I had an interesting dream experience a few days ago I'll try to share.

First, for context....I was never into controlling my dreams, I found it more interesting to pay attention passively, to see what I could perceive that seemed to come from outside my usual mental box. My lucid dreams were scripted by a subconscious muse of some sort, and most of them were new experiences or parables in response to questions I'd asked. About five years ago my dreams started becoming increasingly abstract, lacking metaphors that I could grasp, and they gradually drifted out of my comprehension and awareness. Now I hardly even dream. My waking life remained full of interesting metaphors though, and if anything those metaphors became clearer and more obviously relevant to where I am as a person.

Rather than try to describe my dream from last week, I'll give my interpretation of it using a different metaphor. I'm sure my interpretation is limited, and doesn't capture anything like the whole underlying meaning, but that would be true if I tried to describe my experience also.

The muse has something like indifference towards me, though indifference isn't the right idea. It is present in some sense, and its presence influences events in a subtle way, but maybe it does not usually turn its attention on me in an overt way. If I'm a squirrel in a park, the muse is a ranger that takes care of the park, but doesn't feed the squirrels. More overt interaction is harmful for somewhat the same reason that feeding wild animals is harmful to the animals, it forms an unhealthy dependence that interferes with their proper way of living. The ranger will however in some circumstances respond in a recognizable way to an animal if approached by one, and might intervene on its own initiative if an animal falls in a hole or something. But for an animal, life is never other than a few years of joy and struggle terminated by violence or starvation, and a wise ranger is unlikely to perceive that the same way the animal does.

Many people think in terms of right and not-right, and appeal to providence for assistance in finding and adhering to the 'right'. I'm a fairly extreme example of one of these people, I interpret practically every experience as a moral drama. One of the confusing things about life is that we're from the beginning so far off of the 'right' path that there's no near term way to get back on it, and trying too hard is counterproductive. Every path is wrong, both in the sense of inevitably leading to some kind of suffering, and in the sense that in our more transcendent moments we may recognize the wrongness. The misfortune is inevitable, because nothing can forever run away from itself, and escape its own nature. And yet, even in all of this, it seems that everything somehow works together for the better, as well as it can. It seems the divine side of our natures can be depended on in that sense also.

I think that my feeling and understanding of what it means for something to be 'wrong' is partially perverted by the wrongness of where I am personally. I think that this perversion inspires a desire or yearning for change or redemption, and I think that is part of what creates my experiences with the dream 'muse'. Furthermore, other people's thoughts are a factor also, there is an inherently collective or interactive aspect to the way I dream. I've mostly stopped dreaming in this way because my thinking and other people's thinking has shifted. That's probably both good and bad. Maybe I'm wiser and more in harmony with nature now in a way that tends not to produce jarring psychic corrections in the form of paranormal dreams. Or maybe I'm more blind and corrupt now, and therefore less capable of reaching that high. I think it is probably both.

I guess that's probably too vague and subjective for most other people to make much sense out of it, but I'll leave it at that.