“The only way to know you have been dreaming is to awaken.”
— Wayne Dyer
Have you ever dreamt you have awakened from a dream? Or been in that state of consciousness where you aren’t sure if you’re dreaming? It’s difficult to remember, because it’s beyond memory. The Native Americans believe that ours is a dream world behind the so-called “real” world, and that our experiences here are only an illusion. Aborigines celebrate their own dreamtime. Throughout human history, indigenous tribes have ascribed a sense of the metaphysical to their everyday state of being. In my lifetime, it seems as though our species has moved away from the spiritual and firmly embraced the material universe, as if it were something that can be possessed. Our actual truth is far beyond the physical plane, in the place where thought germinates. We are that which is aware of ourselves dreaming. And if our thoughts create our reality, what is existence but thoughts? From what alternate state of reality do thoughts originate when we are dreaming? How do we truly know we are dreaming unless we awaken, and which is the more authentic experience?
I am falling.
Opening doors to and from my dreams. Falling eternally; drifting in endless space. The part of me that is conscious of dreaming recedes, and the edges of reality blur.
I am still.
The faces look down on me. Intimate yet unfamiliar faces, filled with concern. They turn away, and I am lost. Untethered, without a point of reference or the awareness of self. I am all that is; without the separation of individuality.
I am frightened.
Something has happened. Something tears at the fabric of time and space, and disconnects me from all I have known, as the end of all light.
I am not alone.
The faces reappear. They are not human faces, but somehow closer than kin. They are more like memories than faces. Without speaking, they soothingly convey that everything will be all right. That regardless of my trepidation and anxieties, the universe is unfolding exactly as it should.
I am cold.
Tangled in a soaking wet sleeping bag in the grayness of dawn, six thousand feet above sea level on the last day of summer, and it’s freezing. How on earth did I get here?
~
“Prepare for liftoff!”
My car was like an Apollo rocket, taking me far from everything that was comfortable and familiar. I felt the shuddering weight of gravity fall away mile by mile. As far away as the moon is from the earth, the Bear Lakes are distant from my “home” in so many ways. When my mother ship reached its orbital destination, my backpack detached like a lunar landing module, and became a self-contained lifeline that had everything I needed. For a brief time, I was weightless and free – a part of all I could see. When my mission was completed, I would rendezvous with my car and travel back to earth, and return to the familiar sense of oppressive alienation that binds me to the ground.
My companions on that journey to the ends of the galaxy were Greg, once again red and sweating in the seat next to me, chewing on his fingernails. Suzanne, his younger sister, was even redder in the stifling back seat of my new Toyota. We were all grown up then, but used to hang out around Lagunitas as kids. With Suzanne in the rear of the car were Sierra and Rogue, her inseparable canine companions. On this ascent to the heavens, those of us without thick fur coats were much more comfortable in the suffocating September heat of Highway 5. Many rest stops were necessary – hydration respites from the dryness of warp speed, and to relieve the monotony of roasting in a steel oven on hot asphalt. The friction was generated by our separation from earthly “gravity” (i.e. the habit of taking everything too seriously).
Sadly, Greg’s dog Leroy Brown had been hit by a car over the winter and had to be put down. We had lost too many good dogs in Lagunitas that way, where the narrow main road dodges redwoods and darts around blind corners in our tight canyon. My half-wolf dog, Lobo, had his pelvis crushed by a car one year, and I spent many weeks carrying him outside to do his business, and trying to keep him calm and comfortable. He was not a very good patient, and as soon as he could walk he was off wandering again, as part of a pack of joy-roving dogs that were rumored to run down deer in the hills. One day, he didn’t show up for dinner, and I never saw him again.
This trip to the Bear Lakes was the first to truly happen as a natural extension of the previous one. Greg and I had not stopped talking about the phenomena we had experienced, and had followed one thread of research after another the entire year, running the breadth of borderland science, and exploring the depths of Truth. Both together and individually, we researched all manner of psychic-related media, in an effort to try and recapture, or at least explain, the vital insights of our last trip to the lakes. Suzanne and Greg were sharing an apartment to make ends meet, and she was naturally drawn in by our many enthusiastic kitchen table conversations. As soon as funds and schedules would allow, we were hurrying back to the grand theater, afraid of missing the next act.
The better to test our theories, we had agreed that this would be a drug-free excursion. The altered states of consciousness we sought were innate, and did not require a catalyst. We were fitter than the year before, and Sierra and Rogue were born trail dogs, so the next morning’s hike up was easier than we remembered. I realized that the Bear Creek Trail was like life: relentless hard labor interspersed with random moments of senseless beauty, leading to paradise for your efforts. Suzanne had heard all of our war stories about the trail, embellished with rolling eyes and hyperbolic waving of the arms, but she was decidedly unimpressed by the first part of the trail.
