“We are such stuff
William Shakespeare (The Tempest)
As dreams are made on,
and our little life
is rounded with a sleep”
I sometimes wonder not only about the mechanics but also about the origins of dreams. And although I do appreciate the scientific work that has been done in those regards I do not believe that we humans have a full handle on them. It has been said, for example, that we dream, primarily, to process emotions, to solidify memories, and to manage mental stress. Also, it has been stated that while the exact purpose is still debated, dreaming acts as the brain’s “mental housekeeping,” sorting through daily information during REM sleep. This process can help to regulate moods, to rehearse potential challenges, and to solve problems. In short, the scientists still do not know many things about the dynamics of dreams. And so, barring the Angel Gabrielle, sent from God and appearing to explain things, or something that happened during the course of my daily activities yesterday, or the possibility of any unexpected hallucinogenic effects from the soup or from the juices which I consumed, could anyone say for certain why I had a terrible nightmare last night?
I dreamed (and it was not an idle fabrication) that a great body of water was being drained from an unspecified geographical location. In fact, the process seemed to have been repeated multiple times, like someone having hit the replay button on an audio/visual machine. And then, the scene changed. I found myself walking in a neighbourhood which looked like part of a northern metropolis with high rise buildings. The time seemed like early morning, but the sun was high enough to adequately illuminate everything in sight. I do not recall seeing anyone else except for white men dressed in light- brown army fatigues, pulling up in trucks by the side of the road, near to an intersection, one vehicle behind the other, wasting no time in unloading their equipment. The dried-up waters seemed to have made a way for them. I had a great sense of who they were and of what their mission was. And, although I was seen, none of the men accosted me as I had expected them to, based on what I knew of their mission – and especially as I was not a white man. And, strangely, although their presence posed some concern, I was unafraid.
The scene changed again, and I found myself in a room in one of the high rise buildings, on, perhaps, the uppermost level. Why I was there, I had no idea. Very soon I heard banging on walls and doors from various parts within the building – with people screaming loudly. Without line of sight, I had a sense of what was going on and of who was creating the ruckus. At one point the whole building seemed to shake like it was at the epicenter of an earthquake. And then I saw women – young white women – also dressed in army fatigues, pushing baby strollers (or, prams), one woman after another, one stroller after another, in a line, walking casually down a corridor next to windows facing the outside. The infants were not theirs, but were the children who were taken from people in the building. As one stroller passed me by, a note materialized and was presented to me. It requested my help as the child did not have the power to flee, it stated. I froze.
As the entourage was disappearing out of sight down the long corridor a toddler, a girl, half clad in red, perhaps Hispanic, with bare feet, suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She was greatly agitated – angry at me. And before she ran off in hot pursuit of the uniformed personnel who were pushing the strollers, to challenge their abduction of the innocent, she asked me why I did not respond to the plea for help that had been presented to me. The answer I provided to her came out of what I felt was more on the side of wisdom than on that of fear: “I did not want to be arrested”. What brought on this nightmare of last night? I cannot recall anything during the day – anything untoward – which could have brought it on. I did not receive an epiphany from heaven. In fact, the day before I had my nightmare, I cheered when I heard playbacks of King Charles’ speech to the United States Congress reminding the lawmakers of how, in time past, the American people raved about the Magna Carta, and about its espoused virtues of checks and balances in government. The irony of a British Monarch reminding Senators and Congressional Representatives of the Lower House of their commitment to their own constitution which they have, of late, woefully neglected was something to behold. That should have provided me with the basis for a wonderful and a pleasant dream.
But, I suppose, no speech of the moment can ever cover, ever salve or ever inoculate one’s senses against the steady undercurrents of injustice, of meanness, and of the horrors that are being played out in American streets daily – bucking so many tenets of the U.S. Constitution, with numbing and with embarrassing effects to the point that our leaders were gently but firmly reprimanded by a head of state without them, seeming, to realize it. Some of the very public officials who rose to give the British Monarch a standing ovation have become anathema to the Magna Carta which came out of hard lessons that the British monarchy had learned through the pain and blood of civil war. And so, I do not know what brought on my nightmare of last night, but it is not hard to fathom how normalized wickedness can seep into one’s subconscious without any warning. But for whatever it is worth, the king’s speech was most welcome – both on the day that it was delivered and in the recollections of the day afterwards. Hopefully, having talked things out in this missive I will have a more quiescent and yet invigorating experience after bedtime tonight and that it will portend great hope for the future.
I shared my thoughts with someone with respect to the nightmare I had and about the speech which King Charles delivered. The person thought there was a disconnect between the two and that they both could comprise two different essays, if I were willing to delve deeper. Although it was a keen observation with a worthy recommendation I demurred. I made a promise to myself not to waste anymore of my time and my energy on the political goings-on in this country, even though I live here. Why should I be serious about the ideas of law and order when they remain unserious to our lawmakers and our judges. And, besides, does not this disconnect underscore the fact that what I had was a nightmare? It was John Irving who is quoted as saying: “Of all the things you choose in life, you don’t get to choose what your nightmares are. You don’t pick them; they pick you.”
