walking into a "living" tarot card.
At the time, I knew very little about tarot and had only casually used an online layout with its basic descriptions because they tended to help me notice how I was feeling, either by highlighting or contrasting what was going on in my head. Even now, I don't know much. I've read a lot of mythology from around the world, which naturally gives me a wide basis for associations, but I can't say I've ever studied the structure of myth on purpose.
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All this to say, I entered my personal, inner space, asked a question of my guides, and found myself looking into a dark mirror on the wall, with a candle nearby. (I didn't know much about dark mirrors at the time, so I didn't think much about it.)
I entered the mirror and found a night scene, mild hills stretching out with dark mountains in the distance, like you would see under slight moonlight. There was a pillar with an robed, ancient man suspended in the air, crossing the pillar (making a cross, visually) apparently sleeping or dead. As I approached, he uprighted himself (without ever touching the ground) and spoke to me.
I was requesting a clear path, then realized the scene had been a visual trick. He had been hovering over a straight path to the horizon that had seemed to be a pillar from my position. But the path disappeared as soon as I realized it, and the wise man told me that I will only see my path looking back, so it's useless to look for it before I take a step. Then the scene melted away into another that was equally meaningful but didn't really have characters.
Recently I was researching the tarot and realized that there is a card with many of these elements. While the old man didn't demonstrably hold a lantern, he was easily seen even without light, if that makes sense.
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Last week my best friend had a long dream with me by her side, though I don't know if I had the dream, too. As she reached the part I'll describe below, I had that feeling you get with deja vu.
It started out with the usual life-influenced craziness then segued into a mystical interaction with a wise woman who gave us a warning about not being drawn into the craziness outside.
She came to find us, brought us through many hallways into her kitchen, and served us tea and stew of various flavors, while generally making us feel at peace and welcome. Mica said that we could see into her walled garden/orchard from the kitchen, but when I asked if we could walk there, she said, "Nobody enters my garden but me."
After her warning not to agree to an approaching invitation, one of the characters from her earlier dreams came to find us and we ended up back in the earlier portion of the dream where we were invited to join a dance. We declined and ended up wandering a labyrinth of hallways in an attempt to leave the house.
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I haven't come to any conclusions. But the strength of the characters in these two instances was much more than the average dream or glimpse. They showed up with a great deal of weight and their presence shifted perspective, mood, and ... well, everything about the experience. I felt it, even second-hand, when Mica described her dream to me.
I'm wondering if any of you have had similar experiences with archetypal characters.
What do you think?
At the time, I knew very little about tarot and had only casually used an online layout with its basic descriptions because they tended to help me notice how I was feeling, either by highlighting or contrasting what was going on in my head. Even now, I don't know much. I've read a lot of mythology from around the world, which naturally gives me a wide basis for associations, but I can't say I've ever studied the structure of myth on purpose.
---
All this to say, I entered my personal, inner space, asked a question of my guides, and found myself looking into a dark mirror on the wall, with a candle nearby. (I didn't know much about dark mirrors at the time, so I didn't think much about it.)
I entered the mirror and found a night scene, mild hills stretching out with dark mountains in the distance, like you would see under slight moonlight. There was a pillar with an robed, ancient man suspended in the air, crossing the pillar (making a cross, visually) apparently sleeping or dead. As I approached, he uprighted himself (without ever touching the ground) and spoke to me.
I was requesting a clear path, then realized the scene had been a visual trick. He had been hovering over a straight path to the horizon that had seemed to be a pillar from my position. But the path disappeared as soon as I realized it, and the wise man told me that I will only see my path looking back, so it's useless to look for it before I take a step. Then the scene melted away into another that was equally meaningful but didn't really have characters.
Recently I was researching the tarot and realized that there is a card with many of these elements. While the old man didn't demonstrably hold a lantern, he was easily seen even without light, if that makes sense.
----
Last week my best friend had a long dream with me by her side, though I don't know if I had the dream, too. As she reached the part I'll describe below, I had that feeling you get with deja vu.
It started out with the usual life-influenced craziness then segued into a mystical interaction with a wise woman who gave us a warning about not being drawn into the craziness outside.
She came to find us, brought us through many hallways into her kitchen, and served us tea and stew of various flavors, while generally making us feel at peace and welcome. Mica said that we could see into her walled garden/orchard from the kitchen, but when I asked if we could walk there, she said, "Nobody enters my garden but me."
After her warning not to agree to an approaching invitation, one of the characters from her earlier dreams came to find us and we ended up back in the earlier portion of the dream where we were invited to join a dance. We declined and ended up wandering a labyrinth of hallways in an attempt to leave the house.
----
I haven't come to any conclusions. But the strength of the characters in these two instances was much more than the average dream or glimpse. They showed up with a great deal of weight and their presence shifted perspective, mood, and ... well, everything about the experience. I felt it, even second-hand, when Mica described her dream to me.
I'm wondering if any of you have had similar experiences with archetypal characters.
What do you think?