Ed Kellogg
Judge of Judges
Computer graphic, 1999
This retrospective entry recognizes a founder of the PsiberDreaming Conference and intrepid explorer of lucid dreaming. To introduce the piece for this year's Gallery, Ed says: At the 2002 PDC, to keep it simple, I only included a relevant and abbreviated except, of a rather long and interesting lucid dream. This time around, I’ve included the whole dream, which tells "the rest of the story."
42 95 EWK 2/22/98 (fully lucid) In a dream analogue of the living room in the Westport house where I grew up, I realize that I dream, and decide to do the assigned task while looking at myself in the mirror over the mantel. I chant cHok/mah Ell/oh/heem. My face begins to shift and change, growing huge and monstrous – very severe looking, like a combination of the Wizard of Oz and the Face on Mars. I see a white massive head floating above my body, detached, large black eyes with black eye-like hollows below them. I wonder how I could describe this to my lucid dreaming group. It looks inhuman and powerful – a Judge of Judges.
I stop chanting, and look around the living room. I see Shazam (my dog), and decide to repeat the experiment with another mirror. I chant cHok/mah Ell/oh/heem, and my face becomes beast like, with golden hair, turning into the face of a man-lion. I continue chanting, and it changes back into the face of the Judge of Judges. When I look through the picture window I see a beautiful countryside, green grass and trees. I decide to chant Ah/meth, Truth, and see what happens. I begin chanting, and feel a strong pull and fly off . . . I get distracted, and lose visuals, but I hold onto some grass until the visuals return.
I now find myself in a beautiful park like setting, and resume chanting. I pass a collection of nice gray houses, and decide to stop and talk with whoever lives in them. I go to the door of one and a nice lady, who looks 40 or 50, greets me in friendly fashion, and takes me to the shared garden park at the back of the house. She casually speaks in Japanese to an oriental woman, and I ask her if everyone speaks multiple languages here, although I suspect telepathy. She calls over a group of the inhabitants, very diverse in race, cultures, and interests, but all of them intelligent and friendly. I sense only harmony between them – no friction.
After waiting for a few minutes for something to happen, I realize that this takes too long, and decide to leave. I say "Excuse me, but I have to say good bye before I . . ." At this point a young woman jumps on me, and sort of wrestles with me, closing my mouth before I can say ". . . wake up!" I immediately get her point – these people think they still live in physical reality, and do not know they have died. The young woman-spirit looks very fresh and attractive, 18 or so in appearance. I say "Good bye!" to the others and wave, with the girl still wrapped around me. I ask if she acts as a spiritual guide for me. "Oh no" she replies, "another woman-spirit brought you here, but I decided to keep an eye on you to see what you would do." I tell her I have not seen this guiding spirit, though I did feel a pull, and in other dreams I’ve occasionally felt hands in mine when this happens. She asks how long I've had this dream. I tell her, after reflection, "about 10-15 minutes, perhaps as long as 20. I’ve actually had a very interesting time."
I tell her about the cHokmah Elohim chant and the Wizard of Oz effect. I tell her I want to go home – by which I mean my real home. I start flying off at the thought, and reluctantly untangle her from me and put her on a rooftop, though I feel tempted to take her with me. She seems very sweet and innocent. I tell her to please visit me any time – physical reality does not seem so bad – it helps develop some spiritual muscles. She looks a bit bemused, perhaps disappointed?, like a Peter-Pan fairy. As I fly off I chant Ah/meth!, my Kavannah improved, my voice sounding deep and rich, and I even hear a hint of a chorus of voices joining in. I come to a sort of giant ladder made of chain metal links three feet high. I lose visuals, but try to stay in the dream by holding onto kinesthetics as I climb down it. This works for awhile, but RWPR.
Comment: In 1998 I taught an eight-week group focused on exploring the Kabbalistic Tree of Life through lucid dreaming. The Tree of Life can serve as a model of one's own consciousness, or of the Universe, depending on how one works with it. In this lucid dream, I experienced a representation of my Greater Self, while experimenting with a specific Hebrew chant, cHokmah Elohim (which means "Wisdom-God"), as a means of tuning into the sefirah Da'ath (meaning "Knowing") on the Tree of Life. When I visualize my aim with respect to Lucid Being, this "Judge of Judges" image automatically springs to mind. The dreamscape graphic does a very good job in portraying what I saw in the dream mirror. Incidentally, when I made a costume based on this image for the 2001 ASD Conference in Santa Cruz, it won the "best costume" award.
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