Dreams

I dreamt the other day that while climbing up a mountain I had a great fall but miraculously there was no injury. Despite the fall, I tried several times to climb up again but all such attempts resulted in repeated falls. It reminded me of Sisyphus and his unenviable efforts to carry the boulder up only to see it rolling down. Did I I become as deceitful as Sisyphus to earn such a dream? I contemplated the matter over and over again. It is true that while in service I had rarely shown my salary slip to my wife because of the apprehension of a long lecture on budgeting and consequential misunderstanding. I imagine most of the husbands would be accused of developing a liking for such innocent habit which would hardly merit as deception. I am inclined to believe that the practice is consistent with  righteous living without incurring the wrath of Dharma Deva. If that be the case how come I got singled out to be consigned to that frustrating dream! The built up emotion was so much that I shouted, ‘Injustice, injustice’ which startled my wife in the middle of her sweet dream and she woke up screaming, ‘why are you howling at this hour?’ Alas there is no business school for wife-management! Having started the day with an ominous presentiment, I became cautious of my movements and thought of postponing the day’s work to the next day. Electric bill, phone bills, medicine bill etc. got shelved. When my wife brought breakfast I was completely mesmerized in the postponement mode and without hearing her words shouted back, ‘not today, tomorrow’. She was bewildered for a few seconds but pushed the tray in to my hand in her inimitable style yelling ‘be sane at times if not always’. The sound rather than the thrust brought me back in to reality and the haze around my vision started melting.

Why do people dream? I was very curious, like most people to find meaning in dreams. In my adolescence I heard numerous theories relating to dreams. Some said unfulfilled desires find expression in dreams while some others say it foretells future happenings and very often than not it portends bleak situations ahead. But what appealed me most was the theory that if one dreams of luxurious living, royal grandeur and befitting treatment he would certainly end up as a king. I remember having invented many such dreams during my teenage with make belief stories to impress my friends and relatives who were gullible enough to believe those to be true. What I ultimately became-whether twice removed from reality or more than that is another story. Again I do not know whether my other friends were as inventive as I was then but I find most boys tell lies at that age. Of course I cannot say if it is equally true to girls too. In the early years in the college I searched the bookshelf in the reading room and found ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ by Sigmund Freud.  Although I devoted four, five sessions to have an overview yet the half-an-hour recess was woefully inadequate to satiate my queries. The reference to disguised fulfillment of repressed desires, sex symbols, genitals, unconscious, subconscious etc. etc. did not register well in my young mind at that time simply because it did not provide an easy solution to interpret a dream. The psychoanalysis of dreams, the Oedipus complex and the Electra complex posed to be inscrutable theories alien to a science student.  

I had to back out from the mission half way. The rendezvous with interpretation having ended prematurely in the past, I thought of reviving it by further study on the subject but the task appeared as intimidating as then         because of various interpretations. One theory suggests that dreams are subjective interpretation of signals generated by the brain during sleep. Another theory suggests that dreams clean up the clutter from the mind to refresh for new ventures. It is also stated that dreams mainly occur in rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep-when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. All those materials and many others made me dreamless for about a fortnight that scripted my abandonment for the second time. I have to find someone who could interpret my recent Sisyphean experience.  

Of course day dreaming is different and quite pleasant. Essentially it is like enjoying the unachievable. Some years back a friend said he enjoyed day dreaming of winning a lottery of ten million because such thought brought meaning to his existence. He knew all along that it was only his imagination but the mirage is much more attractive than the green meadows. He used to purchase lottery tickets to keep his mind green and fresh.

It is true that we must have dreams to propel us forward in a positive way and to give sustenance to our existence. While harbouring a dream we also draw up a road map to ensure that it does not frizzle out as a day dream.