Varia

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Category: Writing

Published: 11 March 2025

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• Dream

I had a dream last night. It was the first time I had a dream in a while, so I decided to write it down immediately when I woke up. 

The dream was about a man and a woman who were separated, formerly married. I was experiencing the dream as the former husband and for conveniences sake, I'll address myself as him. The setting was a mix of fantasy and the old west. For example, you could ride your horse around the American southwest and see European-style castles. 

I had been separated from my wife for a while for reasons unknown. One day, she summoned me to meet her somewhere specific. I don't remember how she summoned me, perhaps it was a letter. I only remember thinking that the journey would be long and arduous. 

Most of the dream was about the end of the journey. At some point, I was taken prisoner and made two acquaintances. One of them was a guard who worked for the kingdom we lived in and accidentally taken prisoner. The other was the leader of the "Trejo Gang", a group of bandits who were notorious in the southern states. The bandit leader was taken up north, far away from his home as a precaution. They didn't want his gang to organize his escape. 

At some point the prison guards were transporting us across a river. Picture the scene of George Washington crossing the Delaware River, we all looked like that and wore similar clothing. All of a sudden, the Trejo gang leader gave all the prisoners a signal and they all began a riot among the small fleet of row boats we were in. We all managed to escape and steal a few horses. The gang leader recruited the prisoners into his gang and began an assault on a nearby patrol. Meanwhile, the friendly guard and I mounted up on horses. The gang leader begins to ride towards home and we follow him. 

Moments later we're spotted by a guard outpost and they sound the alarm. We try to speed through and hope that the guards don't catch us, but they begin to shoot arrows at our backs as soon as we pass the guard tower. The gang leader is the first to fall. Then, the friendly guard takes an arrow to the shoulder and falls as well. I take a shot directly in the back, but luckily I had a shield on my back. However, the force is enough to throw me off the horse and into one of the warehouses at the edge of the outpost. The guards begin to search for us. I imagine the gang leader and friendly guard have already been apprehended. 

I'm trying to get up from the floor and leave the warehouse, but I'm in an incredible daze and don't think that I can make it.

It's then that my wife appears and gestures for me to be silent. She helps me up and whisks me away before the guards arrive. I think she leaves before me, but tells me to meet her down the road. The location for the meetup doesn't feel far. It's a junkyard at the end of the road. She is standing at the entrance of the junkyard and I notice that the yard goes further down. At the bottom, I see something that resembles an alien space ship. I walk up to her and realize that I can't say anything. The air is tense and our silence speaks volumes. We both struggle to find the right words to express ourselves with after being away from each other for so long. It's apparent that we care about each other, or used to, but are both incredible disappointed with how things turned out. Her face bears an expression of disgust, not necessarily at me, but at the situation. 

In the end, she turns around and walks away towards the junkyard. I'm assuming she's going to the space ship. I just stand there and eventually wake up.

--

A few weeks ago I began to read Carl Jung's A Man and His Symbols. It's a book about his thoughts on the things we experience unconsciously, like dreams, that could be trying to say something point at a person's "neurosis". Or if you're not actively focusing on something, you can unconsciously experience a sound or smell in your environment and it can trigger a memory that is seemingly "random". 

Jung would always be careful when talking to his patients about their dreams because he believed that their interpretation solely depended on the individual and any input from himself or anyone else would taint the message. He also though that the concept of dream interpretation book was stupid for the same reason. Even if both people have the same dream, it could mean completely different things to each of them. 

I know exactly what this dream is about and it's not pulling any punches. Though, I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable talking about it deliberately in public. Even on my own blog, lol. I don't know who the bandit leader or friendly guard are to me. I think the only way I can relate to them is that we're all far away from home. The bandit leader is interesting to me because he makes lemons into lemonade. Even though he's a prisoner and away from his gang, he still manages to become a leader of a gang away and break everyone out. However, he ends up losing in the end. 

The friendly guard never stood out to me, but I felt bad about his situation. He was legitimately misunderstood and none of the other guards ever thought to look at his uniform and just lumped in with the rest of us. He didn't do anything wrong and met the same fate as the bandit leader. I can only hope that things went his way after he was caught the second time. 

Then, there's me. I was very eager to see my wife again. I was sort of crushed to see how things ended even after meeting again. And I was scared when I saw her get on the space ship because I thought I'd never see her again. I also wonder why she summoned me in the first place. The journey was long and we were separated, how did she know I'd come see her? 

I think I can interpret about 60% of the dream at the moment, but it's resurfacing a topic that's still very sore for me.

