r/Heavymind

I made this in the aftermath of a nightmare I had last night… it’s interesting to see the story told here with the symbols laid out like this. I don’t usually use a target for automatic drawing and I don’t like to record my dreams I have a gnarly nightmare disorder and giving them more weight makes them more severe.

This one came out of the left field and left a deep impression, so I figured I’d make something as a release. Write it out to forget. Also to understand what subconscious forces might be at play to cause the nightmare to happen. I don’t remember most of it but what I do remember felt very real. I could feel everything, taste everything.

I’m not sure of the exact order of events, but I first remember seeing a forest from above with a large clearing. It had stone shapes on the ground. Large concentric circles with rays coming out like a sun, with small circles on the end. It made me think of the god Aten. I asked another dream character what it was (a father figure?) and he told me it was “actual, real ruins!” As opposed to other false unmentioned ones.

I saw bison migrating towards it, going to the center. For some reason I knew deep down in that moment that they were going there to die. It unsettled me so I turned my attention elsewhere. I had a new house apparently near this forest, taking care of my parents and siblings. Some random cats showed up so we named them and I put AirTags on them.

I had two younger siblings playing outside with the new cats. The sun was starting to go down so I went to gather them up and noticed one brother was missing… they were playing next to a babbling creek that seemed to be moving too quickly. I started panicking, thinking he was swept away by it. The cats were also missing so I checked their AirTags and it showed them in the woods near the ruins.

I figured that the creek ran that way and started gathering a search party, but the sun was setting quickly. As soon as night fell the other sibling disappeared too. I was convinced they snuck out by the creek to look for their brother and fell in. I had a deep feeling that we were too late. With night fallen we should not be going into the forest. It would be a one-way trip. But I had to find them, because they could still be alive and I couldn’t bear the thought of them being lost and alone.

My dream “mother” was bedridden in grief and I swore to her that I would bring her babies back. This didn’t comfort her but she still smiled. Me and a group of men charged into the dark woods, trying to follow the creek but the brambles were so dense that we were almost instantly lost in them. It got darker and less coherent, branches grabbing at us and pulling us in… as the darkness took over, I started to see specters of my ancestors who lived as animals in the woods.

The sound of them grew louder, like cackling and howling in the far distance. Animalistic noises. Hanging on a tree next to me I saw a wooden mask with distinct features of an orangutan surrounded by orange feathers. I lifted its chin a little to look at it, viewing myself from behind, then saw a dark shadow of a human descend from the treetops, slaying me with some kind of blade… I woke up in a wave of panic, guilt and awe.

The drawing I made afterward seems to paint the water as a passage into Holy Death, with creatures following different paths around it into her heart. The origin of this seems to be a “crack” in her shell? She’s split in half like an egg opening. Becoming more pregnant with each death and birthing wild forms. The most notable being a chicken/boat formed from her cloak, with eyes on the edge of the circular ruins/glyph. Two shadow figures hold hands and go into a cave that is an open mouth.

I’ve got a lot of ideas as to what it all could mean but I’ll leave it there. Have you encountered similar figures before? Does anyone else here use automatic drawings for their own dream interpretation? I’d love to see it!

Charcoal and chalk, Isaac P

Reposted after some final touch ups and a better picture and crop

the app i use is ibisPaint X.

i'm also trying to experiment more with colour.

39 hours awake as of writing this, but i plan to try cut it short this time 🤞