“This isn’t so bad, what were you guys crying about?” she asked at the first pack-off rest near the place where we left the dry black oak forests and began to mount the ridge.
“Oh, wait until you see what’s ahead,” we assured her with patronizing macho indulgence.
The mid-September day was pleasant, and had none of the oppressive heat I had experienced in previous trips. More than anything, this probably contributed to the ease with which we completed the first half of the trail. Sierra and Rogue proved to be excellent trail dogs, wisely conserving energy and keeping out of our way. The morning mists had hung around, curled up low on the treetops like sleeping cats. As we began to enter the beautiful alpine forest glades along the trail, the mist burned off and allowed the amber shafts of late summer light to filter through the green and yellow foliage. In the pleasant, inviting reception room of the larger trees, we dropped our packs to explore.
Despite the clement weather, Greg and I were already flushed with the effort, which had included robust acts of bravado like rolling logs out of the trail to cover up the fact that we were still out of shape and laboring. Suzanne appeared annoyingly fresh and athletic, and her dogs were barely panting.
“Are you guys ok? Do you need a rest? Here, let me help you with your packs.”
Nothing could have vexed or invigorated us more than to be out-hiked by the Little Sister. “No, go away!” We huffed and puffed and heaved our packs like Turkish weightlifters. “We could do this all day!”
“I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”
Suzanne, like her brothers Chris and Greg, spoke in layers. The surface layer was the words coming out of her mouth, and their literal meaning in the context of the social situation. A deeper meaning seeped through the spaces between her words, indicating her true intention. Depending on the circumstances, a heavy dose of sarcasm was usually required to fully express that intention. All this was said with a twinkle in the eye, in the coy manner of an actress in a foreign movie who could only be understood by the locals. And also like her brothers, she was brilliantly friendly and original.
For all our expenditure of energy, Greg and I felt better at this point of the trail than in recent memory. We had been coaching Little League together, and participated in workouts with the kids in the demonstrative manner of gym teachers. This had some dubious positive effects, such as increased tolerance for spitting, cursing, and getting dirty. However, we still liked our beer and weren’t getting any younger or slimmer… but I digress. We glared at the slim and sassy Susanne with mock loathing, as sweat dripped off the tips of our noses.
“This is nice.” Suzanne had tuned in to the streaming bandwidth of the forest. The complex bouquet of alpine breezes broadcasted tones of spicy conifer, sun-warmed granite, and chilly water. With the sudden loss of her pack’s weight, she floated as a fairy through the ferns and cute little plants. Sierra and Rogue hopped daintily through the undergrowth to dance with her. Greg and I lumbered troll-like behind them, snapping sticks and making an incongruous racket, until she turned to us with the universal symbol to “be quiet.” We stopped. Greg farted.
The look of utterly nonplussed disgust on Suzanne’s face made me wince, although I was already laughing at the perfectly timed flatulence. I quickly moved upwind of Greg. Suzanne flitted away in affronted fairy dismissal, and we trolls sat on a nurse log and busied ourselves with the bag of beef jerky and nuts we had brought for a trail lunch. We knew exactly where she was headed, and what she would find.
After scarfing handfuls of extravagantly expensive snacks, we began the laborious process of standing up and moving again. Suzanne could be heard offstage right, oohing and aahing where the “Two Towers” were sure to be, and we found her there, with her neck stuck at a 90-degree angle upward, slowly turning in circles like a ballerina in a music box.
The “Two Towers” were yet another apt plagiarism from Tolkien, well represented by what were easily the two most spectacular Ponderosa Pines any of us had ever seen. Over the years I have admired and described these magnificent beings, and words simply cannot do them justice, although hyperbolic repetition helps a little. Minas Gorgol was the slightly bigger twin, probably owing to its large southern exposure. Minas Tirith was the more graceful of the two, with perfectly proportioned branches that began about 15 feet above our heads, and ascended in an inviting spiral staircase. We had neither the equipment, nor the vantage point, to survey the exact heights of these stunning specimens, but their bases were about 22 and 24 feet in circumference, as measured by my 6-foot walking stick. The columned trunks were nearly 8 feet apart, with their larger limbs intimately intertwined like old sisters walking in the park. Conical slopes of bark had turned into soil around the base of each trunk to a height of about 3 feet, giving them a very stable and ancient appearance. Despite our attitudes of big brotherly sarcasm, Greg and I strongly sensed the harmonic vibrations emanating like an aura from the trunks of these lordly arboreal avatars. One felt the effect of being perfectly positioned between the pulsating tines of a giant tuning fork. Even the dogs had goofy grins to match the humans. The comforting sense that everything was as it should be permeated our awareness, and soothed away the exertion of the trail.
