Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Mandalay Again

[A Dark Philosopher]

I'm not entirely sure if this specifically qualifies as a "Dunne dream" or "time anomaly" as per the instructions in the introduction, but as this post directly led to the creation of a new ITLADic term (The Mandalay Effect) and it remains my only personal experience of dreaming later having a reality in waking consciousness, I thought I'd start the metaphorical ball rolling in this new section, as I've not placed this on FORUM in full previously.

First published on BLOG two years ago (actual 1st Feb 2008)
Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Mandalay Again
"I post not of Rebecca, by whom I mean the main character in the Daphne Du Maurier book – the title of this post being the opening line from the novel - but I speak of Rachael……..my Rachael.

I have searched for the "real" Rachael for most of my life, and last night, in a rare moment of sleep, I met her again, at Mandalay (an old stall on Camden Market) during one of my Lucid Dreams.

The Mandalay stall in Camden Town (my spiritual home) is long gone. It was by the Cuban Bar near Stables Market if you are ever there. In my Lucid Dreams I travel to Camden to meet Rachael and go for a drink in the Cuban Bar before deciding what to do, where to go etc. I’ve known her for over 15 years now and it feels like we’ve known each other forever in the dreams. I’ve even sat in the "real" Cuban Bar many times but never seen her.

Whenever Rachael and I are about to leave wherever we are I say to her, "Let’s go" and she responds in a particular way with just two words. I then say something else and she responds again in a specific phrase (a clue lies within the plays of Samuel Beckett).

With every girl that I have ever spent any length of time with I have always casually dropped in the "Let’s go" line, but no-one has ever responded as Rachael does. If they did then I expect time would literally stand still for me, right there and right then.

Over the last year or so since I first met Tony and read his marvellous book I’ve felt many links to Rachael (too numerous to relate here) and last night she was holding "Is There Life After Death" when I met her. She told me to post this here and said, "We met just around now, do you remember?"

This shook me up on waking so I decided that now was the time, and here was the place to share this to see what my blog-friends make of the story.

Rachael used to love the jewellery that Mandalay sold; is well-read and sometimes I can picture her in waking hours – whilst other times she is a blur.

I’m lucky in my Lucid Dreams that when I realise I am dreaming I can travel to Camden to see her (indeed I don’t believe she is even from Camden, as often she speaks with a Liverpudlian twang).

Is this a portentous sign of a precognition that will someday be manifest?
Could it be a faint trace from a stored panoramic life review?
Maybe it is a brief touching of two parallel worlds?
Is Rachael actually my Daemon perhaps or someone tangible, someone I’m being directed towards?
Or, paradoxically, could I be Rachael’s Daemon?
Is Rachael really out there?

So come on, let me know what your thoughts are, and…………………….

Let’s go................"

On reflection, since posting this two years ago and re-reading all the comments made by those on BLOG at that time, I still question whether Rachael has any objective existence. Perhaps she is my Jungian Anima, an unconscious manifestation of my feminine side, perhaps simpler than that just a dream representation of my own unconscious psyche? Is Jo, my partner who I first met just two weeks after posting this on BLOG, any connection to Rachael? Is Rachael yet to present herself and The Mandalay Effect?

In the Lucid Dreams Rachael has directed me to places in and around Camden and in waking consciousness I have followed her directions, walking down streets I've consciously never walked down before, directly to the very location Rachael described (parks, pubs, interesting shops etc, even when I was writing a series of short stories set in Camden it was Rachael who directed me to a secret entrance to the Camden Catacombs that I needed for my story). Now, is this precognitive or an anomaly in time or is it yet more evidence that we consciously know only a small fraction of what we holistically know and empirically experience on a deep unconscious level.

[Anthony Peake]

Hi Karl,

Thanks for this contribution.
I have left the description of a "Dunne Effect" as open as possible to attract as many contributions as possible. Indeed I have just had myself set up to be able to access the wifi zone here at Cambridge University Library. God, talk about fast ..... blistering (in relation to what I am used to anyway).

I am now half way through the first box of "Priestley Letters" and it is an absolute gold-mine of itladian material. I suspected that one letter in ten would contain anything of use to me .... but it is turning out to be one in two - and some of the experiences described are absolutely stunning. I have calculated that there are over 1,000 letters so there is no way that I am going to get through a fraction of them. However I cannot just scan them because I may miss something of importance. Indeed what is really, really weird is coming across an original letter that made it into the book Man And Time. I know these all so well now but to see them as part of a hand-written letter (with the person's address and background - which Priestley does not mention) is a real honour. For example yesterday I came across the letter from the lady who fell (in her dream) on the London bus but in "real life" remembered her dream and was able to brace herself!

My hope is that if I get an advance for this book from a kindly publisher then I will need to spend at least two weeks in this fantastic library.

Oh yes, I have also been given access to some of J.B. Priestley's own preparatory notes for the book Man And Time. I am really looking forward to looking at these but these most be left until the end of the research

[A Dark Philosopher]

Tony: It's lovely to read your enthusiasm. I can relate to those feelings and recall being like a kid at christmas when given access to the special occult Grimoires at the British Museum and British Library. Mandalay has some "Dunne" aspects in the precognitive information I gleaned from Rachael regarding locations etc and, of course, the question to her reality remains open. Hope you have a great few days and make some more very useful findings. Cheers.

[Cre8veheart]

All my young life, de'javue was occasionally experienced. At the same time in re- occuring dreams and later in life while emerging from anethetic sleep, I have a dream that is not so much about a theme or objects but in falling through time and space based on a sound or hum which as I dream becomes too fast and uncomfortable. It is more a sensation than a plotline.
When I realized similar sensation was while coming back to a concious state from anesthesia induced sleep . The dream loosly goes like this.
I am partying with balloons and confetti. Repleat with kazoo type of noise and conveyor style hum like a train clipping along on a track.
As I go down from the place I started , it is through a huge plastic tube.
As I emerge into harse reality of the surgical light, the rhythmic traintrack sound slows to an unbearably thickening slowness and then a dull thunk sound stop. At the stopping point, I feel thick, unatural and dull.

The childhood dream is similar in the sensation of speed and sound starting fast as a hum, comfortable , then slowing and increasing laboriously to the dull, uncomfortable thud at the stop.
A type of feeling in intensity as free falling backwards on ones bed. Straight back without the hum sound.

[Cre8veheart]

One more thing about me. I am a published watercolor and various other medium , artist.
When I paint, I experience a completely different concept of time and space and my reality for that time , is altered from the normal .

[Anthony Peake]

Cre8ive Heart,

Welcome to the FORUM and thanks for your postings.

I would be interested to know how you came across my work.

Best Wishes

Tony