Dream Quote

I'm currently reading Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". In the sixteenth chapter, Tereza (the wife of the protagonist, Tomas) explains the impact her dreams have on her reality.

"The dreams left nothing to be deciphered. The accusation the leveled at Tomas was so clear that his only reaction was to hang his head and stroke her hand without a word.

The dreams were eloquent, but they were also beautiful. That aspect seems to have escaped Freud in his theory of dreams. Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded communication, if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine-to dream about things that have not happened-is among mankind's deepest needs. Herein lies the danger. If dreams were not beautiful, they would quickly be forgotten. But Tereza kept coming back to her dreams, running through them in her mind, turning them into legends. Tomas lived under the hypnotic spell cast by the excruciating beauty of Tereza's dreams."

Sunday Morning, February 21st

I had a dream while I was in Los Angeles the morning after the Andrew Bird show. The dream felt like a silent film, with no audible dialogue, against a soundtrack of songs by Andrew Bird and was broken up into short vignettes. It is a story about D.

"Quiet, quiet down she said, speaking to the back of his head."

She was telling me to calm down and that everything was going to be fine. I was worried about the time. I'm always worried about time. I was making her rush and she was frustrated with me. She questioned my anxiety, quieted the noise, but she couldn't put out the flames inside.

"Now I'm just another split in your seam; the I in your team."

It all became darkness and it was suffocating. I heard the hollow notes of music playing in the distance, as if on the other end of a long corridor. It was haunting me. He was haunting me. Slowly, a white light grew in the distance.

"I'll do anything you want but I won't be your glass figurine."

She decided she wouldn't do it anymore. No longer was I a person, but morphed, like a Kafkain concept, into an emotional burden. She needed to let go of me but I struggled to be the burden in her heart. Without that, I am nothing.

"'Cause when it comes to misery, when it comes to misery, when it comes to misery no one competes with me."

Without her presence my existence became lifeless. So when strength came to take her away it was all over. The room was bright but the darkness I had become was impenetrable. I was left as a thick, black, hovering cloud lacking a form to inhabit.

"So will you come to burn my effigy? It should keep the flies away. If you long to burn an effigy it should be of a man who's lost his way"

February 14; 10AM

The dreams I have been having the past week are very hazy. Maybe it's anxiety. I've had one recurring theme in about four of my dreams which does not appear frequently for me: flying.

This morning, I was flying over a highway. Trying desperately to win the affections of my stepmother, it was of dire importance that I get to the service on time. I knew that this ability was extraordinary and that I would lose the power to fly once the spark of ambition either blew out or the mission was accomplished. The journey from my car to the church was arduous; flying over mountains, rivers, various lands, and overcoming battles with other flying creatures. Once I made it there, I immediately found a seat while the choir was singing a solemn gospel piece. I looked around at all the people and wondered why they chose to find solace in god, this god, and why I am not able to. I wondered why there needed to be a dark and light. I wanted to fly again. Suddenly, this bitterness bubbled up inside me. It was an enmity that felt like shackles around my wrists and send venom through my veins. The anger paralyzed me. Just then, my stepmom came up to me and she was radiating with happiness, wearing a yellow-striped dress. All of the rage within me halted as she came up to hug me. When she pulled away I looked down at her dress. She was covered in a thick, rich maroon liquid. Blood. Perhaps it was my blood? When she stepped back, I mentioned the chaos on her yellow garment and she looked at herself in horror, then raised her eyes to me and ran off. My shoulders slumped, I exhaled, I felt defeated. I looked down at my shirt and there was not a trace of blood.