Against this backdrop my brain entertained me last night with a pretty cinematic dream. It’s hard to recall all the details, but it was one of those dreams where I inhabit a different persona. So I experience the dream story first-person but I’m not *me*, per se. This is always a bit of an unsettling experience. Am I temporarily possessed or am I possessing somebody else? And what does it mean? Probably nothing, but my curiosity is still aroused by the experience.
My character was female, but younger than I am now, probably about mid-20s. My sense of my appearance was that it was average, with long dark hair. I did not feel that anything about me in particular stood out, and I didn’t want to stand out.
I was in a busy urban centre, full of commercial and/or government buildings. I don’t recall any green space. This city was outwardly peaceful, but there was a tension there too, a sense of violence lurking beneath the surface, waiting for the opportunity to emerge.
I was a person with secrets, someone who was not what she seemed. And it was my goal to cause some kind of disruption. But it wasn’t calculated, exactly, it was an intention inside me that had a kind of inevitability about it.
Now that I think about it, I do recognize this aspect of the dream persona. When people are trying to understand surprising events, I notice they try to rationalize them, most often. They come up with reasons why this or that thing might have happened. Or they assume there are unknown reasons, that if uncovered, would make a coherent narrative. Something we could stand outside of, say “Oh, that is why and how that happened.” Where we could identify specific agents (usually people not ourselves, especially if they are doing something bad) and say “It is because of them” or more specifically “It is their fault.”
I do this too, of course. But I have noticed I tend to be more aware that I’m doing this act of rationalizing than the average person I interact with. And I am aware of when I’m doing it to fulfill a social convention, but I’m not really that into it. I am not sure why I am like this, but I think it’s because I have an awareness of my own internal chaos. In other words, I know my rational, socially acceptable persona is mostly an act. It’s an act I’m dedicated to, and pretty good at, but it’s not even close to being all I am. I’m a seething, intuitive chaos. Therefore, chaos in the world tends not to surprise me too much. It may follow a pattern, but does it always have to have a cause and effect explanation? Does there always have to be a specific person or people behind an event that instigates it? I don’t think so. Sometimes the only explanation is….people being people. And that means all of us.
So perhaps in my dream I got to inhabit this personified chaos for a while. Now, my character had a sense of being isolated, secretive and fearful, but she was not entirely alone. There was at least one other friendly person she was interacting with, and this friend was like a guide. There was a sense of being led around the centre of the city. Even a feeling of fun, playfulness. But it was disrupted. My character did something violent, something that permanently altered the environment of the city. It would no longer be the same place after this event. I knew this and made no attempt to flee, even though I knew I would be found and there would be some sort of vengeance. Again, it all felt inevitable, nothing that could be avoided.
Now the most vivid and surprising part of the dream. At the end of it, I wasn’t alone. My friend, the guide was still there. But so were a lot of other people. Not doing anything in particular. Just surrounding me. There to witness something?
I don’t remember anything else. It was like watching a strange old movie, made by a slightly crazy person. But the main feeling was this sense of moving from an (almost) unseen, unrecognized agent, to one who was seen and acknowledged.
