My Dynamic with My Dreams
If you know me, you know for a fact that I sleep a LOT. Besides resting the instant-gratification monkey in my head looking for rest, the other reason why I love sleeping is because of the plethora of great and not-so-great dreams I see, experience, introspect about, and learn from.
I dream about absolutely anything and everything. They range from extremely aesthetic and vibrant dreams — nothing short of a Shinkai movie, to a literal dream rendition of uncensored copies of the Final Destination scripts. Waking up to these memories, processing and finding the underlying triggers and feelings involved is a hobby at this point. This is because it enables me to delve deeper into myself and possibly become more self-aware.
So here’s an attempt of me trying to classify and give you a coherent sneak-peek into my very versatile relationship with my dreams, and what I infer from them.
Crisis Resolution
Blazing upturned cars, sandy, charred grounds. I’m alone with nothing but one revolver, against the perpetrator of the scene, with nothing but the upturned cars as cover. One wrong move and my head gets blasted off.
One-half of my dreams are like this one; they follow the basic movie plot-line of crisis resolution; some major problem I’ve been suddenly flung into, the resolution of which has been entrusted on my shoulders (it’s my dream, of course, everything will be about me). Be it desperately trying to jetpack away from a raging tsunami inches away from me, or something as basic as me writing an important exam while running extremely late on the paper; my brain seems to love putting me in potentially life-threatening situations in my dreams to deal with.
I’m no expert by a long shot, but on introspection, it’s almost as if my brain’s trying to condition me into reacting well to stressful situations. I’ve had all sorts of dreams about missing deadlines, being beaten up, being in a crime scene and trying to survive. It all comes down to coping and my very fearful subconscious loves to be aware of all ways life can go wrong so that the stress doesn’t make me combust into bits.
It works too. Be it incessantly writing, scanning and uploading digital assignments due by 12:00 AM at 11:59 PM, or look after myself when almost my entire family had been hospitalized due to the coronavirus pandemic; the nerves required to deal with such events are immense. Being able to keep calm and handle stressful situations is a skill I don’t have a lot of experience with, which is why I don’t mind the simulations my brain puts me through.
Nostalgia
I’m always searching for something, for someone.
-Makoto Shinkai, Kimi No Na Wa
This is the constant theme of every nostalgic dream I have. Constantly looking around. Constantly expecting. Among all sorts of chaos, I have a mindful eye for familiarity, often old, repressed and forgotten, in the form of a person, a place, or a feeling.
Be it seeing my late grandfather celebrating my last birthday with me, with a part of my dream self knowing that it is my last birthday with him; or my late grandmother sitting cross-legged, draped in her staple pastel pink and yellow saree, judging me fanboying about Billie Eilish (of all people) in the living room of our house before renovation; or me walking around my school premises, it’s always some aspect of the past I don’t experience anymore with a filter of the melancholia of missing. Of wanting back. One more time.
These dreams almost always wake me up in a sad, groggy and disoriented mood initially, after which I mostly sit, introspect and come to terms with the transience of life.
This introspection and the attitude of being receptive to change has made a really positive impact in my personality and my dynamic with people around me. Not being needy or clingy is a trait people really appreciate and my dreams have played a major role in that regard, which I’m wholeheartedly grateful for.
Speaking of my dynamic with people, one of the major building blocks of my interpersonal relationships is waking up and gushing about my dreams and I think all of my friends, old or new, will be able to unanimously agree to that!
One of my closest friends once told me something that always stuck with me:
“Thank you for being there for me when I did need you, and also when I didn’t”
I guess that’s my attitude and dynamic with my dreams, because despite messing with my head sometimes, I really cherish their existence on a day-to-day basis. For making the inner child in me oscillate between the occasional sucker punches of simulated danger and the faux euphoria of nostalgia, I couldn’t thank my dreams enough.
