A curious message in a dream:
To explain this, I first have to offer up some background.
Some four or five years ago, I had an odd and uncomfortable series of dreams in which I had lost my teaching job, been assigned a position in the same district's middle school; not liked it and found another teaching position in a district some distance away- and then taught there for some undetermined amount of time.
Ultimately, in this series of dreams, I came back to my original position, teaching in my current high school.
I was being made to feel that it was a gift and that I had to show some gratitude for getting my old spot back.
Despite my best efforts to change the topic, this sequence of dreams went on for a few weeks. During this time, they occurred frequently and often repetitively.
Finally, mercifully, they came to an end and I forgot all about them until now.
I slept fitfully last night; awakening several times from the discomfort of cold symptoms and falling back asleep again. At some point, I dreamt that I was trying to figure out how long I had been teaching in my current district. In this dream, I clearly recalled the previous sequence of dreams (dreams I no longer recalled consciously) as if they were real, and worked to figure out where those experiences fit into my teaching career. I couldn't do it. I was unable to determine when and where I had taught and in what order.
Then it occurred to me -while still in the dream- that some parts of what I was remembering as teaching experience hadn't actually happened; but had been part of previous dreams. And I found myself attempting to figure out, without any success, which of my memories were real and which were dreamt previously.
It was about then that I awoke and gradually could piece it together. I have been in my current district for 11 years; the one before that for 5 and the other two schools I 'remembered' teaching in were dreams, not memories. How odd.
So as I awoke, I thought: what is the message here? That in a dream, one cannot tell what is dream from what is real?
And taking this a step further-
While in this 'dream' we call life; is it impossible to determine the reality of any other state?
Some four or five years ago, I had an odd and uncomfortable series of dreams in which I had lost my teaching job, been assigned a position in the same district's middle school; not liked it and found another teaching position in a district some distance away- and then taught there for some undetermined amount of time.
Ultimately, in this series of dreams, I came back to my original position, teaching in my current high school.
I was being made to feel that it was a gift and that I had to show some gratitude for getting my old spot back.
Despite my best efforts to change the topic, this sequence of dreams went on for a few weeks. During this time, they occurred frequently and often repetitively.
Finally, mercifully, they came to an end and I forgot all about them until now.
I slept fitfully last night; awakening several times from the discomfort of cold symptoms and falling back asleep again. At some point, I dreamt that I was trying to figure out how long I had been teaching in my current district. In this dream, I clearly recalled the previous sequence of dreams (dreams I no longer recalled consciously) as if they were real, and worked to figure out where those experiences fit into my teaching career. I couldn't do it. I was unable to determine when and where I had taught and in what order.
Then it occurred to me -while still in the dream- that some parts of what I was remembering as teaching experience hadn't actually happened; but had been part of previous dreams. And I found myself attempting to figure out, without any success, which of my memories were real and which were dreamt previously.
It was about then that I awoke and gradually could piece it together. I have been in my current district for 11 years; the one before that for 5 and the other two schools I 'remembered' teaching in were dreams, not memories. How odd.
So as I awoke, I thought: what is the message here? That in a dream, one cannot tell what is dream from what is real?
And taking this a step further-
While in this 'dream' we call life; is it impossible to determine the reality of any other state?
posted by NOHS AP 2011 at 6:34 AM
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