Dreams of Chanting

I dreamt I was in Portland. I think I was living above Reed College on a wide sunny street (I have a vague notion that the dream setting was my old College Haunt). I don't remember too much except that I might have been chanting in ritual with M. H. and Shaggy and Scooby-Doo. There was a bad woman who we had managed to shrink down to fit in a basket, but somehow she tricked Scooby into chanting the wrong words and she got out of her basket, grew to giant size, and was tromping along the street.

There's a break in my recollection. I was traveling from Portland to Corvallis by flying. I had my big black and purple cloak, and I was flying by night. I remember there was some difficulty because my shoulder bag was slipping around a little. But mostly I was having fun swooping over night time skyscrapers and countryside, my cloak flapping in the wind. I had some sort of discussion with my dad about flying, but the only thing I recall is that I could fly from Portland to Corvallis in an hour.

Another break. I was flying in daylight. I think I made it to Corvallis, except the Willamette River was about five times wider than it should have been. A blue heron flew underneath me. I remember pausing at the river's edge to be sure that I could fly over the river. I set out anyway, and I made the far shore. Somehow I had lost my shoulder bag -- I was in one of those odd dream situations where a part of me knew that I was still wearing the bag, but at the same time my bag was lost.

There was a large white castle ahead, and I flew to it. I remember being struck by how white and light-filled the castle was; the passage ways were wide. I figured that I'd find my bag in the castle, so I started walking around in the corridors. I came to a plain wooden door with a little window in it. Sonorous chanting came from the other side -- it was so resonant that I felt the door vibrating as I leaned against it. As I listened to the chanting, I felt like my essence was melting into the door's, and the chanting seemed to be vibrating everything into a kind of cosmic monad.

The chanting stopped. I went through the door and into a little stone chamber. There were four or five other people there-- mostly men -- standing in a circle in the center of the room. There was a sense of otherness to them; they seemed too vibrant to be human. I explained that I was looking for my bag, (while at the same time being aware that I was still wearing it) and then we were all chanting together. They sang a kind of ground while I sang an improvised melody. The words weren't English, and it was mostly long stretches of vowels with a few voiced consonants thrown in. I was filled with a very strong holistic feeling of being here and now, and my whole body started vibrating again and then I woke up.