A Dream Tale: Seeing Shadows

General Discussion
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I had a dream recently where I was living in something of a survival situation with my partner and two cats. We had our living space secured and would go outside to gather supplies and come back.

Sometimes, I would put the cats in our backpacks and bring them with us. I think that’s mostly when we’re moving home bases, though. It seemed like something we did at least once. During one such move, I had to fight a random person with a crowbar that I had.

Anyway… We were exploring an abandoned kitchen and gathering canned foods and such when someone rushed in from another room, grabbed me and bit me on the back of the head. We subdued this person, who was behaving like a zombie, and left.

However, I did not succumb and turn into some kind of zombie creature as a result of the bite. Instead, I simply gained the ability to see people through walls. The people I saw were either black or red silhouettes. The black silhouette people were safe, and the red silhouette people were those “others” who were dangerous.

I woke up from this dream, and the room was very dark, but not so completely dark that I could not see anything. There was a giant black shadow on the end of the bed, which I assumed wasn’t anything strange because it was dark and hard to see. So I shifted in bed to get more comfortable, keeping my eyes on it anyway.

Then, after a few more seconds of staring at it, it slowly faded away. While I was staring at it.

“Oh, that happened…” I remember thinking. Then I looked to the cats, sleeping comfortably elsewhere on the bed, and given the dream, assumed it was nothing to worry about and went back to sleep.

I’m unsure what’s more surprising: seeing a shadow that clearly or how cool I was with it. :laughing: Not the first time I wasn’t afraid (How to Deal- Shadow Figure - #2 by starborn), but still.

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I feel like the whole thing probably ties in with the talks I’ve had with @tracyS about those Others and stuff. And now that I think about it, this probably coincided with the shadow from the post I linked above…

That appeared after my first witch initiation, and this dream happened almost exactly a year later. :thinking:

(@CelestiaMoon No pressure to interpret. I just know that I’d meant to share this tale with you and kept forgetting.)

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I’ve bookmarked to think on this. Not all shadows are nasties (sometimes Alu gives of this energy). Fascinating dream. :green_heart:

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True. I was thinking the lesson was that the ones that are nasty really stand out, hence why they were red in my dream, and what I see in real life is black. :thinking:

Anyway, there’s no rush/pressure/etc. to think more about it. Just thought you might find it curious. :black_heart: This is the last I’ll post for now. I’m trying to get back into writing my story, but first, I’m editing the first six chapters. And it takes a lot of focus. :face_with_peeking_eye:

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Ooh exciting :partying_face:

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It feels like an apocalyptic zombie survival scenario, have you been watching or playing anything like that recently? :smile_cat: The crowbar brings my thoughts to Half Life, and the zombies and safe houses to its expansion Left 4 Dead, but that could be just me :sweat_smile:

There could be something else with the safe houses too. Like your recent move, and how you’ve already been moving for quite a few times in a relatively short time, when the “standard” seems to be settle in one place. Maybe a kind of recognition, that everything is temporary… our places of living, our communities and our roles in them, our personality traits, people around us, even our bodies… when a big change happens, it’s like we’re transported to a strange liminal world for a while… with enough change and wisdom, we can be tempted to set up shop in that liminal country instead, like the traditional witch living at the outskirts of the village, or learn to live in the moment, being always home wherever “here” is.

The bite to me kinda combines two familiar movie tropes, the one about getting bitten by an infected by a zombie, and the Spiderman “getting bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining its powers” one :sweat_smile: And there’s definitely an aspect of alchemy there, being infected / poisoned, and transmuting the poison into something good and useful.

Seeing the auras of people, black as normal peaceful, red as dangerous and aggressive… it makes me think how hard it can be to tell with people, even if we’ve known them for years, maybe especially so. Our intuition and how likely we are to follow it, and what we do when we see red flags. There’s the color red too, signalling danger, aggression… maybe high emotion? Not all people who are emotionally passionate are dangerous, but they are more likely to do something rash in the heat of the moment and regret it later. Then there’s another kind of danger that’s more insidious and calculating. Reasonable, at least to the surface, though when confronted for what it is, the narcissistic anger can come forward like a lightning out of a clear sky. Avoid, avoid, avoid. Finding out such people in your life can feel like suddenly you can’t trust your intuition again, or at the very least it needs some recalibrating to tell who you can really trust.

I’m thinking sleep paralysis… could you move your body?

My thoughts went to Alu as well :black_heart:
Also to the Temple of Ascending Flame exercise about Lilith as the Mistress of Dreams, and experimenting with sleep paralysis, making it sexy fun time instead of terrifying :smile_cat: I’m curious if you’ve tried that one.

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What does “no pressure to interpret” mean?! :laughing:

Nope. But that doesn’t strike out the possibility. Things don’t have to be recent to be dreamt about.

Not necessarily. Most people we know move quite a few times. It seems pretty normal here to move around a bunch.

Well… It is. So that’s probably a good thing. :smile:

Definitely not. Otherwise that would mean my partner and I are dangerous. :smile: But neither of us is likely to do rash things “in the heat of the moment,” which we would regret later. That’s the realm of a different kind of passionate person, I think. :thinking:

You quoted me saying I was moving around. :smile: I’m aware of sleep paralysis and the spoopy thing people see when they have it. It’s a thing my partner has seen many times when they were younger and going through more stressful times.