We could have stayed in that magical place, in that moment, forever. The sun subtly shifted its angle westward through the gentle boughs, and prudence called us back to labor. With our backs thoroughly dried of trail sweat, we gently stepped back to where we had stashed our packs. Every tree, shrub, fern, and delicate flower seemed to have a presence; a personality even. The dogs, the trees, and my human companions all harmonized together in a soothing symphony of calm. I felt the way that elves must feel when they commune with the living, breathing forest. The yokes of our backpacks caused our shoulders and hips to protest mildly, but the burden was lighter.
Suzanne now gaped and gawked at the scenery being revealed at every turn, and often turned back to us in sheer, slack-jawed astonishment at the surroundings. We had all been to Yosemite Valley, of course, the crown jewel of California’s natural beauty, but the comforting intimacy of this valley was far more stimulating. One may view the crown jewels from behind museum glass, but these riches caressed us, and let us wallow in the piles of treasure like Scrooge McDuck. Sierra and Rogue always wanted to be at the front, so we let Suzanne go first, to keep them out from underfoot where the trail narrows between gigantic ferns and flowers. Even this late in the year, the undergrowth was a vibrant shade of lime green in the sunlight, and glowing neon chartreuse where the sun shone through the leaves. The contrast of the cool, peaceful forests and the noisy riot of craggy ivory peaks crowding a brilliantly azure sky created a dramatic visual tension that made one’s eyes blur with effort, as a video camera adjusts from indoors to outdoors.
Eventually, we came to the familiar old avalanche scar, where here and there juvenile trees were making a comeback. The discarded shrapnel of white boulders that had tumbled down slope during that memorable cataclysm now poked their heads through a thick carpet of foliage: a mix of coelacanth, manzanita, alder, and ferns. Where the smaller rocks and gravel wash had coated the mountainside, there seemed to be a way down to the creek, and across to the flat area beneath the colossal ziggurat of granite stair steps leading up to Wee Bear. Once again, the temptation of climbing the staircase entered our conversation, and we teetered on the brink of taking the shortcut. Suzanne seemed the most willing to take the plunge. Greg and I were more dubious, or perhaps more enamored with the idea of a long rest at Big Bear Lake before proceeding up to paradise. She kept her pack on as she looked for a way down and across Bear Creek, but Greg and I wisely dropped ours at the trail, knowing we would return.
Down where the creek flowed through the rocks, I was again impressed by the twisted, primal wildness of the topography. About a half mile upstream, Bear Creek was just a trickle at this time of year, almost a seep flowing across bare rock where the inviting pools lay earlier in the summer. Down here, a few hundred feet below the lake, it was already a tumbling gush of water surging through deep clefts in the granite tabletop. It must have been fed considerably by other aquifers and springs that all came together in this funneled spot. We could see only glimpses of it through gaps in the sprawling mountain hemlock and alder, and Suzanne was soon convinced that taking a measured trail up to a beautiful alpine lake was better than bushwhacking across a rough, unknown chasm to save time. She called her dogs, blithely ignored Greg and I with our “told you so” looks on our faces, and returned to the trail as if nothing had happened. She knew from long experience not to give us the satisfaction of being right; and we knew she had conceded all the same.
We entered yet another dramatic section of the trail, with its grandiose vistas interrupted by gnarly stretches where there was little “trail” at all – just a twisted scar through the least tangled parts of the vegetation towering above our heads. We alternated between liberating scenes of delight and the torment of entanglement. First, we would be looking up and around at the tilted, sharp-toothed crags surrounding the trail, a view that little fishes might see from inside the gaping jaws of a great white shark. Then we would turn and worm through yet another stretch of hot, snarled bushes up to the next level. The familiar landmark trees along the trail passed without fanfare, as the difficult terrain caused us to focus solely on getting above the mess. “This trail could use some serious maintenance,” I grumbled out loud, with the affronted entitlement of a spoiled taxpayer.
At last, we stumbled out into the open, natural aqueduct that funnels down from Big Bear Lake, where the creek slides across a gently sloping, white rock amphitheater larger than a football stadium. We felt like gladiators emerging from the bowels of the ancient Coliseum, blinking in the brightness of reflected sun, triumphant once again over the toughest part of the trail. There was much rejoicing, and our shouts and barks echoed sharply off the surrounding walls like applause.
— Nancy Wood