The Dreaming Lives On

Last year I blogged about my dream bed, the one which I used to sleep in last year and the one that I blamed for many strange dreams. But I left it at that.

Lately I’ve decided to pay more attention to my dreams. I wish I had done it sooner — looking back, it’s staggering how much my subconscious or unconscious was trying to tell me through dreams that were sometimes nightmares. I’ve found myself staring wide-eyed and horrified into space — while eating, while paying for my coffee at Starbucks (this alarms cashiers apparently), while in bed, waiting for sleep to come — whenever the memory of a dream returns.

Needless to say I am on it, scouring sites and buying books (including Carl Jung’s “Dreams, Memories, Reflections"), but that’s another blog entry.

For now, here’s a quick sampling of those dreams that I distinctly remember from last year:

One night, I dreamt I had married someone and regretted it deeply. We lived in an apartment that was almost a literal box. As we sat down for a meal, I could feel my head graze the ceiling. And as I ate with my husband, I mentally drop-kicked myself for having done what I told myself I would never do. Then the air went thin and I couldn’t breathe. Then I woke up.

Another night I dreamt that I wanted to say something but couldn’t. I tried to scream and yell but still nothing would come out. In frustration, I scratched my throat until it bled. Then I woke up (with my throat feeling scratchy).

Still another night I dreamt of multi-colored flying snakes. They were flying through rooms and I, armed with a butterfly net, tried to catch them. I don’t remember netting any, but I still remember the feeling of excitement and determination in my bones.

And yet another night, late last year, I dreamt an entire story. I was living in an island and all the animals in it got sick and so they had to be sent to the neighboring island for treatment. But one day the bears washed ashore, dead. The beach was littered with hundreds or maybe thousands of lifeless black rubber bears (think blackberry gummy bears), their flat noses crusty with the dry, yellowish traces of disease.

I turn away and see that the tiger has returned, standing majestically on all fours aboard a bamboo raft, fur windblown. On another raft was the doctor, clad in a black trench coat. It was someone I knew. He stepped onto the edge of the pier and I, happy to see him, started to make my way towards him. But coming from behind me, running, was another girl in what I remember was a knee-length white floral skirt straight out of Laura Ashley’s sugar-sweet line. She sped past me, straight towards the doctor, and they hugged. And I thought to myself, “Oh. So it’s them.”

These dreams have proven to be not so random and of course they are coded messages. The quick interpretations on websites have brought on a barrage of "Ohhhh...of course!" So here’s a rather fragmented one I had last Friday night, in my sisters’ room at my parents’ house.

I am crossing the street tentatively because I know it is dangerous. Then out of nowhere, someone shoots a tiny bullet that hits my left cheek. The wound is barely perceptible but blood keeps oozing out of it like bright-red beads out of a pin-prick. Someone comes to help me onto a plush chair of a hotel lounge.

Then in another scene I am on the first deck of a three-storey luxury cruise liner sailing through the sea. It’s nighttime and I am watching waves splash onto the wooden floor of the first deck that is now half-submerged. I ask my companion, the doctor in the old dream, “Is it supposed to do that?”

Finally the cruise liner docks at a place called Thimpoo. “Thimpoo in Scandinavia” a local on the street tells me. I remember being amazed and feeling extremely happy, certain that it was where I truly belonged. I thought to myself, “This looks like a smaller, more quaint, and cleaner version of Prague” although I’d never been to Prague. It was a kind of wintry European scene and I remember being amazed at the technology of city cable cars.

After strolling around town, I walk into a portside deli (and through the window I see the ship in the dock) and I realize that the clerk is Pinay. I tell her I love Thimpoo. With a good-natured wink, she tells me, “Masaya talaga dito sa Thimpoo” and throws in extra pastries and cheese in to my bag of purchases.

I woke up thinking: Thimpoo.

On Dang’s advice I’ve looked it up. Searching “Thimpoo+Scandinavia”, three links come up. Apparently it is some kind of a tool in Scandinavia, but the links don’t lead to anything that resonates.

But Thimpoo, or Thimphu, is also the capital of Bhutan, a country I’ve always wanted to visit and live in. I'm almost certain that after I'd done what I've always wanted to do in the country, I'll have found something very precious. Call me crazy but this dream has revived an old dream of one day making the trip to Bhutan.

Before the year is out, I promise you, I will have a plan for Bhutan. Thimpoo here I come.

I've also looked up what sailing, ships and travel mean in dreams. "An emotional journey through the unconscious," says one site. "A journey to the next stage in life" says another. Still another says travel means that I am broadening my horizons and moving out of my comfort zone. Any which way it seems just about right, like all my past dreams have been.