DREAMS

LIFE - THE DREAM

"Once upon a time, I, Zhuang Zi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes of a butterfly. I was conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man.

Suddenly, I awoke, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am now a man."

Zhuangzi (369-286 BC)

SET ME FREE

I was sleeping in my tent in Eastern Siberia, travelling home from Japan. It was August 2006. Thinking of it now, I wonder, if at that time I already knew that it was to be my last return? – I cannot remember. Yet that night I saw a dream I never could forget:

I knew clearly that I was dreaming. It was quite a strange feeling – as if being in two separate places at the same time, or even three, because I was also an observer seeing everything from the distance.

I saw myself in a yard in front of an old house. Where was this? So familiar, I think I had been there in early childhood. Could it have been Ukraine? Yes, I was somehow sure that it was Ukraine. And if so, then my father also had to be there, just like every summer, visiting his parents’ home where he had grown up. I realized I had to find him.

Everything was dark and quiet. Although the sky showed dim signs of dawn, even the earliest birds were still fast asleep. I entered the house and found my way to a door in the back, opened it and in a bed saw my father sleeping.

I called him: “Father”, and he woke up. He looked at me with an image of surprise or rather disbelief, but said nothing.

I asked in Russian:
“ Will you let me go?”
-“Where to?” he answered almost automatically. It seemed it was still hard for him to understand what he was seeing and hearing.
I knew there was little time. Something was pulling me back. I insisted:
-“Please, let me go”

Silence. He was thinking.

Did he not realise, that an invisible force was pulling me, did he not see, that I was not by his bedside anymore, but by the door, that I was disappearing?

-“Dad, let me go, please!”

In his face I read sadness. He knew exactly what I was asking.
I was afraid he would say “No”. Or worst, that he would say nothing. I felt the door was like a huge vacuum cleaner dragging me towards it against my will. I tried to hold on to the walls, but it didn’t help. I saw my father and his bed every time further and further when suddenly heard his clear and accepting:
-“Go!”

I woke up, felt like I had fallen back into my sleeping bag from a high place. Where had I been? What had happened? It was the dawn of the next day, I lied still in the tent listening to the birds. This had not been a regular dream. What was the meaning of this?

I somehow knew exactly.

THE CURRENT

On countless occasions before the journey, on the road or off the road, I have seen the following dream:

The sky is clear. The water is wide. I am walking on a familiar beach in Pirita, in my hometown Tallinn. I go into the water and get into a tiny rubber boat. The waves softly rock the boat. I look around. There are people swimming, I pass them. The current slowly takes my boat parallel to the beach. I see people sunbathing, playing volleyball having a picnic, some are walking, some jogging, some conversing with friends. I suddenly feel the current getting stronger. With excitement I hold on to the edge, lean my body to keep the vessel in balance and face the wind. As the beach disappears behind me, I find myself out in the open sea. The boat is still gaining speed, I smile looking at the horizon, eyes wide open. I trust that current wherever it is taking me. I do not want to wake up. I want to know what happens next.

Such are my favourite dreams. They have many variations as well – sometimes instead of the sea, I find myself on a river, other times it is a huge boat, or instead of the current as the carrying force, there is a motor. But also then, I am just a humble passenger, taken away by the journey.

LOST

As long as I can remember myself travelling, I have had this dream. And other travellers say that they have it too:

I go home. I open the door and see everything and everyone just as I remember them. My mother, my father, my brother – they are happy to see me. They know I have been away. I know it too. I remember clearly that I went to sleep somewhere else, and despite the joy of meeting my family again, am desperate to get back.

I walk around the apartment, find everything just as it was, then open my cupboard, but find no more clothes of mine. In fact everything I see I cannot really use, it is someone else’s. I am frustrated. I feel lost.

I start thinking what to do to get back. Whether to see if Japanese Foundation would have another scholarship for me – but it would mean that I would have to become a student again or return to the work I did before. I could also hitchhike, but it would take a long time – all those years that it had taken me to go the distance, for what? Did someone just erase those footsteps? I feel disappointment and think of two possible options: I would have to do it again or stay. What if I decided to stay? Would I have to work to earn money, where would I live? What if I joined the nuns of Mother Theresa of Calcutta?

In some of the dreams I actually get to try all those things– go back to work, or meet the nuns. Yet nothing really functions and I do not feel like hitting the road – it would take too much time and effort to get back to wherever I remember I was before I went to sleep.

When I wake up, I am happy – it was just a dream.

When I lived in South Korea, then my friend Patrick from U.S., who worked there as an English teacher, said that such dreams show you where your true place is– if waking up you feel a pity not to be back home, then it’s there that you belong. And vice versa, if you feel happy to be where you are, then that indeed is your place.

ASHORE

I am in the ocean, the beach is near, but I cannot get ashore because of the current. I am fighting the wind, falling because of the slippery stones, at points holding on to them, climbing on bigger rocks to escape a coming wave, swimming when it gets deeper, walking, when feet can touch the bottom. Finally I make it – I am on the beach. I look back at the sea and see it gray and stormy. I am glad to have reached the land.

The night before I saw this dream, Tatiana my host on the island of Chiloe in Southern Chile, said that from time to time she would have such a dream. I said, that I know the opposite version of it, that instead of fighting the current I let myself be taken by it.

Ironically so, the next morning, I had to tell Tatiana, that I had seen her dream as well.
I do not know if what happened later was somehow connected to it, yet despite my desire to continue to travel, my journey got postponed for another two months that I lived in Chiloe.
Later I have also seen different variations of that dream:

I am on the road, but have to think of a way back because forgot my shoes somewhere along the way. It is not an easy journey, feels like the "current" is fighting that decision.

I saw such a dream the day before yesterday.

And then last night I saw again how... I was travelling into the unknown in one motorboat with a bunch of other people. The captain was a friendly fair-haired girl. I was first to enter and sat in the very front. As the speed was high, I had to hold on hard not to fall into the water, yet I enjoyed the ride. The scenery was beautiful – a wide river, full of life. I even saw ice-skaters, wondering at the same time if it was possible to skate on the water that was not frozen. “It looks like a dream”, I remember myself thinking, “and yet it is real!” was the next thought.

***

"What if you slept?
And what if in your sleep,
you dreamed?
And what if, in your dream,
you went to heaven
and there plucked
a strange and beautiful flower?
And what if you awoke,
you had the flower in your hand?
Ah, what then?"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

The four images of this post were taken in Japan in 2006 and 2008.
Today Japan also feels like a dream, that I wonder if I would ever see again...