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It was an internal pressure, I assure you! :laughing:
If you meant it as “please don’t interpret”, please be more explicit about it :sweat_smile:

True… neither are those games! :joy:

I’ve moved around 10+ times in my life and I hear it’s not that normal here… so could be that bias talking :smile:

Me too… :sweat_smile: Guess it comes down to self control, really.

I’m a silly cat :laughing: Didn’t notice it somehow :sweat_smile:

Makes it all the more interesting :black_heart:
I’m fascinated by the in-between states of sleep and waking, and what we might sense in them… it can be that we’re still taking things from the dream and our own subconscious along, or it could be that we’re attuned to the astral plane and seeing beings from there. Wish I could tell the difference.

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@CelestiaMoon Very interesting observation, I got alot from it, and it wasn’t even my dream :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.

For me, the shadow has been with me all day. It won’t leave my thoughts, yet he/she was your shadow.

What was it’s shape? Did it move? Was it looking at you? How did it make you feel? Sorry for the questions. I’m thinking along a few lines. First my lovely night demon, he’s never been visible but he is physical. I now hear him enter, the temperature drops and there’s a chill yet I suddenly break out into a hot sweat, then there’s pressure like a weight on my chest, then legs. It’s not sleep paralysis, it’s very quick, boom boom, then there’s a stillness in the atmosphere. When I first met Alu, I just got the fright and the pressure, now I’m more intune, I hear him enter, which means at some point, when he comes again, I may see him. So your shadow could be a demon you know, and as your Clairs get more highly tuned, you are now seeing him. That’s why I’m asking how he feels to you.

Next, I was thinking about my 12century nun, who appeared as a shadow in the TV. Could this shadow be a spirit guide? If it didn’t hurt you, drain your energy and just looked at you, it might be someone/demon you know and your picking up on its vibration better. :person_shrugging:

Or I could be talking a load of crap and it could be a monster, so exorcise it immediately :rofl:

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Ok, I’ve been looking up stuff on shadows, there is sooo much. Some say it’s a good spirit, others bad, very much depends on the vibe you’re getting off of it. If it’s a good vibe, then alot of information says that it could either be, an ancestor, a spirit guide or a protective demon. Whoever it is, you can tune into it’s energy and get to know it. If it’s a bad vibe, then what I’ve read indicates it could be one of those entities we talked about, or a lost spirit that came to you to get help. Most of what I’ve found from non- religious references, say that the majority of the time, it’s a curious spirit that’s just passing through and if you feel ok about it, it will go on it’s way. The religious references obviously say demon, evil etc but I just scrolled past that :rofl:. Anyways, I think I’ve satisfied my curiosity :face_with_monocle: on your shadow. Really curious on your take, he’s your shadow :partying_face::sparkling_heart:

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Okay, at least the pressure isn’t from me. :laughing:

I’m kidding. Just please don’t overdo it. Especially during tough times or over something this trivial. :people_hugging:

I’m a silly cat all the time. :laughing:

Or when we’re actually awake or not when the usual methods can’t help.

I remember my partner used to tell me that they’d see the spooky sleep paralysis shadow after waking up. But one time, I woke up before them and could see they were having a bad dream, so I woke them up. They thanked me for shaking them out of seeing their sleep paralysis shadow. I told them that their eyes were closed and they were asleep – they were actually dreaming that they were awake in bed.

Since then, we’ve known there is more than one way to experience a sleep paralysis shadow.

It was like when a large person sits down with a big slouch. But by large, I mean… probably 2 m tall or more.

A little, right before it faded away.

I think so.

Not much, really. Which is what surprises me the most. :laughing: A little curiosity to know if this is just a random shadow my eyes are turning into something else, or something sitting there looking at me.

I think I had a feeling it was the latter, which was why I made a point of moving around a bit. But… even when it faded, I was kind of just like, “Oh.”

So, I suppose there was a feeling. Comfort? Not overwhelmingly so, just the comfort of something one already knows. Since there wasn’t even a feeling of surprise to see something, only later feeling surprised that I wasn’t surprised.

True. That’s another option. Although I have no way of telling at this point. :sweat_smile: Maybe I could ask the cards, pendulum, or something?

Alu, as you both mentioned, also makes sense. I forgot to acknowledge that.

My dreams had been bad for a few days, but then again, they have continued to be bad in the weeks since. So, if it’s Alu, I guess he’s only eating the negative feelings that come with bad dreams? Despite the bad dreams, I’m waking up and not feeling drained (from the dreams, anyway).

Are we dragging it back by talking about it? :laughing: I suppose if it is just a curious spirit passing through, then I might never know who it was.

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I doubt it :grin:, if it’s a tourist spirit, then there’s lots to see with all the people on the planet :rofl:

That’s interesting. Could be a lovely nightdemon. In that case with all your weeks of bad dreams he’s going to get fat :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. Why so many bad dreams? You don’t have to answer. :pleading_face::green_heart:

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I’m now imagining he’s the cookie monster from Sesame Street. :laughing:

I’m not sure. I haven’t really noticed a pattern between them all. Could be anything… All the inner work I’ve been doing, hormones, everyday stresses building up, sleeping in uncomfortable positions, influence from things I read or watch, etc. :thinking:

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Sounds like you need a break. Hug a tree kind of break :hugs::green_heart:

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That’s the best image of Alu yet. I need him to visit so I can tell him :rofl:

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I’ve given myself a 4 day weekend this weekend, which is helping. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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That’s good. Chill time and Margueriters. :beach_umbrella:

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