In my Dreams...

Today’s the last day of The Write Tribe Festival of Words, I’m taking part in. The last writing prompt is ‘Dreams’. Taking part in it has been a wholesome experience. Churning out new ideas for the different posts, struggling to make the creative juices flow, and reading the other blogs- it was quite a learning time. I hadn’t been this creative for months. I give my thanks to ‘Write Tribe’ and all the bloggers who took part.

I have blogged about dreams earlier too. You can read it here: Follow Your Dreams.

Dreams are very mysterious things. More like the soul, the actual identity of dreams is unknown. Where the consciousness goes and where the mind wanders when we are in sleep dreaming, is still a big question. Is it some corner of our brain or some other unexplored dimension outside our body? This continues to be an enigma. The very idea of our soul leaving the body while we are dreaming, and visiting unchartered lands, is quite fascinating though, even if it’s just a figment of our imagination.

 We have a number of popular fiction and YA novels taking advantage of this concept. ‘Lucifer’ by Michael Cordy and ‘Wake unto Me’ by Lisa Cach had me hooked till the end. Adrian- a character in ‘The Vampire Academy’ could communicate with people through their dreams. Stephenie Meyer says she had dreamt about Edward and Bella, heard them taking in her dreams, and thus she wrote our favorite paranormal book. Such productive dreams are so welcome. May be string theory and literary physics are really related. What if Edward and Bella (and Jacob, of course) actually existed in some parallel universe, and actually communicated with the author through her dreams? The prospect is so alluring.

‘The Inception’ had blown my mind by its brilliant imagination and storytelling ideas, using the theory of dreams within dreams within dreams.  It would be rather scary if we can’t differentiate dreams from reality. Astral projections, the sense of déjà vu, and past life regressions are all quite intriguing and they may be, in some way, related to our dreams. I have known people keeping a Dream Journal and noting down every dream as soon as they wake up, some in writing and some in sketches. Some do it just as a hobby, some do it as a part of their post trauma counseling process, and some do it to find good and bad omens- like dreaming a snake can mean threat, and a bird can mean freedom. I don't really give much importance to it, but like numerology, palmistry, horoscope and tarot card reading, dream-ology is pretty interesting too.

In Srikhetra Puri, the abode of Lord Jagannath and his siblings, dreams play a huge role in the temple activities, especially during the ‘Nabakalebara’- a time that comes after many years when the idols of the trinity have to be remade (2015). The servitors call upon the gods for weeks, seeking the knowledge of where to find the Neem tree, bearing the symbol of conch, and ‘chakra’ and housing no animals or birds. The ‘trimurti’ has to be made from the wood of such a tree, finding which humanly is next to impossible. The lord answers them through their dreams. Tales of Jagannath and his love for his devotees tells us more about his communicating with the mortal world through dreams.

Anything intangible and out of the ordinary is attention grabbing. I frequently dream about slipping, usually within the first hour, then wake up with a start, and then again go back to sleep. I never dream about the fall, after the foot slip. My friends say it means remain alert, and google is of no help. Do tell me if anyone knows what it means. Another friend of mine has dreams of drawing water from a well, more often than not. We tease him that perhaps he’ll be our savior during water crisis. Hah!