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Humour: Dream trippin’
Do you take pleasure in the poetry of dreams or marvel at their magic?
Freud called them “The Royal Road to the Unconscious”, Martin Luther King Jr. had one that changed the course of history, ABBA’s was a fantasy that helped them cope with reality while Simran conjured an andekha anjaana in hers. Dreams, in all their variety, lift the commonplace to the realm of poetry. What a shame that we’re asleep through most of them.
What lies beneath
As a compulsive dreamer, I’m deeply distressed by the fact that the curator of my dreams is an unrelenting nihilist. She projects narratives of such doom and gloom onto my poor sleeping brain that waking up is often a relief. I can see the sympathetic nods of a hundred readers who no doubt would be recommending everything from psychotherapy to pranayama to rid me of the malaise. However, trauma, too, has its uses; the stray dream in which I’m left in sole charge of a magnificent buffet, or flying freely over a verdant valley, or dancing on stage with The Beatles, leaves me more nourished and invigorated than the average dreamer.
Whether it’s one’s fiercest fears or wildest wishes, dreams are the realm beyond the reach of that inner censor, so unforgiving in one’s waking life. They feature the inappropriate fantasies and unseemly desires, the ridiculous words and absurd gestures brimming below our prim Marie Kondo personalities. It’s like everything we ever erased from our minds was never really erased; it just became material for these crazy-happy-sad scripts, reminiscent of B-Grade Bollywood of the ’80s.
The abracadabra of sleep
One of the fun aspects of therapy is the decoding of dreams. Now this is a tricky process, no matter how insightful the dreamer or skilled the therapist. There is, nonetheless, a lot to be said about “dreamwork” in Freudian analysis; the idea that repressed thoughts show up in a distorted manner in one’s dreams. A far more sensible idea than dreams as premonition, or portals to other worlds, but not half as exciting. While we’re on the topic: Does anyone care to interpret a dream in which a garden gnome scatters pages from The Communist Manifesto over a field of sunflowers with human faces that bear a striking similarity to one’s high school chemistry teacher? Asking for a friend.
The belief that dreams warn us of imminent dangers, or bless us with glimpses of the afterlife, and other extrasensory explanations, has a long and colourful history. Even the most passionate rationalist has at some time or the other fallen for its seductive appeal. Who wants explanations when you can have fantasies instead? But in the land of dream interpretation, while many prefer to don the extravagant gowns of magicians, some of us choose to wear the humble robes of poets.
Creating a monster
We’ve all experienced that intermediary stage between waking and sleeping life called “lucid dreaming”. The twilight zone where you’re conscious about being in a dream state, like you’ve walked into a scene of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Richard Linklater’s animated film Waking Life explores the relationship between dreams and reality even more intriguingly. I, for one, have realised that my lucid dream narrator is a wise guy who’s constantly daring me to shake off my cosy blanket and tear myself out of bed. I’ve spent many a night trying to retaliate with deep sleep, far from the reach of dream stealers, even if they look like Leonardo DiCaprio.
Whether it was the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic story Frankenstein, or Neils Bohr’s discovery of the structure of the atom, nightmares and dreams have contributed to human history in dramatic ways. As for me, willing myself to dream-solve problems ranging from migraines to monotony is a lifelong project. Which gives me the chance to take yet another guilt-free nap, all in the interest of research.
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From HT Brunch, October 11, 2020
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