What we see with our eyes closed
I am sleepless in Gurgaon. As unromantic as that sounds, this piece of reality has given me a lot to chew on. A healthy person sleeps well. An unhealthy wants to sleep well. I belong to the latter category mainly because of my lazy attitude toward basic physical regimen.
Long live sedentary lifestyle!
Short lived the sedentary slaves!
Sticking to the topic, it’s been a long, long, long while since I’ve slept like a dead tree. I fall asleep as soon as the back of my head touches the bed (I haven’t used a pillow for over 2 years now thanks to my chronic neck sprain) but the problem is in the quality. If I pass out by 10.30, I’ll be waking up between 2 and 3. Why? Weird dreams. Yes, weird, and not scary or sad. It gets so tiring at times that I wake up feeling as if I’d been carrying Eiffel Towar on my back.
I’ve spoken to several people in my radius asking them whether they sleep well. Almost all of them do. Akshar, for example, doesn’t remember any of his dreams. And so is the case with Aditya. It appears like I am the only who is cursed with a strange psychological malice. Some of my friends like to google the dreams they experienced to check if they’ve got hidden messages in them. I, on the other hand, am least interested in knowing what that flood meant or how that golden tiger is trying to warn me against something in my life.
Speaking of animals, I recently binge-watched a pretty unique dream wherein I was in Bombay and a giant bear — the Baloo version of King Kong—was spotted in Chembur. He was wrecking everything in his path and people were running for their lives. I was the only one chasing him to bargain a nice picture. In my mind, I was still working for mid-day and the snapshot could be used in the Mumbai diary page. I continued to follow him and we both reached Govandi station. He somehow got on the platform, with sunlight bathing his brown fur, and that’s when I noticed that he was a normal bear.
That fucked me up. And more tragically, my sleep.
This past weekend, I was flying an aircraft. Which was amazing for somebody who doesn’t even know how to drive and hasn’t ridden a motorbike in over a decade. I was above the sea and was trying to spot an island so that I can land. I saw some dolphins (killer whales?) on the surface below. It was amazing. What was more amazing was I realized Tom Cruise was sitting behind me. It was a fighter plane! And if that wasn’t weird enough, he was talking to me in Hindi. Seriously? Katrina Kaif has been in Mumbai for about two decades and she can’t speak in Hindi without making you feel bad for her. Whereas this guy was acing it like a pro. Which made me wonder how great of a teacher Anil Kapoor must be for he taught somebody a brand new language via only one visit to our city!
Throughout such random episodes, one part of my mind is wondering what the fuck is going on while another is busy playing out the required role. It’s only after waking up I connect the dots. I’d watched American Made (2017) recently and not very long, Blue Planet 2 (2017), so it makes complete sense why there was an ocean with a plane co-piloted by Mr. Cruise. Let’s not get in to the lingual bits. My brain is constantly imagining stuff and it has reached a point where it won’t let me have tranquil shuteye.
To me, the depressing facet of such unsolicited journeys with closed eyes is how little of an understanding one can afford. When I don’t understand what Messi did with the defenders, action replays help. When I don’t understand what Noam Chomsky is talking about, reading the transcript helps. When you slow down things, it’s easier to connect the missing dots. But with dreams, you aren’t allowed to do that. You are put in the middle of nowhere and you are supposed to figure out every little detail on your own.
Some people are able to treat dreams, even the weird ones, exactly the way they treat a person they traveled with in the elevator. In other words, they don’t care. Yes, they traveled together from floor 22 to ground floor but there’s nothing more to it. And then there are people like me who can’t do that and end up losing sleep.
Descartes is said to have said “cogito ergo sum” [I think therefore I am] which is a terribly awesome thought. However, I am going to tweak it a bit to “neend ke lag gaye hai” [I think too much therefore I can’t sleep].
