Only In Dreams

A lot of the time, I catch myself doing things I wouldn't normally do if I hadn't had some weird dream that pushed me into action. It really scares me how the things we dream of (whether we remember them or not, although in this case they are remembered and the remembering forgotten in the moment of action) unconsciously affect the things we do--we don't realize why we've done these things until after having done them (or on rare occasions, the realization creeps up on us mid-action). And then I think about dreams and how we don't know what we're going to dream of, either and so even the dreaming is an act of unconsciousness. 

Carl Jung was right about the unconscious, I think. It is the big circle in which our consciousness (the tiny dot) is contained and as our small blimp of knowing grows, so does the vast emptiness in which it exists. The other day for instance I had a dream that I was on the run from a mob that wanted to kill me because they liked my skirt. And as I surf-slid down a banister, I found a friend (who I haven't talked to or heard from in ages) waiting for me at the bottom of the staircase, camera in hand. This camera, he informed me, helped him fly. And so I hopped on his back, he clicked the "take-a-photo" button and off we went! 

I'd completely forgotten about the dream until I caught myself messaging the said friend on Facebook and asking how he was. In the middle of our silence-lapsed, slightly awkward, just-checking-how-you-are chatversation, I found myself wondering why I'd clicked on the tiny icon in my chatbox and what it was I was going to say to my friend. And only then did the dream come to mind.

I'm a huge fan of Inception and I think that Nolan was right about ideas. Often times, we don't know how they're planted but once they are we usually feel the compulsion to follow them to completion. This got me thinking about a lot of things: like maybe the phenomena of deja vu isn't all that mysterious. Maybe it's just that we had a similar dream once, and having that dream caused us to act so as to make that dream-scenario happen.

Art Card "Dream" by Joelle Pantig

Also, today as I sat down at my computer with my journal and maps and started transcribing the bits and pieces I'd written for the project I'm working on, I wondered why I was doing this when I told myself that I would finish my reading list before getting down with the new project so that I could do it with a clear, fully-stocked mind. And that's when I remembered this dream I had last night: this person that I'm not fond of who I know from a writing community I'm no longer part of was getting two Young Adolescent books published and the cover (which had her face on it) was being flashed on those flat screens in Powerbooks. And I remember thinking to myself in the dream that I had to get home because I had to work my ass off to get something new out. Ridiculous. But also--I can't help it and I'm starting on the said project now because, well, I need to see it through to the end. What if the dream comes true?