Dream Walking

Dear Inception-lovers,

Wasn’t that a terribly great movie? DiCaprio turned out to be an amazing actor after that brief stint of his being a teenage heartthrob in Titanic. And I didn’t know Ellen Page or Marion Cotillard were so attractive (oh that accent!). And did you notice they kept on flashing to the scene where the sleeping Arthur character (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in the van had that stupid grin on his face--I bet the movie guys had a kick each time they inserted it into the flick. Go see it in IMAX; it’s the only way to go.
--

So the last dream that really stuck in my memory was one where I was on a cruise ship. Nothing particularly special, just one of those big eyesore ones you see in the commercials on TV trawling the now oily waters in the Gulf of Mexico for some fantastic location with turquoise waters and snow-white sand which singe the toes a bit at first but then immerse the entire body in comforting warmth while you’re drinking some fruity adult beverage served up by a nice islander.

As a sidenote, I lived in the Caribbean (St Lucia) when I was younger, and the people were extremely nice, and it wasn’t just because my folks were tourists.

Anyway, on this particular ‘day’ in the dream, the weather was downright dreadful in hindsight. There were bunches of clouds, not a spot of sunshine, and it was unclear whether the water hitting my face was from the surf or from the pregnant cotton balls in the air. But I was cheerfully nervous. Because I was going to jump off the cruise ship into the ocean. And this other guy was going to do it too. And it was all perfectly normal--there were lines of people jumping into the sea.

While we were walking to get to the multiple diving platforms on the wet sundeck, the guy psyched himself up with false bravado and though I tried to do the same, I grew more terrified with each impending step.

We got to the area and my vision became jittery because I couldn’t keep my knocking knees still. The signpost delineated the levels of bravery like the yardage markers at the tee box at a golf course: the lowest level was for the ladies and kids, the second for the teens and seniors, third for guys, and fourth for the truly macho. But even the lowest level looked terrifyingly high. The girls had one-piece swimsuits with hair caps from the 80s like the pool scene in Caddyshack. They were giggling and tittering and were not in the least bit attractive. At least not at that point because I was deathly and deftly afraid.

Then I thought about how I had never dived into a pool, let alone from any significant height. And after some deliberation, I told the guy I wasn’t going to dive which he was okay with. It seemed like he didn’t give me grief because he was scared too, but he wasn’t going to admit it. No one seemed to notice my cowardice, and as I walked away, I woke up.

And the funny thing was that I felt I made a conscious, half-awake decision not to jump. Psychoanalysis aside, I’ve been trying to consciously affect my dream states by learning to recognize what is a dream and how to purposefully explore my unconscious. To talk to the projections of my friends to get a sense of what I think about them (and why I would dream about them in the first place). To get a sense of my true reality in suspended reality. To figure out what my goals in life are, to find one’s dreams within one’s dreams as it were. To find happiness perhaps, to see if I can’t re-dream that one with the girl in the white dress at the church, where I’m unconventionally walking to meet her at the altar. All I could tell is that she’s a brunette (maybe that’s why I prefer blondes?).

And unlike the movie Inception where if you die during the dream state (under light sedation apparently), you just wake up, I have a feeling that it’s very unlucky (for lack of a better word) to die in your dreams or come close to dying like jumping off a cruise ship.

Though we can experience things in our dreams we wouldn't dare to do in real life, I’ve actually come closer to death in real life through my seemingly reckless driving (oh those Asians… what will we do with them?) and my bacon cheeseburger habit. I'm so glad Catholicism doesn't prohibit delicious, tasty pork!