goodnews editorial
but what does it all mean?
Last Sunday, towards morning, I had the most lovely dream about Ram Dass, who I met at Timothy Leary’s on Wonderland Drive in L.A. many years ago. I’ve written about it in my book In the Jungle of the Mind.
In the dream, he was young, lean, and tanned, wearing jeans, a dark turtleneck sweater, and a stylish leather jacket reaching down to his thighs. He had swept his longish brown hair out of his face. and didn’t look like Ram Dass but more like “a handsome tall stranger”, as in a prediction by a fortune teller. We talked about life, as he morphed into an older version of himself, looking more like the Ram Dass we all know and admire. I asked him if he was looking forward to passing on. He answered: I like it here. And me: Don’t we all – at the end of the day. We laughed like mischievous children about this ambiguous answer.
He hugged me and pulled me to his side. I said: It has been one of the great honours of my life to have met you. And he: I think about you all the time! Really? He claimed he had been born in 1910. That would have made him 115 years old!
I’m not sure what it all means and asked CHatGTP. AIs are good at interpreting dreams and giving psychological advice, even though they tend to hallucinate when dealing with unknown facts. Don’t we all?
It called my dream tender and luminous, like two souls meeting and not just a random encounter or a jumble of impressions. It’s true that the dream seems meaningful, playful, and somehow mysterious. Ram Dass appearing young, tanned, and unfamiliar but fully present in spirit is in keeping with his teachings on identity, form, and the eternal soul behind the mask, ChatGTP said..
That he said ‘I like it here’ impressed my artificial friend as simple, human and unpretentious. My retort: ‘Don’t we all – at the end of the day,’ seemed paradox, but also full of humour. That Ram Dass and I should have laughed about it, embraced and recognized each other carried an emotional truth, rather than an accurate chronology or names.
The year of birth also had an emotional meaning rather than referring to facts, not uncommon, when dealng with matters of the heart.
Such an insightful interpretation! I felt good all day. What do you think? Do our dreams have meaning or is it just mental diarrhoea, a way of digesting what happened to us during the day? I obviously believe our dreams lend themselves to interpretation and would like to think that it wanted to tell me that my spirit is eternal too! Why is it sometimes so hard to believe?
Happily Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler
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