Dreams

Note: I started writing this post I think a couple of weeks ago but lots of pressing workload coupled with an attempt at spending “workless” weekends (I’m overdoing the relaxation thing perhaps because I haven’t don’t it for years) kept pushing it farther and farther. I hope I finish it today.

I’ve been tagged by Alka to write about the bizarre dreams (or any notable dreams) I have had and remembered. For months I haven’t had a nightmare. I’ve had sad dreams, and I think I’ve even had dreams from my past life, or from another parallel life, and even from another dimension (feeling two-dimensional, for instance). Before I go on, a few years ago I read Carl Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections in which he has talked in detail about what dreams mean. He said when you dream, your unconscious is trying to tell you something. He foresaw many great historical events in his dreams including the first world war.

After reading Jung’s book I started chronicling my dreams and I pursued this exercise for a week but then I lost track. Some day I’m going to restart writing them down. Coming to the current post.

1. I saw this dream when Vasudha had started crawling. Alka, I and Vasudha were in some foreign country. It was some country Albert Camus would describe in his books — marginally developed but living an off-white, gloomy existence. We were in a building (painted white from the outside), dark, massive, lots of panels and galleries going here and there. Just like the building, our room too was dark and lugubrious and everything seemed to be an extension of the all-pervading darkness. Even Alka, lying on a bed (in fact in the name of furniture there was just that bed there) appeared just like an outline. There were numerous beams joining different parts of the building, and when I looked out of the window, Vasudha was crawling on one of those beams. We seemed to be on the 5th or 6th floor.

   Petrified, I tried to call her back. She turned around, gave me a smile, and then resumed her crawling towards the facing gallery. I tried to wake up Alka, but she simply raised her head, looked at me and then fell back to sleep. Since she was covered in darkness, I couldn’t see her expression. I kept call both her and Vasudha. I was sure any moment Vasudha would fall off the beam. Then all of a sudden she appeared on the beam that seemed to be joining the opposite galleries of a lower floor – 3rd or 4th floor. Losing all hope of retrieving her from there, I somehow climbed on to the frame of the window and crawled out on to the beam. It was a very cold beam, seemed like newly white-washed because I could smell the white paint. When I looked down I saw Vasudha on the ground floor, crawling over a very dirty floor. There was a leaking tap in the corner and with great force and happiness she was crawling towards it. There was a puddle around the tap full of rotten water and algae. I was sure she would drink that water. I screamed at her as loudly as I could, and I woke up. It was quite a disturbing dream, full of helplessness. It was a great relief to see her sleeping peacefully by my side.

2. This dream I saw when our pet dog Suzie had just died. I was extremely attached to her. In the dream, she comes back and we know she’s dead. She still looks cuddly and soft and she runs around as she used to when she was alive, but her eyes are black, like, there are just two elongated holes instead of the eyes. She is not coming close. I don’t know who else is with me, but we talk about bringing her inside as we always did when she used to run out. In those days the fly-over near the Apollo Hospital (in Delhi, on Mathura Road) was still being built. All of a sudden, I’m lying near the wall of the fly-over and there are beggars and laborers sitting around me. I don’t know why I don’t have my crutches with me. And Suzie is lurking around. She doesn’t come near even when I keep calling her. I still know she’s dead. She looks hostile now. In reality I was never scared of her biting me (she had done it many times) but in the dream there is a strange fear. The fear is not about she biting me, but about she being dead and hostile. The rough, broken surface is hurting my elbows and knees and I try to raise myself but there is no strength in my arms. I desperately want to go home. I don’t recall when I woke up.
3. This is a bit funny and I used to have it regularly, at least once a week. In the dream different cows used to hit me with their horns. They never gored me or trampled me; they just pushed me and I used to fall down. This dream I kept having for more than a year. I haven’t had it for many years now.