Saturday, January 29, 2011

dream manifesto

Dreams
nhung

When I was 11, I had this dream. It took place outside of my elementary school, which happens to be located down the street from my childhood home. It was a dream about two boys, both of whom I knew in real life, neither of whom I had ever thought about sexually before (yes, I thought about boys sexually at 11! Stop pretending you didn't.). In the dream, I lost my virginity to one of the boys, while the other stood and watched. I did not however, lose my virginity to him in the normal way. There was no penetration, maybe not even any bodily contact (It's a bit blurry. It was, after all, 15 years ago). It was more just an awareness that it had happened; a strange knowledge that I had chosen to give this boy a piece of my innocence, and a feeling that it was supremely right or meant-to-be.

I woke up that morning and proceeded to have the most gigantic crush of my life on this boy. Then, five years later, at sixteen, I lost my v-card to him on the floor of his friend's sister's dorm room. I felt nothing. I felt less than nothing. We fooled around for a long time before he actually, you know, put it in, and when he finally did, I had to question whether or not he really had, because that's how much it felt like nothing. It was if I was merely carrying out the physical end of a spiritual contract I had made a million years ago.

Don't you think that shit is fucking bizzarre?!

For the longest time, I swore I was psychic. I had other experiences of this type, too. Where I would dream something and it would come true. Or I would dream something and someone would start talking to me about a similar situation the next day. One time I was involved in a very, very bad romance with a paranoid schizophrenic and I developed these nightmares about terrible gruesome creatures only to find out later that the creatures in my dreams matched the description of his schizophrenic delusions exactly. Needless to say, this was a big motivating factor in choosing to never sleep next to him again ever.

Later, I developed an odd recurring dream. Almost every night, I would dream of having sex with one of my close family members. I would wake up every morning disgusted with myself, sometimes in tears. I went to therapy and my therapist assured me that I was not sick or secretly desiring of incestual encounters. Then, I moved away and the dreams stopped. It never occured to me that the dreams were actually my subconcious screaming at me You are too close with these people!!!, despite the fact that the dreams started at the exact same moment when I became too scared to leave my hometown for fear of abandoning my family.

Yup, I've had a long and intense realtionship with the part of my mind that wakes up when my body is sleeping. Even when my dreams are not psychic, or incestuous, they are often vivid and strange; filled with beauty and symbolism and emotions too raw to ever feel in real life. I have come to the conclusion that I would not trade my good dreams in for relief from the bad ones, even when they were seemingly ruining my life. I love dreaming. I love my dreams. They are one of my primary interests and motivations in this life. When I saw Inception, I left the theater pissed that it was not real, because if I could dream for a living I would do it in a second, no matter how dangerous or illegal.

I have long searched for an outlet for my vivid dreaming. If I had any skill at painting or drawing, I would put them on display for the whole world to see. I have tried to write them out, but it is infinitely frustrating. Our language is not designed for such intense things. Over time, I have resigned myself to the sad truth that dreams are not for sharing, and even if they were, how could they possibly mean as much to someone else as they mean to me?

But then, this morning while I was running, I had a thought. It was briliantly sunny out, and the song that was playing on my ipod seemed to complement the weather perfectly. I had a desire that was similar to my desire to share my dreams; I wanted to store that moment and save it for later. I wanted to bring it home to Connecticut and pull it out to show all the people I love who have never been here what a California winter feels like. Then it occured to me that had I never moved here, I'd be one of those people who had never experienced winter in California, and then I started to consider what effect that would have on my dreams.

Sometimes in my dreams, I visit places over and over again. Often these places do not exist in real life, but are evocative of other places that do. Sometimes, I dream of feelings over and over. Sometimes I dream of people who I love, or people I have never even met. I have come to think of all the things I dream about as my dream vocabulary. The pictures and symbols and sounds and feelings my subconcious has latched onto, either in real life or my own vibrant imaginings, have served as a pallette that I've used each night to create an entire dreaming world that I inhabit. What a fucking miracle that our brains are even capable of this!

Even more miraculous is the realization I came to this morning; that our dream vocabularies are (mostly) under our control. That if we cultivate beautiful experiences and think beautiful thoughts, not only will we live beautiful lives, but we'll dream beautiful dreams. And in this way, our dreams are actually moments that encompass our entire lives. Every memory that you thought was gone forever is a part of the material that creates your dreams. Dreams are what our lives look like when time no longer exists; a snapshot of every moment we've experienced all rolled into one, and in this way, when we're dreaming we are infinite and eternal.

Fuck, that was one of the best thoughts I've ever had!!!!!

So good a thought, in fact, that it's where I have decided to start. And I know, I know; technically I've already started. I told you all months ago, about this new beginning and then I halted, stuck. There was a spark, but then it never ignited. I carved out my place and I waited.

And I don't mean to say that I've seen the light. I don't mean to preach at you like some evangelical nutcase claiming that I know the answer because god showed it to me. Rather, it was as if all the thoughts I had been mulling over, arranging and re-arranging in my mind, slowly came to form an image that finally felt right. I realized, very calmly, in a single moment that all I've ever wanted to do was collect dreams. Or more precisely, collect experiences and filter them through the kaleidoscope of my unique perspective to create dreams, and I realized also, that I want to record that process and that ultimately, that is the only imprint I want to leave on this world.

So, here it is: from this moment forth, a new paradigm. I will write as if I'm dreaming. I will write about my dreaming. In the end, they are the same thing; a collection of moments, perceptions, realities. Welcome to my museum

No comments: