Last night I had this extremely elaborate series of overlapping dreams, which cross-referenced over and over again. The three streams which the dreams were tieing together were (1) my travelling cross country, (2) philip k. dick’s VALIS concept, and (3) the quest for the Holy Grail.

It’s much to convoluted to really be able to explain how it all fit together, because it was so wrapped up in on itself. There were parts where I sort of replayed earlier parts, but in different forms. There were parts where I was watching a movie at a drive-in which was relaying to me information about other symbols and events in the dream.

A few things I do remember:

1. My friend John and started hitch-hiking cross-country. We got picked up by a family in a moving truck. They took us to a small town. At the time, we were trying to get to what my dream referred to as “Janis Joplin’s house,” because this was supposed to have been where Philip K. Dick either found or stored an artifact which was the Grail/Valis. We never got to the house, but I saw it in my dream anyway. And oddly enough, it looked approximately (but not exactly) like this photo which I discovered by typing “Janis Joplin’s house” into Google.
2. Instead we ended up with that family at a country bar in the middle of this small town. The daughter immediately procured a plate of steamed broccoli. The dad disappeared “downstairs” and the son popped out of nowhere with some strange sandwich which he’d purchased in an alleyway.
3. Later on, I did in fact discover and acquire this mysterious Grail/Valis relic. The form that it took was of an old rusty sort of lantern. I’m gonna draw it and post it so you can see what it looked like. I found this at or possibly in a muddy river which I was crossing. There was some sort of test to undertake to cross the river, sort of like when Robin Hood & Little John fight with quarterstaffs in Prince of Thieves
4. There was a whole other dream where I had some other travelling companion. We ended up inside this old abandoned mill of some sort. First, there was some sort of “circuit” which I had to activate/short-out. The way that I had to do this was by plunging this short sword I had into it, clearing away the debris, and then connecting these two points in one stroke.
5. After that, these people appeared who I had to fight. I only fake fought them though, and would bring my sword up to the point of their throat, and then they would surrender. They turned out to be “Grail Knights” or at least, that’s what they called themselves.
6. My companion, however was actually fighting this one exceedingly strong knight (they were all dressed in normal clothes, not knightly garb). He had stabbed this knight several times in the chest, but he had not died. It was eventually revealed that he was actually “Lancelot” who was supposed to be some sort of immortal being. He was operating under the guise of and name “Celestair Fool”. It was also revealed that my companion, without my knowing was secretly an operative of another faction, and had been sent to kill Lancelot/Celestair Fool. The faction he was part of was the Albigensians/Cathars.

Those are the main scenes which stand out in my head, but it was about a hundred times more complex and weird than that. And there was this recurring theme of the Grail/Valis as being analogous to the Holy Spirit/Sophia transmitting healing and visions/information to people.

As some outside research, I looked into a few things related to Arthurian characters. One, is that I know that in Arthurian legend, Perceval is more commonly referred to as a “Fool,” and he is the original Grail Knight. Here is a fictional excerpt I found online about that:

There are many different versions of the Grail Quest; my favorite one, however, is one where Sir Percival finds it.”

“And why is that?”

“Percival is the ‘pure fool.’ He goes on the Quest like all the other knights. He comes to a wasteland ruled by a wounded King who is also a fisherman.”

“The Fisher King? Like that movie with Robin Williams?”

“Exactly. The wasteland and the wounded King parallel England and Arthur, who has lost his way, so to speak, and his power along with it.”

“So Percival’s journey takes him to an allegory of the place he just left.”

“Sort of. Now, the Grail is paraded in front of him during his meal at the castle. All he has to do is take it. But he doesn’t.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Later, the King tells Percival that only the power of the Grail can heal his wounds; if only he could find it! Percival isn’t sure he can be of much help, but he thinks the King seems a bit thirsty, so he finds a cup, fills it with water, and brings it to him. The King drinks it, and lo! He’s healed!”

“It was the Grail Cup?”

“Yes! ‘It’s the Grail!’ the King says. ‘Where did you find it?’ And Percival says, ‘Oh, that’s what a Grail is?’”

Although, I also found reference to an instance where Lancelot allows himself to be captured by Daguenet, who is Arthur’s fool. For that reason, he is sometimes referred to as “Daguenet’s Prisoner”.

Two other breadcrumbs to follow: one is that the Cathars practised a sacrament called the Consolamentum, wherein the Holy Spirit was thought to come descend and inhabit the body of the initiate, much like the “homoplasmate” in Dick’s Valis. And this is some article about somebody else who had similar experiences to Dick’s and gives some references to read up on various connections to ceremonial magick and occult practices. One interesting thing is they mention they consider Valis as a modern day counterpart of a book called Zanoni, which was written by Edward Bulwer Lytton in 1842. Might be worth checking out.