We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded with a sleep.
– William Shakespeare (The Tempest)
Last night I had a dream that has followed with me throughout the day. I don’t even really know the significance of the particular parts, but for some reason it still resonates. Sometimes when I’m dreaming certain aspects of the dream will appear luminous or unclouded and others will fade into periphery. It’s almost like looking through a magnifying glass.
What I can recall is being in a classroom. In the front of the classroom the teacher, who is unfamiliar to me, was discussing something like history or literature. I stood up and am ready to leave the classroom out of boredom, but the talk suddenly shifts. She mentions that she has cancer and is dying. As not to appear rude, I stopped in my tracks and listened. It’s not that I really cared if she is dying or not, it was more the appearance that I was worried about.
The scene shifts and while the transition is a bit foggy in my memory, I can remember following a well-dressed student out of the classroom. He had reddish hair and was older; nobody that I would recognize in my waking life. He sat down on a bench next to another older man. My impression of him altered. The vitality I had seen before in him was no longer there. A spore-like plant was creeping up his sleeve as he was staring into space. It was as if he was slowly and unwittingly being devoured by some form of moss.
Although the events that took place in my dream held some significance to me today, I’ve been thinking about the individuals that have been inhabiting them. Who are these strangers and why did my unconcious mind conjure them into existence? Why have they been assigned these roles I have given them? What do they symbolize to me?
Some days I feel like I’m dwelling in someone’s dream or a character in someone’s story. There are times when I feel that the world around me is as phony as a Hollywood set. At certain instances it seems I’m tested and tempered by the events occuring in my life. Events that occur and people I interact with hold some underlying meaning. It might just be the way I’ve been interpreting the external world most of my life, but I do feel a certain underlying current guiding the events of my life. I know it’s not science, but it just might be spiritual.
Maybe we are figments of someone else’s unconscious thoughts and desires or maybe this thing we call life is all an accident. The former seems more appealing to me and a more romantic notion. If this world were such an accident and nothing means anything, what is there to live for? Maybe we create these religious and spiritual constructs to make life barable, but when I wander through the visceral, murky landscapes of the mind, I can’t help but wonder if my own life is but a dream.
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