The odd nature of dreams, I have found, is that they end up, almost always, merging with a real life trigger - the alarm clock, the urgent nature's call, noise and, if you are watching about dreams on TV, someone shouting you name. Very recently I read someplace that you cannot see your own death in a dream. Or, at least what I think it meant, you cannot experience you own death - I am guessing this applies for those who experience dreams in first person. And I am not very sure how that works but this one is about a particular stream of dreams that are haunting me off late. And I am not the person who gets haunted very easily.
It generally starts with a normal day, picture the average boring work day with not too many variables out of the ordinary. And somewhere towards the middle of the boring day (I can tell you these are boring because most times I am unsure if the real is a dream or vice-versa, and I know a boring day when I see one; there have been so many of late!). And then, almost out of the blue, there will be this one thing that gets introduced into this rhythm that is unpredictable and unaccounted for. The range of the variable of uncertainty has been widespread from a harmless power disruption to disaster events like crashing planes or a tornado or a particularly harmful lightning strike.
Typically the way events unfold from there on are as varied as the nature of the disruptive variable (I will not try and detail it out because it would probably sound over creative) - the end sequence of events is rather constant. I am bleeding pretty badly (with no particularly discernible injuries) and surrounded by faces of people I have never met. Breathing is difficult and the distinct feeling that the next inhalation may quite be the last.
What is bothering me about this sequence of dreams is not so much the 'meaning' but the 'relevance' and or 'context'. I did spend some time researching some bit of similar dreams and how they might be relevant to my life as it was progressing - little surprise that there was not much help from there. Hence I spent the whole day pondering about the potential meaning and implications.
My first thoughts were influenced, I shamefully agree, by the more recent hypes surrounding the forecasts of the impending 2012 end of days scenarios. Given the nature of events unfolding in the world, I am not very sure that we may survive very long before the next war erupts - I am fairly convinced that for the next major war, it will not matter who starts it. It will spread so fast and so far that there will not be too many safe places short of the moon to hide. The only safety net we have is that the terrorism agenda has been somewhat diluted and no other agenda (Korea, Iran or whatever) is strong enough yet to justify war. In a way, the incidence to too many crisis issues coinciding is probably what's holding us off the all out war path. But that cannot be it. The disruptive variable in my dream is never battle or war related - no bombs or gunfire in any of the event sequences. In addition, as shallow as it sounds, I would probably not die for my country or any cause, not unless the change of circumstances will actually benefit me and keep me alive - I am selfish, it's just the way I am; at least I am honest about it.
The other perspective to the dream - it was probably telling me that there would be a change of career choice I would be offered very soon and, as has been the case last time I made a career choice, I would choose the wrong path and eventually be doomed for complete destruction. I must concede that my career choices have always been questionable at best and the outcomes have been very very disappointing. But then I think I have learnt my lessons so if this dream is a premonition or, scary version, a precognition, there is not much upside and it depresses me. That too cannot be because I know, as far as I can predict, that there is no drastic change coming along. I am, at least from a career point of view, facing serious momentum issues.
Is it then my subconscious side reminding me that I am a mortal? That may well be the case since my research of dreams has told me that dreams of death or impending death are ways of my mind reminding me that I am going to die sooner or later. And that I need to take the chance of changing paths to make some difference. Being born into a family with a medical man as my father, I am very aligned to the fact of mortality and do not have any illusions of living forever. While it would be nice if we could come up with technology that could allow us to live forever, by downloading consciousness into new bodies. It is well established that the human body is not the most efficient vehicle for perpetual life - the only solution to the mortality problem is not in curing illnesses but some way of extraction & downloading of the human consciousness. That's the Robin Cook fan in me speaking, I guess.
