Dreams usually appear senseless, sometimes too personal, sometimes impossible to recount after one wakes up. However, they can be interpreted. According to scientists, dreams reveal what a person thinks, often more than the dreamer himself is conscious of.

Here I will talk about a dream of mine and I am ready to interpret it in a non-Freudian way:

I turned on the radio. The news anchorman was announcing, “Pakistan is in great danger because of the financial crisis.”

I woke up immediately. I sighed and smiled to myself, for having had such a public-minded dream about international current events, though in a ridiculously distorted way.

I ask myself why I dreamed of Pakistan. It must have been due to the news reports in the newspapers, on TV and the radio. Much notice and great concern of the world have been brought to India and Pakistan by their nuclear tests. When the whole world seems to be marching toward a non-nuclear peace with a consensus, what the two countries are doing are quite astonishing. It must have stricken me with such dismay that I dreamed of Pakistan.

Why did I dream of financial crisis? The press has been discussing the Southeast Asian financial meltdown form different angles. In the classes of my minor in economics, teachers have been talking about it, too. I must have been so overwhelmed that I couldn’t help dreaming of it. It is really distressing to see a booming economy sinking rather helplessly, when economy is so vital to a country’s development. It is even worse that other regions are also negatively affected. It will take much effort and time and it will cost dearly to pick up the economy.

So I actually dreamed of two particular events of peace and development, the two themes of the world today. It just so happens that thorny problems keep cropping up.

I am but a student. One may say that I don’t need to bother to worry about such big issues. In my conscious, I might have to agree. But in my subconscious, I AM concerned about the issues. It is my dream that has revealed this to me, though through a weird combination of elements. Indeed, however insignificant I may be, I am a part of the world. What happens to the world will more or less affect me, ultimately. Everyone is relevant in this world. Though I can’t stop the nuclear tests and the financial crisis, I feel participated when I come to realize that I am caring about them, because it is a common fate that all human beings are to share.

In this dream of mine, nothing promising was presented. Just a disheartening situation. And I am not optimistic enough to dream, in its figurative sense, that these problems will be solved in the early 21st century, which is only a short time away. It always takes very long for things to get better, yet things get spoilt so easily. Anyway some changes will certainly take place with time going on. I hope they are positive ones and I will be able to participate in them.

If I happen to dream one night in 2000, if the dream happens to be something about the current events again, I wish it is far less gloomy than the one I had a few days ago.

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