On this note, I attended an amazing lecture on the role of thresholds on fear and ritual objects this past Spring at the annual conference of the Anthropology of Consciousness. C. Riley Auge, in her brilliant paper Fears and Apotropaic Agents, discussed how thresholds are by their very nature liminal places for us.

Doorways, for instance, are both safe and unsafe because they are the entries to our private quarters but also the spots that open those safe places to the outside world. A simple observation, but this why “magical” items are found above doorways in just about every culture, to ward off evil and protect the household.

Similiarly, in medieval houses, children’s shoes perform the duty of “witch traps” when they are placed inside chimneys.

Historical archaeologists could take better note of this psychological given; generally they conceptually divide domestic sites they are excavating into “activity zones.” Auge’s research suggests that we should also be looking at what’s in between these zones. Reality check!

In other words, thresholds are charged places. Mind them, in waking life and in dreams. Lucid movement through thresholds – doorways, portals or chimneys – can be a powerful experience when we can remember to do it.

This does put U-Haul in a rather awkward position, but consider all that is involved with moving. All the regular boundaries must be dissolved – physical, mental and otherwise – and for a while there we are suspended in between. Neither here nor there. We leave behind not only our ecological niche, the place where we draw our water, but also our habits, routines and conditioning. We leave our community and enter unprotected spaces. Our diets suffer because we can’t control our food intake as well.

Then there’s the shock of re-entry. I don’t know what’s more dangerous, actually: moving someplace where you know no one or someplace where everyone knows who you used to be.

This is also a time when bandits could jump down from the bushes and take off with the silver, not only in regards to possessions but also psychologically. If you”ve ever had to wait on the phone for over an hour to disconnect your phoneline then you may know what I”m talking about here. It’s easy to get overheated, out-of-balance, and totally stressed out.

I”ve been taking pains to notice my dreams during these strange days. In this liminal space, all kinds of interesting dreaming bric-a-brac has made it through to my waking consciousness. Powerful dreams, initiatory dreams, and also way too many dreams about high school.

So – uh – that’s what’s going on with me this month. I just secured a room in a small country town in the middle of the swamps, and am excited to be moving in this week. Check out my personal blog Dreamcrisp if you”re interested in following these sorts of hijinks – the culture shock of transition.

In an internet era dominated by child pornography and terrible poetry, Electric Dreams tackled the issue of free expression in digital space, refusing to be censored. Let’s face it: dreams have a nasty habit of showing us the ugly bits. The cyber-sharing of dreams snowballed into the larger cultural movement of the 1990s, moving the study of dreams beyond limited medical models and into the realm of culture, spirituality, and ecology.

Thankfully, Richard Wilkerson, the editor of Electric Dreams, is keeping the website up, so its impressive catalogue of dream resources is still available to the public. Articles are searchable, too. Richard is still maintaining his postmodern dream site, for those of you interested in how dream theory intersects with contemporary philosophy.

Thanks for those fourteen years. While ya’ll were transforming the culture of cyberspace, I was still seething with adolescence, picking at my scabs in the mirror. Anything I do today on the web is only possible due to those years of hard work. And the fact that my skin finally dried out.