Jung said that sometimes the dream is nudging you to do something or it's a visualization of something you'll do in the future. It's not like future sight, but imagine what you'll probably eat for breakfast or lunch tomorrow with what you have in your kitchen. You can make a reasonable assumption of what that event will look like, so I assume he meant that. However, the unconscious loves to present itself to us as seemingly utter nonsense. 

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Category: Writing

Published: 02 March 2025

Hits: 17

Writing Exercise

"Your last words still haunt me, do you know that"?

"And It's ironic because you told me to do the opposite of whatever it is I'm doing now".

I recently heard of this technique for sorting your feelings out with people you don't or can't talk to anymore. First, you express your feelings out loud as yourself. Then, you put yourself in their shoes and do the same. In other words, you pretend to be them and reply to what you (as yourself) vented out. 

Up until now, I've always kept this hypothetical conversation between me and her in my mind. 

It's making me feel stupid.

I just want closure.

Have you ever been so close to someone that having them in your life feels just as natural as breathing? 

Or perhaps they're the person who knows all of your disgusting secrets, but still chooses to love you for the incredibly flawed individual you truly are? 

It's a comforting feeling to have someone like that in your life.

Suddenly you don't feel like a total loser because someone who isn't your parents genuinely loves you. It's a love that is earned through time and trust. 

I miss it. I really do. 

"What you did really hurt. It took every fiber of my being to leave it at that." 

I have a harder time talking to myself in her shoes. 

She always showed an unfathomable amount of control over her emotions in times like these.

It was rare to see her "freak out". When she did (if you can even call it that), she'd just sound extremely frustrated with me.

One time, she did take a cheap jab at me but later on apologized for it. 

I don't have the best relationship with my family. She'd hear stories about my struggles in dealing with them over the years.

That one time, she said maybe I was the problematic one, after all. 

Even after she apologized I feel like she had a point. 

I miss her honesty. 

Many people would use words like "blunt" to describe how forward someone can be. 

But not her. Her honesty was comparable to being stabbed in the gut with a chef's knife.

Her words were like the blade itself. The sensation of the warm blood gushing from the wound were the reality that the words would bring. A painful comfort.

She'd never twist the knife while it was in you, she wasn't that mean. 

"Why did you do it?"

No, I don't think she'd ever ask me that.

She'd know I'd eventually explain myself without her needing to ask.

If she had asked before we parted ways, I think my answer would've been different. 

That day I was overflowing with jealousy to the point where it felt like anguish.

I felt like a long abandoned toy that no longer brought amusement to its owner, but they didn't want to throw it away either. 

Maybe you have a stuffed animal that has seen better days, but you cannot bring yourself to wash it and sew the torn areas back together again.

It felt like that. "I did not feel entertaining anymore. I did not feel like I mattered. I felt trapped and when I needed you, when I really needed you, you weren't fucking there. 

It made me jealous how popular you were; how often you met people. It made me upset that you would actually attempt to spend time with everyone you knew".

I wanted to say that maybe she cares too much. Does that even sound like a sane thing to say to someone? 

That maybe, just maybe, you care too much about everyone else and not ... me? 

At least, that's what I would've said back then.

After a lot of thought, I realized that I wasn't much better.

Six years ago, she asked me if I was okay with a particular aspect about her.

Six years ago, I lied to myself and said I was okay with it. 

Six years ago, I began to hold her to an unachievable standard that only existed in my mind. 

When she failed to meet that standard, I'd lash out. 

Likewise, there were times I failed to meet her standards and I could sense her disappointment in me. 

In a way, I think it was beautiful that we thought so highly of each other, but the reality was something we probably had trouble dealing with. 

It was then I realized that we're both essentially the same person.

Conceptually, we don't like being held down. We love and enjoy our freedom. 

We both love meeting people and wandering the world to the point where it stings because the other isn't there. We would feel uneasy at the thought of someone whisking the other away. 

"There were probably better ways to do it", I answer myself. 

I try to scoff in the way she remembers me doing, but it's uneasy and awkward and it feels like I'm holding back a flood of emotions behind my expression.

There's a part of me that believes she arrived at the same conclusion that I have. I can almost feel her embracing me and apologizing saying that I didn't need to go through all of that.

A huge flaw of her is that she'd always cover for me. She'd always share the blame for something I started. And I can see her sharing the blame for this too.

Her final words to me were to keep going and not look back.

If she had said something hurtful, things would've been much easier. She knows I'm a nostalgic person. 

"I still think about you despite, that". 

She probably knows. I can feel her scoff back at me. 

Not one that likes to dwell on sad, emotional topics for too long, I can suddenly hear her say "Hey, guess what?"

And just like old times, I'd hear her snap her fingers and then ... she was gone, off wandering the world again.