Life is but a dream: Boys and Kittens

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Boys and Kittens

I haven't been remembering dreams very well lately, but here goes.
A few days ago, I had a dream which I could barely remember when I woke up, except for this one scene. And it keeps coming back to me:

I was backstage at the playhouse where I used to act in children's plays as a child. My Aunt was putting on a play, and I was just hanging out there, I think. I was talking to a little boy, about 8 years old. I found him well-spoken and serious (and cute for it, of course, as a kid), and was looking after his little sister who was also there, who looked to be about 5. As he got ready to leave, after we had talked for some time, he mentioned to me that he had converted to Islam (on his own). I was so surprised, and couldn't stop thinking about it, even after I woke up. If I had found out about Islam when I was a little girl, and believed in it then, would I have had the strength to convert to it at that age? It was tough at times even as an adult, although I've never regretted it. Anyway, I was and still am filled with pride and amazement at the thought that little boy. I don't know who he was.

Then last night I had a long and involved dream. I don't remember much of it, but it involved finding and rescuing a tiny, tiny, scrawny kitten who was stuck under an abandoned house in the woods, in a setting similar to the blockhouse. The kitten may have talked in the dream too, but I lost it all very suddenly after waking up, as I have been doing recently. There were a couple other intense dreams like these that I lost all the details of shortly after waking, before my awake mind even got fully put together enough to think about what had happened.

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I have always been fascinated by this other, intangible world into which we retreat, the reality and origins of which are so unknown, so mysterious. It is like a portal into which you can pass into another dimension, a mysterious forest you can ride through to reach Babylon, a lost valley of Brigadoon that comes almost every night, not every 100 years.

Linear time and space are twisted here, analogy is rife but sometimes indecipherable, action often skips to action with many of the boring spots removed, like a fast-paced movie. Feelings and senses are intensified, yet in some ways protected. Although there is no limit to exploration, it is yet not a place where you can choose to do anything you like... you are constrained by certain rules and limits which surely must be self-imposed (we assume, since we imagine we are the only "real" person in this world) but if so, why can we not mold them? This is so similar to the perspective of the waking world that it tests the very nature of reality. And though certain things are clearly connected to or inspired by the waking world, (and perhaps vice versa), there are also those elements, even people and places, which exist only in the dream life... where did they come from?

I know when I write down my dreams I tend to remember more of them, so I choose to do that again now, for better or for worse.

Only in my dreams...

In addition to the dream life being inhabited by persons, places, and memories that don't exist in the walking world, I also sometimes encounter, use and understand words in my dreams that don't exist in the waking world, and maybe they should. Here are some that I both remembered the word and meaning of it upon awakening:

Artigate: verb. To show an idea through means of art, often combined media. For example, a movie might use a scene with with the sun rising and music swelling to indicate to the viewer that a character has died. My sister used this in a dream when talking to me.

Carules: noun (plural). This means something like "love points," all the energy and resources that you use to demonstrate or show love. My cousin and I used this in a conversation in this dream, where he asked hypothetically if I how I would spend 1000 carules (not as in money, as in energy/effort) if I had that many, to show someone that I care for them more than anything in the world. 1000 was an extremely large amount to have, people would not really have that many.