We’re a bunch of old friends from University days, on our way to somewhere in Wales, in an old Land Rover.
Without our copy of The Readers Digest Book of Roads (400 pages), cross-referenced to signposts, we’d have had no chance. Our route takes us up hill and down dale, in a maze of narrow country roads.
Finally we arrive at a kind of encampment: a bit like earliest Glastonbury Festivals, but with no more than 500 attendees.
I notice that many of the young women are in ground-length dresses, shouldering hand-printed cloth bags from India. Their dress and demeanour resembles those of devotees in 1972 London I met after we left the Norfolk Crow Hall commune. I’d had enough of Aquarian Age hedonism, sought a more spiritual enlightenment. We got tangled in the Divine Light Mission, based on a 15-year-old Indian guru.
So I tell this to one of the most senior persons on the field. He agrees that the devotees are akin to my memories, “but you see, we are all Christians too.” This sounds like a delicate balancing act.
The good thing is we’re allowed to go wherever we please. They’re used to having raggle-taggle ex-hippies coming out of curiosity, to see what they’re all about. The women dress like the above to emphasise their purity, no chance of chatting them up. Male and female mix freely but you don’t see them in couples. Within the boundaries, we’re free to wander around, say hello and help ourselves to vegan snacks and watery elderflower in plastic cups.
While we’re being set at our ease, preparations are being completed on the stage. Lights and sound system are being tested. Peaceful music starts to float from no particular source. Unobserved till now, a small team of dedicated volunteers is erecting a continuous barrier gradually hemming us in, with a manned gate at one end.
I want to warn my friends, but I can’t see them. They must have seen what’s going on, and got out before me. I dash out of the last gap just in time.
It’s rapidly getting dark. I’m too disoriented to know the whereabouts of the Land Rover. Surely they’ll wait? An hour passes and I’ve circled the area twice. It dawns upon me that they think I’m interested to stay for the event, and have driven off while they can still see signposts.
I’m stuck in an unknown part of Wales. I’ve left my backpack in the car. I’ve no money, nothing. It’s pitch dark now. This is the worst moment of my life. I look around to see if there’s any lights visible. Extreme panic.
At this point I see that I’m in bed at home and the clock is telling me it’s 2am.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Is this a recent dream?
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Indeed it is, recorded in my notebook on Wednesday 18th, and published at 9.37 the same evening, GMT (UTC+0). At odd moments in the day it was edited. The most time was taken researching suitable illustrations via Google images.
Thanks for asking. Other readers may indeed be unclear about the 50-year gap between the dream and memories of being a cult follower. In real life, visitors were not physically trapped in any way, but many of us were psychologically vulnerable, and this in my view was played upon by the guru and his closest acolytes.
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Hi Ian,
I’ve been thinking about my dreams lately, so your dream interested me. I think that dreams tell us about the present as well as using images from the past. I wonder if you are feeling trapped now and what may be trapping you.
Other people’s dreams speak to us as well as our own. My dreams seem to be about finding a resolution to the diminishments which we experience with ageing. In a retirement home one see constant loss of friends, health, mobility, etc. Our dreams are trying to help us find the courage to make transitions gracefully.
Always Grateful, ellie
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Thanks, Ellie, you are most perceptive. I’m indeed trapped, by a sudden group of symptoms: acute lower back pain and congestion down below. Humiliating too.
It’s been going on a couple of weeks while I’m waiting for diagnosis and treatment. Such diminishments are on top of gradual symptoms of ageing, which I’d learned to cope with.
My wife Karleen sees comfort in hope, that flame that must keep on burning. But I’m learning, even more strongly that before, that to hope is to sidestep the moment, which is all I have, and to cope with it directly.
For in hope there is fear. What if this doesn’t happen within two weeks? What if that doesn’t happen within the hour, or the next few minutes?
I’m learning to accept that the present moment is tolerable, if I accept that there is nothing I can do about it. Meanwhile, I’m learning how to cope in the given situation. Anything less than this is tantamount to self-harm.
I hope and trust that your own dreams help in these inevitable transitions, dear Ellie.
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Dear Ian,
It is a very good dream to think about. There are are many interesting elements to it: traveling with friends without a fixed destination, arriving at a welcoming venue, the scene setting up restrictions, friends leaving without you, losing the resources you could depend upon. The dream could have gone on to greater difficulties but instead your consciousness was changed – you woke up in the comfort of your own bed.
Perhaps the whole purpose of dreaming is to alter our perspective. We are often trapped by the way we are looking at a situation as much as by the circumstances themselves.
Looking for Solutions, ellie
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That was a remarkable dream, indeed… and so vividly described I wasn’t sure at first whether it was an actual memory of real events. I suppose, however, that we should consider a dream as a ‘real event’ in its own right, with its proper place in the stream of events that make up our lives ‘in the moment’. May the interventions of the medical people bring you swift relief and restoration.
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I’m sure it’s a common experience, going back to the Old Testament, Homer, the Ramayana and even the Book of Gilgamesh, that dreams, and tales generally, get elaborated in the telling. See also Bryan White’s blog, https://encyclopediaofcountedsheep.wordpress.com/
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And thanks for your good wishes, GentleEye. I’ve drafted another post, factual throughout, called “Pain Diary”. I thought it would be full of misery, but not so.
You’d think the painkiller is mightier than the pen, but nohow! As Lewis Carroll said in the Looking-Glass –
‘At any rate I’d better be getting out of the wood, for really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think it’s going to rain?’
Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it.
‘No, I don’t think it is,’ he said: ‘at least – not under here. Nohow.’
‘But it may rain outside?’
‘It may – if it chooses,’ said Tweedledee: ‘we’ve got no objection. Contrariwise.”
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“The Pain Diary” was a silly idea, as it turns out. Things have moved on. I’ve stopped taking painkillers. Not a topic of interest. I’d like to publicly thank my osteopath Robert Pettingell.
Robert, you’ve fixed something in my back. I shall continue in mindfulness, reminded by each twinge.
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