Two nights ago I dreamed the following (NB. ‘Emmerdale’ is a tv soap opera and Jorge is a friend and old flatmate):
Two nights ago I dreamed the following (NB. ‘Emmerdale’ is a tv soap opera and Jorge is a friend and old flatmate):
It took place in a small room somewhere. It was night time and we were stood next to a window curtained with nets or similarly translucent fabric. I was with two young women: one was definitely ‘Jenny’ from the soap opera Emmerdale (or the actress that plays her, at any rate). The other I don’t recall. I had an old record player, the boxed Dansette type from my childhood. A record was playing the accompaniment to verses that the girls would take turns to sing. Each verse took as its subject a religious figure. The only one I specifically recall now was Krishna, the last to be sung to/about (for these were hymns, on reflection). I was constantly struck by the beauty of the girls’ voices as they carried the intricate melodies, occasionally harmonising and hitting high notes perfectly that I anticipated would be beyond them (particularly ‘Jenny’). I was rapt with joy. Halfway through this recital, Jorge came into the room. He was just in time for the last couple of verses, but before the girls began ‘Jenny’ exclaimed: “You haven’t got Frank Sinatra in this room, have you?” I think I’d mentioned that I had a Sinatra album and she got really excited at the prospect of hearing him sing. But as the four of us gathered by the window to sing to Krishna (for we were all singing now and I, to my surprise, knew the devotional verses by heart) a Krishna-blue light shone in through the thin curtain, bathing us in its trademark colour. I heard myself intoning names and syllables I had no idea I really knew (except perhaps for that of ‘Arjuna’, which I noticed myself singing repeatedly) until with heightening emotional pitch the song ended. As it did so I pulled back the curtain to see a blue figure, slightly stooped, running away from the crowded square below. For Krishna, he was older and a little out of shape, and together with the gaudy light I sensed a performance, an approximation to the symbolism, but all done for our benefit. This happened in a split second, because it seemed that as soon as the singing was over, ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood came on the record player, loudly pounding its assertive and reassuring message into the room as I took off my glasses – aware that my face was tired and strained with intensity – and flopped onto the bed.
On waking, I was struck by the singing of paeans to embodiments of God, most memorably Krishna. The theatrical blue light and actor impersonating Krishna made me think of the ‘finger pointing to the moon’ analogy in metaphysics; neither the light nor the blue painted man were Krishna, necessarily, but in a sense Krishna isn’t Krishna either, he’s a symbol of something much greater. Nevertheless, he’s a useful symbol for drawing nearer to Source, and dreams are in the business of symbolism and metaphor after all. Plus, when I was in my late teens I came across some of those free books about Krishna that ISKCON volunteers used to hand out, and was vaguely fascinated. I rarely think about Krishna, I have to say, and have never seriously read the Gita or been much interested in doing so. Since the dream, I feel curious about its possible significance but I don’t feel like I had a divine revelation as such. Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling it’s trying to tell me something. It was fairly remarkable in my experience, i don’t often dream about gods. And perhaps by trying to interpret it as an approximation to Krishna, rather than a vision of Krishna himself, I’m denying the possibility that he visited me in my dream. I’m unsure.
Here are the lyrics to ‘Relax’ by FGTH which ended the dream:
Oh oh
Wee-ell-Now!
Relax don’t do it
When you want to go to it
Relax don’t do it
When you want to come
Relax don’t do it
When you want to come
When you want to come
Relax don’t do it
When you want to to go to it
Relax don’t do it
When you want to come
Relax don’t do it
When you want to suck to it
Relax don’t do it
When you want to come
Come-oh oh oh
But shoot it in the right direction
Make making it your intention-ooh yeah
Live those dreams
Scheme those schemes
Got to hit me
Hit me
Hit me with those laser beams
I’m coming
I’m coming-yeah
Relax don’t do it
When you want to go to it
Relax don’t do it
When you want to come
Relax don’t do it
When you want to suck to it
Relax don’t do it (love)
When you want to come
When you want to come
When you want to come
Come-huh
Get it up
The scene of love
Oh feel it
Relax
Higher higher
Hey-
Pray