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Journal Entry
September 27, 2003 I had a dream last night.
I dreamt that I walked into my backyard to see the Earth hovering just
above the grass that the night had turned into a dark void. The night is black, blacker than I had ever seen it, and the
Earth is colored more Earthlike than any National Geographic could ever make it
appear, the blue of the oceans almost blinding against the black of the sky.
It is so low that I believe I can touch it, that I could just walk over
to it and pluck it out of the sky and carry it home in my pocket.
Something is urging me forward, a voice, sounding almost like my
mother’s, coming from the window. I
step forward, into the dark abyss that is my yard, scared but secure in my
footing, having faith that, although I can not see it, the ground is still there
like it is in the light, solid and firm. I
step toward the Earth, still hanging low in the sky like a gumball.
I can see the oceans and the continents, but its bottom has become black
like a moon slowly becoming new again. One
step forward, and I’m closer. Another
and I’m closer still until I stretch out my arm and can feel the space between
us closing in and it wouldn’t be long before I would be able to touch it.
But then, just as I get near enough, it flies upward like a catapult,
taking its rightful place back up in the sky, out of my reach, but I’m okay
with that. Finally, for the first
time since the dream began, things seem natural. I have no idea what the dream actually means. For some reason, “moon hanging like a gumball over your
backyard” is not in any dream dictionary and the individual symbols make no
sense when applied to my life. I had another dream the night before that,
strangely enough, made more sense. I
am holding my beloved dog, now deceased, but was, in the dream, a cuddly,
curious puppy. We are walking
through a meadow where there’s wildflowers dotting the field as though someone
had splattered paint across the grass. We
come to a road, old and pebbly, where there’s a cluster of horses with wings
munching on the trees and grass. They’re
frightened when we approach them and fly away like birds, all except for one who
continued to munch as though that is the greatest thing it will ever do in its
life. We continue to walk until some unseen force causes me to turn back and
see that the bird-horse has stopped munching to watch me intently.
When it notices that it’s caught my attention, it starts to rush toward
me. Clutching my beloved puppy in
fear, I run, praying that the bird-horse won’t hurt me and for a hiding place
that cannot be found. The sound of
its presence is loud when it comes
up behind me, and I stop, bracing for the attack, but the bird-horse only stops
about a foot behind and resumes its munching as though it had never stopped. We walk a little farther, and I stop again,
looking back at the bird-horse, which has become consumed with munching and lost
its interest in me. A part of me is
happy, the fear of the strange animal still a presence in my mind, but the fear
of losing it has now become a stronger presence so I sing, and it responds to my
voice, rushing toward me. We have crossed into the backyard of my grandma’s house where a thick
mist hangs low and turns the yard into a graveyard, the trees black tombstones.
There’s a hill above me that leads the wrong way,
and I wait for the bird-horse, scared that he will take this path.
My fears are confirmed as it starts to munch on a path to the top of the
hill so I call it down into the yard where the openness
of the space suddenly occurs to it. Its
mind screams so loud that I can hear it, a shriek that only applies to a
realization of freedom, and it begins running with reckless abandon. Now, before you run off thinking I’ve
completely lost what little marbles I had remaining, I would like you to know
that there was, in fact, an entry for “horses with wings” in my dream
dictionary. I was, to be honest, shocked at that fact and glad at the
same time that I was not as crazy as I thought I was. They say that dreams are the key to unlocking
what our unconscious is trying to tell us but why does it talk to us in such
strange symbols such as bird-horses or mysterious men in dark alleys?
I mean, if I was an unconscious, wanting to talk to my conscious
counterpart, I would do so in a clear, precise manner in order to make sure that
I was heard and understood. Surely
that would make life a lot easier. And
what is the idea of a subconscious anyway?
How can there be an entire section of our brain that we have no knowledge
of? And if that’s true, then is
it possible that there’s other sections of our body that we have knowledge
actually exists? Whatever the case, I’ve decided that dream interpretation is an
important aspect of life since they seem to tell me things about myself I never
knew were there. For example, I
would have never known that I possessed a great deal of anxiety until I started
having recurring “anxiety” dreams, you know, those fun dreams where you’re
late for an appointment, forgot to study for a midterm, or try to go to the
bathroom only to have the walls disappear, and you’re stuck having to pee in
front of about twenty or thirty strangers.
Then, there’s the warning
dreams. I can’t remember the
precise dreamology turn, but it’s those dreams that predict the future such as
the dream I had that a tornado hit our house and ran to a shed in the backyard
where my mother was waiting for me with a row of my stuffed animals on the wall
behind her. I had woke up the
morning of that dream and started off for school, only to be caught in a weak
tornado while I was driving. In
complete terror, I rushed home to my mother who tried to cheer me up by bringing
out my stuffed animals and making them dance. © EXCEL
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