The ache seems to leak out sometimes, masquerading as ordinary tears. I suspect this new phase would be called “heartache”. I didn’t know it would be so literal.
Words sometimes tell us more than we realize they are saying. One of those words is the title of this series. I first heard it twenty years ago; spoken by the body it referred to.
Deep trance channeling is the weirdest thing. One minute you’re with one dude (or dudette), and a few deep breaths later you are looking at and speaking to a different one: same face, same body, different dude.
The change is subtle. Dreamhopper’s voice didn’t change much, yet his vocabulary did. The eyes were different too. They appeared more sparkly. It only occurs to me today that with DH’s departure, I lost more than one love. His “higher self” is gone as well. I knew “Roy” for more than twenty years. He’s gone too.
I wasn’t there for the first channeling. It happened at a spiritual retreat that DH was attending. I was at home with our children. I only heard about it later.
DH couldn’t control it at first. He’d drop off randomly when he was at home and relaxed, and we never knew who was going to show up. The introductions were wild. Once, one of our children was playing with him and someone popped in, purely out of curiosity; they were interested in the toy cars. Our son came running to me saying, “Dad is calling you! He’s saying, ‘Where’s Ananada?” So, I show up and say, “Hi! Who’s Ananada?” “You are! You both are! You’re the same! Twins!” That was an interesting conversation.
So, it was the Wild West, and everyone was strolling through DH, wanting to check Earth out. Clocks and “time” were conundrums. Toys, going to the bathroom, drinking and eating were fascinating. Chocolate and apple butter were favorites; diet soda was not.
Once, someone dropped in while I was driving us someplace. At first, this alarmed them. Yet, nothing threw any one of them for long. Incessantly curious and perpetually joyful, time spent with these “others” was a permanent fixture in my life.
Eventually, DH got it under control. These sessions left him exhausted. So, he began stating the intention for “the highest and best for all concerned”. Once he did, only “Roy” would show up. “Roy” was DH’s ‘higher self’. Roy called DH “My Beloved”.
Our friend named him. At the time, the book “The Secret” was out and a group of us were meeting once a month, attempting to unlock The Secret’s method of creation. We called ourselves “The Creation Group”, an informal discussion group. We met in our basement. There were a lot of snacks and a lot of laughs. Our kids knew each other, and they were upstairs with snacks and games of their own.
There were 7 of us when we all showed up. Someone suggested to DH that he channel, and that maybe it would help us to figure stuff out.
It’s important to note that DH had no memory of the channeling after he “woke up” from it. So, he balked at the idea, believing it all to be nonsense. With encouragement, he eventually agreed. Frankly, I think he did so because he liked the idea of taking an extra “nap”.
When he came out of trance, we’d tell him some of the things he’d said. He still thought it was ridiculous; these were things he’d never come up with on his own. He was sure of that.
Then, one of our friends showed up to our Creation group with a tape recorder. She kept a recording of each session. The meetings grew longer; we were asking more and more questions.
Eventually, he listened to one of the tapes. At that point, he accepted that something valuable was happening, even if he didn’t get what it was.
It was during those early days that one of us thought we needed to give this being a name. First, though, we had to explain what a “name” was. Here’s how that went:
“Where I come from, we don’t “name” things. “Names” sound like separators. We are all One.”
“Okay”, we replied, “But we use them here. They help us to identify who does what.”
“What do you want to name me then?”
“How about Roy?” our friend asked.
“Why Roy?” the rest of us wondered.
“I don’t know, it popped into my head just now. Like Roy Rogers.”
“Roy it is then”, Roy replied.
He was Roy from then on.
The name “Dreamhopper” came from Roy. He referred to this 3D reality as a “dream”. He said that some of us “hop” from dream to dream between incarnations, while others don’t. “Dreamhopper” refers to those who do.
Before any of this channeling or naming craziness, DH would relate his dreams to me in the mornings. They often happened in places and with “people” that were not from here. In one, he was called “the traveler”, because he was not there permanently, only passing through for short stays every so often. This was his regular dream for quite a while. He described a fairly primitive life compared to our current one. In it, he had 6 wives.
He described the physical characteristics of the population there to be slightly different than what is typical in our current society. I don’t remember the specifics of the differences, however, other than height; they were shorter.
He told me that he married these women so that they could have standing in the community and that they had become family to each other as a result. In that society, if you were a widow, you couldn’t own property, and you were considered a lesser class. He described a single night’s dream in which months had passed. Now, I don’t know if this was just a secret fantasy he was living out, or if it was real, but there it is. The Dreamhopper moniker made sense.
There are so many pieces to this puzzle. Some of them come from things I was told, others from what I lived through. Maybe they’ll fit together once they are gathered and sorted. At this point though, they feel, to me, to be isolated, but somehow connected components of this man who was/is more than the sum of his parts. There was a feeling that emanated from him. This undefinable knack of seeing deeply into whatever occupied or fascinated him at the moment, while outwardly choosing to keep things simply defined.
DH had an extremely high IQ. He also almost flunked 6th grade. He was a drummer and a data analyst. Some of that analysis involved searching through screen after screen of fast-moving data sets to pinpoint the anomalies. He liked to listen to complicated jazz pieces or hard rock and roll music as he worked. I think the speed and rhythm of both the music and the data came closest to the speed of his brain. He would often say that he had to slow his brain down to talk to people.
I write or work with soft instrumental music or birdsong. You can see how any attempts at working on the same project together were often disastrous. For Halloween one year we dressed as Yin and Yang, which fit us perfectly.
Today I heard a Pink song while I was driving. It was one of those songs that made the ache leak out; I had a good cry while waiting for a train to cross. Although she sings about her father, this line fits, “I think of you when I think about forever”.
Some days, when the ache leaks out, knowing DH is “forever” doesn’t stop it from leaking. “Forever” can take a hike, what I long for most, is right now.
I believe in you. I believe in us. I believe in love.
*Dreamhopper aka DH — a soul who “hops dreams”.
