This has to be one of the most intense and vivid dreams I have ever had….here we go!

(For anyone interested in dream work or increasing dream recollection, I always write my dreams in the present tense, as if they are happening in the present moment. Doing this helps to put the dreamer back into the dream and creates a more liminal space where images and details of the dream become more readily available to the conscious mind).

I’m on one of The Hawaiian Islands to do volunteer work. I just arrived by plane and am getting settled in the space. I walk into a hut that is covered in palm tree leaves and a light tan straw and the structure is raised up high above the ground. There are no windows or doors; everything is fairly “open” to the elements and I can feel the warm breeze against my body.  I can look down and see the ocean, however I know that we are up high enough to be safe. There are a lot of other people there with me all volunteering for the same purpose: we are aware that soon the oceans will rise and we must come together to get people safely away from the shores and off the island.

I can hear over the loudspeaker the announcer saying that various places would soon be gone – he starts to list very specific names of the towns and businesses that are along the shores of the island. Most of the men and women I am gathering with have lived on the island for years and other white people like myself, have been in this culture for long enough to be considered “part of,” unlike myself who is a foreigner. I take particular notice of a woman with a baby who is white and two older men that are white but have been travelling and living on the islands.

I take another look around me and notice many Polynesian women. I think about my role and presence in their community and hope that they will accept me and my purpose for being there.

Before we start, we all sit around this huge table together- the table is not a perfect circle and sort of zig zags around the hut in a non uniform shape. We are getting ready to ceremoniously record our names into this sacred and holy book. I know how special this is and I can feel myself getting anxious because I am not sure how I want to write my name. Everyone goes one at a time up to the book, which is being held by a holy man. While I sit here waiting for my turn, I write my name down in my own notebook, practicing my writing to see how I want to do it.

I turn to my left and notice that there is a woman I recognize doing the same thing.

This continues (the writing of the names in the book) until everyone is done. We stay in the “circular” formation which is not an actual circle but we stay connected.

The next part of the ceremony is a board game. We start playing this game and everyone has a partner. My partner, which is a woman, explains to me how to play the game:  we each roll a dice but everyone’s dice is a little different, it’s a crystal and there are two of them and on all sides of the crystal are dots that tell you how many times to move along the board. Once each of us rolls our crystals, we move one of the stones across the board, and then we pull a card from a pile; the card tells us what to do next and we record our points in a notebook.

One of  my crystals is purple, an Amethyst and my partner has a quartz crystal. I notice that she is way ahead of me and she points out that I am really far behind her; she encourages me to “catch up” and wants to show me “the way.”

Everyone is having a good time just enjoying playing this game together. We are all playing on the same giant board but everyone’s in a different starting point because of how we are sitting. My partner tells me there is “no specific starting point,” that everyone just starts the game play wherever we are sitting.

Time moves forward and I turn to my left and see my old coworker is there. She tells me that I’m “a catch “and that she forwards my number to one of her girlfriends. This makes me feel good as I had been already feeling a little down about being so far behind my partner in the board game.

While I am engulfed in the game still sitting there and being present, I am simultaneously transferred on another part of the island. I look around and see that I’m in an open, watery scene with all of this beautiful green around me. I’m on a loading dock, a lot like a boat dock, and there’s a car there. I’m with a man that I don’t really recognize but I know he’s another companion. We’re trying to park the vehicle on the edge of the dock. I see a remote control device on the dock outside of the car and I’m aware that we have to use it but we lose control and while we’re in the car, it starts to roll forward and go under the water. I am both inside of the car and on the outside while this is happening, however all of a sudden I am on the inside of the car as it is sinking. The man is in the driver’s seat and he’s holding his breath, panicking. We look around as we are slowly sinking underwater and I see a gap in the window where he is able to breathe and I tell him to take a breath. He puts his face up to the window and lets out a huge exhale and breathes in the fresh air. He tries to reach for the remote, which calls for help, but at the same time a native islander comes up and pulls us out of the water. She  lets out an audible laugh and tells us that our sinking into the water is a simple, easy mistake that could have been avoided.

Suddenly, I’m back at the board game playing rolling the dice. I’m aware that I roll a 6 and see in the corner of the crystal there’s also the number 4 or 5. I take my points along the board and then pull a card for further instruction.

Dream End