Personal Essay
Sebastian Priestley
Dream
The nature of dreams have befuddled philosophers and scientists for centuries. Often times they have deeper meanings, things that reveal hidden traits of those who dreamt them. Its this meaning in a particular dream of my childhood I have searched for for years, and one I hope to find. When searching for meaning in dreams, one must search for symbolism. As for some reason, a persons subconscious is always a far superior philosopher than ones thinking mind. Perhaps the massive two mile tall duck in ones hypothetical dream symbolizes a developing inferiority complex as said person would never else be intimidated by a duck. Or perhaps said individual is just weird. Similarly, perhaps the feeling of being overwhelmed in my dream showed I was concerned with matters far larger than myself
Imagine the following; you're walking through a vast maze, clearly lost. The looming stone walls surrounding you are covered from top to bottom in long green vines. The sky is an unnatural pitch black, no stars, moon or sun to look to. You come upon a dead end, you look towards the sky for a sign of aid. Suddenly, a massive booming voice echoes against the walls, angered, and shouting nonsense. A malevolent voice powerful enough to leave you feeling tiny and overwhelmed. Then you wake up. This is the kind of dream I experienced once every week or two when I was far younger. I never gave it much thought, even though every time I experienced it I would be awakened rather suddenly and unpleasantly. I've never been particularly good in common social situations, especially in a one on one conversation with people I haven't met before. But back when I was having these 0dreams, I was something of a mess. I would often say things in school than would come across as horribly narcissistic, even when I meant them in a completely different manner. Believe me, there's nothing worse than a narcissistic six-year old. It's like dealing with an egomaniac politician you can't insult in a socially acceptable manner, and who are far too stupid to understand subtextual aggression or sarcasm. This is significant as around the end of my pre-school years is when I started having these dreams on a less frequent basis. This is also when I began enjoying entertainment mediums such as video games, tv shows and movies. It seems, as a consequence of these newfound enjoyments, I began to understand the concepts of humility and general social etiquette.
Though I may not have been the most gregarious student at my elementary school, I was far from the person I was in pre-school. A number of years at my elementary school passed, and I finally moved on to a school that caters to middle school students. Upon arrival here, the dreams lessened to around once or twice a month. This is likely due to my relative comfort in the presence of my classmates here. The one trait I now struggled with was my inability to break the rules. The thought of failing to conform exactly to school guidelines was petrifying to me. Then I moved to Boston. It was certainly a shock to my system, and for a while I remained rigid in my ways. It wasn't until a ways into my first year that I learned a truth that did away with the dreams entirely, it's okay to break the rules. I should likely clarify my meaning, this doesn't mean I suddenly believed I could take a axe to someones face and that would be perfectly dandy and fine. But I stopped acting like a mindless drone, following every rule to the letter, and started living my life more as a mildly egotistical, video-game addicted twelve year-old should.
Having identified a likely cause of the dreams, now on must ask, what does it mean? I don't mean to sound like one of those philosophers you read about in textbooks, the kind that spend all day asking questions along the lines of, "If I decapitate myself with a pool cue, but no ones around to see it, will I really die?" But it is a relevant, if very simple question to ask, what does the dream mean? Analyzing dreams is a common practice in modern times. Though as much as the "holier than thou" intellectuals may argue amongst each other, it comes down to one simple rule. Dreams always represent some thoughts of your sub-conscious, condensed into a bout of metaphorical nonsense.
I've spent a significant amount of time searching various websites for a potential meaning behind my dream, but it seems this particular type of dream is fairly unique. Yay me, I'm a special snowflake. In all seriousness, I couldn't find an instance of a similar dream analyzed by the professionals. So what, as proud and well-educated individuals, do we do in such a dilemma? We make up as much crap as we can and call it speculation. Therefore, I shall put forward my personal hypothesis on what the dream meant. I believe it represented the part of me that was aware of my own social failings, in both conduct and as a result of my age. This was translated by my ever disturbed mind into a maze, an unescapable maze of the social hierarchy. With the booming voice likely representing the judgments put upon me by myself and others. My inadequacies made into a tangible, verbal medium. As is the nature of dreams, after all, episodes of absolute nonsense given meaning by the conscious mind's need for order.
No comments:
Post a Comment