My wife will say that I need to stop watching too much Science Fiction on TV and start watching more romantic comedies. That might be a suggestion to lead to some more clarity in my dreams - clarity in form of what I should pay attention to and what I should restrain wasting my reserve thought bandwidth. This could however be some form of an innocuous dream like the ones where I am my own superhero or good looking alien life form - not much to them. Well, I have been warned. World War will probably not leave me many options for an alternate future but the other outcomes I will be able to control to some extent, so fingers crossed!
It generally starts with a normal day, picture the average boring work day with not too many variables out of the ordinary. And somewhere towards the middle of the boring day (I can tell you these are boring because most times I am unsure if the real is a dream or vice-versa, and I know a boring day when I see one; there have been so many of late!). And then, almost out of the blue, there will be this one thing that gets introduced into this rhythm that is unpredictable and unaccounted for. The range of the variable of uncertainty has been widespread from a harmless power disruption to disaster events like crashing planes or a tornado or a particularly harmful lightning strike.
Typically the way events unfold from there on are as varied as the nature of the disruptive variable (I will not try and detail it out because it would probably sound over creative) - the end sequence of events is rather constant. I am bleeding pretty badly (with no particularly discernible injuries) and surrounded by faces of people I have never met. Breathing is difficult and the distinct feeling that the next inhalation may quite be the last.
What is bothering me about this sequence of dreams is not so much the 'meaning' but the 'relevance' and or 'context'. I did spend some time researching some bit of similar dreams and how they might be relevant to my life as it was progressing - little surprise that there was not much help from there. Hence I spent the whole day pondering about the potential meaning and implications.
My first thoughts were influenced, I shamefully agree, by the more recent hypes surrounding the forecasts of the impending 2012 end of days scenarios. Given the nature of events unfolding in the world, I am not very sure that we may survive very long before the next war erupts - I am fairly convinced that for the next major war, it will not matter who starts it. It will spread so fast and so far that there will not be too many safe places short of the moon to hide. The only safety net we have is that the terrorism agenda has been somewhat diluted and no other agenda (Korea, Iran or whatever) is strong enough yet to justify war. In a way, the incidence to too many crisis issues coinciding is probably what's holding us off the all out war path. But that cannot be it. The disruptive variable in my dream is never battle or war related - no bombs or gunfire in any of the event sequences. In addition, as shallow as it sounds, I would probably not die for my country or any cause, not unless the change of circumstances will actually benefit me and keep me alive - I am selfish, it's just the way I am; at least I am honest about it.
The other perspective to the dream - it was probably telling me that there would be a change of career choice I would be offered very soon and, as has been the case last time I made a career choice, I would choose the wrong path and eventually be doomed for complete destruction. I must concede that my career choices have always been questionable at best and the outcomes have been very very disappointing. But then I think I have learnt my lessons so if this dream is a premonition or, scary version, a precognition, there is not much upside and it depresses me. That too cannot be because I know, as far as I can predict, that there is no drastic change coming along. I am, at least from a career point of view, facing serious momentum issues.
Is it then my subconscious side reminding me that I am a mortal? That may well be the case since my research of dreams has told me that dreams of death or impending death are ways of my mind reminding me that I am going to die sooner or later. And that I need to take the chance of changing paths to make some difference. Being born into a family with a medical man as my father, I am very aligned to the fact of mortality and do not have any illusions of living forever. While it would be nice if we could come up with technology that could allow us to live forever, by downloading consciousness into new bodies. It is well established that the human body is not the most efficient vehicle for perpetual life - the only solution to the mortality problem is not in curing illnesses but some way of extraction & downloading of the human consciousness. That's the Robin Cook fan in me speaking, I guess.
My wife will say that I need to stop watching too much Science Fiction on TV and start watching more romantic comedies. That might be a suggestion to lead to some more clarity in my dreams - clarity in form of what I should pay attention to and what I should restrain wasting my reserve thought bandwidth. This could however be some form of an innocuous dream like the ones where I am my own superhero or good looking alien life form - not much to them. Well, I have been warned. World War will probably not leave me many options for an alternate future but the other outcomes I will be able to control to some extent, so fingers crossed!
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