Jenny Boully on the transformative power of dreams

“Visit,” 2024, collage and theme

(dama / For The Times)

The first visit happened in a dream on the wing of the plane that took my mother and me to San Antonio, because my sister had passed away. My sister materialized through the yellow cumulus clouds, beckoning me to come to her, and I did the same. In my palm, she released a ball of pure golden light before retreating into the clouds.

Visitation, in addition to meaning a gathering of friends and family for the recently deceased, can also be defined as a visit. from DEADMAN. In My Dream Life, my sister returns, randomly but always intensely, to travel here with me in my sensible life, to tell me everything. It's not always clear what she went so far as to tell me.

Instead of holding a visitation, my family chose to hold two funerals. The entire grocery store couldn't close, so we decided to hold the ceremony over two nights to allow my late sister's co-workers to come in between their shifts.

Everyone – clients, old classmates, neighbors, my ex's children – told me how my sister had been an angel, an inspiration and a guiding light in their lives. . My sister, who died at age 48 of breast cancer, became an angel through the workings of Death, but she – as has been repeatedly confirmed through her tears and sadness reception – also an angel in her Awakening Life.

The visits take place because the mourners occupy a space that is not real; a loss that transcends reality that would otherwise collapse the once stable sense of self, space, and time. Like any of us have lost Who knows, such a deep loss will break you. Loss upsets our conception of space: Space is now dominated by an insurmountable absence. This absence distorts time or the boundaries of days, weeks or months that were once clearly demarcated.

In mourning and grief, this very brokenness of self, space and time can find, in the practice of Visitation, some temporary direction in a world that has been turned upside down. Seeing familiar faces, hearing old stories, thinking about old songs – such memories bind us, no matter how frayed and fragile the thread of grief, to a world that has changed. change. The world is now distorted: it is a world where someone has gone missing.

My sister is absent from the world now. I cling to her every visit when she came in my dreams. I've always had a special interest in Dream Life, and after my sister passed away, I realized that if I wanted to continue some form of communication with her, I would have to become an astronomer researcher and collector of detailed data at a sleep observatory. Only I can keep watch; Only I can record fate.

So I started integrating my Waking Life into my Dream Life.

It seems like everyone suddenly wants to have a lucid dream. I say: First dream, but dream actively. Here are some methods I take to ensure alignment with my Dream Life:

• Keep a notebook by your bedside. Take this notebook first thing when you wake up, no matter what time it is. Even if you cannot recall any dreams, this practice, which can be difficult to establish, will develop into a habit. If you can't recall a fully formed dream, write down small dreams – fragments of the dream.
• Drink water. Of course, the body will function optimally when properly hydrated, but going to bed with a full bladder will help you wake up in the middle of the night with a slight sense of reverie. Be sure to discipline yourself to write down your dreams before you go to the bathroom and forget. Keep a notebook next to the toilet to help you remember.
• Relax your mind before going to sleep. Tell yourself that you are going to dream and you are going to remember your dreams and you are going to write them down. It's okay if you're stressed or have troubling thoughts before bed. Think what you want, but always be confident that you will dream. I recommend reading before bed, because it is an activity that stimulates the mind, imagination, openness to wonder, attention and interpretation: This is what reading is about your own dream.
• Sleep in. We have more opportunities to dream when we can sleep. Treat yourself to this at least once a week.
• Try using mugwort in tea before bed. After a few weeks of active daydreaming, try drinking mugwort tea on nights when you can sleep and dream more comfortably. Mugwort is an easily available herb and produces more vivid dreams. One teaspoon will be enough.
• Ask yourself what is bothering you. Can you reframe this anxiety through what your dream has shown you?

By paying attention to your dreams and collect your dreams, you will begin to find a way out. You can face that situation, in a hidden or coded way, in your dreams. You can practice your way out or through or in.

In my dream, I was an uninvited guest. I came to a white and well-lit hallway, where my sister glided past. I ran after her but was stopped by a waiter dressed in white who told me I couldn't go through the door but my sister was there, on the other side, beautifying me.

And who can say that in this life we ​​do not just visit? If the dreams of the unborn are dreams of practicing life, then what is this Awakening Life preparing for us?

In a dream, my sister wanted to go to Brazil. We're on the freeway in San Antonio. We were going quickly around all the cloverleafs and overpasses. We took turns dangerously fast. I told her I was happy to go with her, but did she know the way? Yes, she replied. She said she was leaving. She knows the way. In our dreams, we never achieve that, but we are very happy to be free, to do that, to go anywhere, whenever with our sister.

In dreams, it's not as easy as just paying attention to one person dream. A dream taken out of your dream map is just a piece, a clue, a hint of the whole. A dream is a smear of paint seen up close on a vast masterpiece – you won't know what you're seeing until you've accumulated enough, connected the dots, done a good job as a detective .

I'm a writer who profits from fragments, rarely writing a full essay in one sitting. Instead, I like to accumulate pieces, put them together, allow serendipity and discovery to arrange the pieces, to determine the binding. I like to start in chaos and let that chaos fuel its own focus or refracted brilliance.

My dream life is no different: I see dreams as fragments of a greater masterpiece. So I recorded my dreams. These little dreams, these glimmers of something that seems real and life experiences, ultimately pointing towards their stories, ultimately showing me my struggles and pushing me towards a way out in such a way that I can solve the problem in the Copper Dream World time to solve a very real problem. These two things are inseparable.

I collect the rays of light and connect the dots. My detective side sees dreams not just as an escape from logic, difficulties or everyday reality but as a world in the making. Dreams prepare me for the next life as they lead me, night after night, from one realm to another and back again.

My sister and I walked into the scary exhibit at the wax museum on one of our last outings together. She was afraid of what might appear. I held her hand and led the way. I knew it would be one of the last times I held her hand. My sister, who has always been at the forefront of my fear of dark hallways, is now led by my hand.

Except, in Waking Life, that is, in reality, my sister was the first to enter the fear of the dark, the dream of Death, which I always held close to my heart.

If I want to see what there is to see in the ongoing Visitation dream sequence from my deceased sister, then I will have to conclude that she is really there, on the other side, making it beautiful To me.

Jenny Boully is a Guggenheim Fellow whose books, including “Betwixt-and-Between,” use dreams alongside real-life entanglements. She has two books forthcoming from Graywolf Press. In addition to teaching at Bennington College, she offers private dream writing instruction.