Friday, November 27, 2009

On Thanksgiving - and dreams

What a great Thanksgiving. It's usually miserable if one is alone in this country during the holidays and blue at the same time. That's not a good recipe for giving thanks. But this time I chose to be alone - mostly because today is no different for me from any other day these last couple of months - almost 3, actually, since I've been back here. I guess I could have gone somewhere to avoid that - if not have flown or taken the train to somewhere where there are relatives - or driven a little bit (or taken metro - given that I had gotten rid of car when I left here - and seeing no need for one at the moment given that there's such a great public transit system here) to go be with family I have fairly locally (and possibly ruin their plans). The handful of friends that I have are all away for today and I never checked with the one or two that may not have been. I could have volunteered somewhere and did look for last minute opportunities, but decided that I really didn't feel like it (and I feel very strongly that there's no point volunteering at anything if it doesn't really come from good feelings inside - and definitely not if the only purpose is to spend your time or avoid your misery, though I guess when one has some sort of real inclination to help, then it's okay to use a distaste for being alone to someone else's advantage and volunteer then - I guess I say this because in the past I've known people who would 'volunteer' if there was something in it for them - like the chance of meeting a guy, or just to avoid being alone and other things like that - and that just doesn't appeal to me - but that's just me).

But today was great anyway. I woke up and read a little bit, then did the bathing thing and sat and meditated for a while. Then I cooked - no turkey on my plate - spoke to someone on the phone for two hours (and ate my feast at the same time) - the 3-hour time difference made sure that their lunch plans wouldn't suffer, and then I did a MAP session and drifted off to a great nap (I'll post on MAP sessions one day - I'm sure it will make for interesting reading).

I had this really weird dream just before I woke up (and I was just watching 'The Science of Dreaming' (I may have the title wrong) on NOVA the other day). It seemed to have so much symbolism and meaning. I'd climbed up the side of a building - somehow - and when I'd gotten up top, I was hanging up there, alongside a wall, with my hands gripping the top of the parapet wall that blocked off the terrace, my feet digging into some crevasses on the wall. Next to me was this person who was once a friend and she too was gripping tightly on to somewhere or something, but seemed much more nonchalant than me. I was terrified, it felt like if I shifted my weight even the slightest, I was going to fall. I had no idea how I had climbed up there and I asked her how she was planning on getting down. She just said something inane and seemed to indicate that I was stupid not to know how to get off. I figured I wasn't going to get any real or considerate answers from her. I knew that if I let go with my hands I would fall. And moving my feet any didn't seem an option. It felt like even the slightest movement of either foot would result in a slip and plunge. I just hung there wondering what to do and then suddenly, without thinking, I used every ounce of strength I had and hoisted myself up high, kicking my legs up and fell on to the terrace. And a few seconds later, the friend did the same. Once on the terrace, there were these weird people there and tables and tables piled up with chocolates (not that I'm particularly fond of those) and someone held a sign up to me that said something profound, though I couldn't recall when I woke up what exactly it had been. Someone else picked a bar of chocolate and handed it to me, their expression indicating it was some kind of reward. And then I woke up.

So I tried to analyze the dream. What did it mean? Did it mean that you didn't look for a safe way down, but gathered all your courage and pulled yourself up? Did it mean that if you did that, you'd have chocolate waiting for you :-). Did it mean you'd have a reward waiting for you? Just that it may not be what you wanted or liked? I couldn't help thinking it definitely had some meaning - you got yourself out of a rut by pulling yourself up, not down :-) - genius - I think any idiot can figure that out without a dream. I'm not sure what that friend was doing up there, other than perhaps being of no help, regardless of what she thought.

Or maybe, as one of the theories on that segment on Dreams went, it was just random noise - dreams were nothing but various parts of the brain trying to make sense of various physiological signals sent by other parts of the spine and brain, random chemicals pumped up to do some sort of house-cleaning (I don't think they said house-cleaning - I just don't recall the reason they said these signals were emitted, just that they said they had, unlike what Freud had thought, no meaning - that dreams weren't our subconscious rising to the surface, just random sparks flying around, with a brain trying to assign some meaning to them - and us mistakenly assuming that these were deep-buried fears and desires). O'h well.

Sunday, November 08, 2009

To life...



Hoping it's like this:

And not like this: