Elephant clock of al-Jazari, 1206

A friend of mine who is a generally prolific dreamer was puzzled as to why she felt she was losing the memory of some important dream experiences.

“Sometimes I go deeper than deep,” she told me. “I go down through successive levels of dreaming to the place where it’s at, where the truly big stuff takes place. But by the time I wake up, it’s all gone away.

“Or I’m reading a book that contains the secret of life. I can hear the words in my mind, as well as read them on the page, and I am determined that I won’t let them slip. I try to surface very gently from sleep, still holding the text. But when I open my eyes, it’s all blown away, like fall leaves.”

I suggested she might want to make it her game to ask for guidance, inside her dreams, on why certain dreams go away.

She agreed to perform a simple version of dream incubation: putting a question to dreams of the night. She wrote down on a slip of paper, “Why do I lose some of my big dreams?”

She reported the next day that she had experienced “a night of a thousand eyes.” Her dreams had been rich and wild adventures in a magic forest peoples with beings other-than-human and more-than-human. Becoming lucid inside her dreams, she recalled her intention – and also resolved not to forget this night’s dreams. She came to a gap between giant trees, covered with gleaming vines, with familiar territory – her home town – ahead.

An exotic character in a turban, with a face as round as a clock, appeared in the gap. He was seated on an elephant no bigger than he was. The elephant, strangely, also looked like a clock.

“Who are you?” the dreamer demanded.

“I am your Timekeeper,” said this odd sentinel. “I make sure you remember only the dreams you are ready for.”

With that, the scene dissolved. She found herself lying in bed, in the early light filtering through the curtains. She felt that she had her answer.

I am intrigued by the notion that there is a time for everything, including certain dreams. I am fascinated by the image of an inner Timekeeper who tries to ensure that we bring from the night what is timely.

It may be like this in our larger life plans. We bring into the body, in this life experience, only as much as we can handle from the greater universe we belonged to, on the level of consciousness, before physical birth. To reclaim more of that soul knowledge, and bring through more of our dreams, we must grow our understanding and practice staying grounded in this world while carrying thew secrets of the world-behind-the-world.