Here is the dream I had a couple days ago, the one I wanted to post about:
I had a really cinematic dream last night, the kind that makes sleeping worthwhile.
It was all about a young man who was a brilliant actor, but because of a combination of mental illness and epilepsy, he eventually had to be hospitalized. He either escaped or was released too early, and ended up homeless, living in the subway tunnels, going from one train to another, like he was an animal patrolling its territory. He had no consciousness of any other existence and was at one with the subway system. He eventually started protecting a girl that was hiding down there, and got involved in exposing a criminal gang that was involved in assassinations in the subway. He had witnessed what they were doing, and started communicating with the police, bit by bit, sending them messages. These messaged enabled cops to strike against the gang in an operation that took place underground in a subway station. During this, I guess one of the cops saw and recognized the man (who had been living down there for several years by this point, and was now in his 30’s or so). He was caught, taken to the doctor, given therapy and medication, and then reunited with his family. At this point, the dream changed a bit, and I was a member of the family, the fourth child out of five, I think, the second youngest girl. It turns out the young man was from a brilliant family. His father was a man with white hair and a beard, who might have been a composer, and his mom was a very refined woman. The oldest sister was a musician, like a cellist, there was the second brother who was brilliant at something – maybe an architect, the third brother, the focus of the story, and then there was me. There was a big gap in age between us. He was in his thirties, maybe, and I was about eleven, or maybe thirteen. I was a genius of some kind, just really smart, although I had not distinguished myself yet. There was a younger sister too. I was really excited to have my brother back, and leaned against him, embracing him for a long time on the first day he came back to our house. Our house was on the beach, a very long, open house from which you could see the waves and shore. There were big, long windows along the back of the house, just covered with thin white curtains, which waved with the wind. The wind could blow through freely, people could come and go freely. That’s the kind of family we were. It gave our family a kind of transparency, because anyone could look in and see us, and according to the family philosophy, that was just fine. I did become disturbed, though, because my father started replacing the sheer white curtains with thicker, heavy grayish ones. I felt like it was because he wanted to enclose us, protect us, and try to prevent my brother from running away again. (At times, my brother felt the lure of the tunnels, traveling from train to train, and felt an urge to go back again.) I knew he wanted to protect us, but this “locking in” of our family went against everything we stood for, and would hurt us in the end.
At that point, I woke up. I hope when I go to sleep tonight, I can continue with this dream, so I can see what happens.
