Friday, July 06, 2007

What do you dream of?

It's strange how your environment can tremendously influence your dreams. I was trying to remember what I used to dream about back in Paris, and I can't remember most of them precisely, but they were definitely tainted with urban life and anxieties. And I had nightmares. I still have 1 or 2 of those anxiety dreams coming every now and then, like the back to school (almost) nightmare - I say almost nightmare, because I loved high school and it was a happy time for me: I loved philosophy, history, French, and language classes, and hated maths. And if I skipped a few classes, (which valued me this observation of my favorite philosophy teacher on my grade report: "Annabelle is very spiritual when she graces us with one of her rare mundane visits". Absolutely true: I loved her classes, and if I did skip a few classes, it's because I had important business to attend to, such as preparing a demonstration, attending a meeting, or just being at the cafe accross the street with my friends, playing flipper or babyfoot... As to the math classes, curiously enough I didn't skip them, as they were dedicated to two important activities for me: playing morpion with my neighbor, or, most of the time, reading the daily newspapers, (Liberation, Le Monde, or Le Monde Libertaire, an anarchist paper) which my maths teacher pretended not to see, since I finally had him admit I was a lost cause. He tried hard, one day, as he was handing me back a test for which I was graded something like 1.5 over 20, he asked why I didn't even try to cheat like normal people do. I told him I was not interested. So, in this dream I am back to school, and I do exactly the same mistakes that I did in twelfth grade: I skip some classes, but in the dream I skip so many classes that for some of those I don't even dare to go back. It's almost the end of the schoolyear and there is that history class I have skipped all year and I want to go back but realize it's too late. (why the history class? I never skipped history class in my day life) Very disagreeable. But doesn't qualify either for a nightmare.
Now here on the river, I can say the anxiety dreams I have are mostly related to the floods of the river: I dream that the boat sinks, that I see a tsunami arriving faster than I can run, I dream that one of the dogs has fallen in the river (this one also happens in reality), but all of these don't really qualify for me as a nightmare either. I also dream a lot about the wildlife. I dream about seals, wolves, and bears a lot. Seals is comprehensible, since they are in our backyard. Wolves and bears are more surprising: I know we're in bear country, but not right here in the valley, huh? So I don't know why these creatures visit me often. Allo, Sigmund! I also have dreams that I call "initiatic" because of their high symbolical value and their beauty.
However to come back to the point I noticed I almost never have any nightmare since I moved here on the boat. Not anything terryfying I mean. Not the type that wakes you up yelling. Very strange dreams, but almost all are connected to the nature surrounding us.
What do you dream of?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What intrigues me is the dreams we have while "awake". The serendipities, the "charged moments", the deja vu's. There is some real meat there. I have found that important dreams have a certain impact that is difficult to ignore. I know when a dream is a teaching dream. I know, as it is chewing on me for weeks at a time. rrrr