19 November 2011

Strange Dream

I'm pretty good at interpreting other people's dreams, but I'm only spotty at best in interpreting my own. If you think you know what the following means, please feel free to share your interpretation with me.

I'm trying to get home. I'm on foot, out in some suburban location. There are multiple entrances to the subway, and I know if I take the wrong one, I'll end up at the wrong tracks. Emerging from yet another wrong subway entrance to the overcast day, I find myself at a bus stop surrounded by a park-like space. Someone has left a Qur'an on a bench. It's a nice, heavy, black-covered paperback edition. I realize that it was left there in a Muslim equivalent of the Christian evangelist technique of leaving religious material in public spaces for random passerby to pick up and read. A young white, well-dressed, hipster-type man, with a full beard, picks up the Qur'an, and looks at it. He then throws it away, into the grassy area. It falls heavily and is damaged. I yell, "Why did you do that?!" and run to pick it up. He laughs and says that it was just a bunch of religious material, and not important. I scream at him, "It's a BOOK!" and I hit him on the head with it.

Then, I walk away quickly, to get away from him, still carrying the damaged Qur'an. I step into a large-ish, Victorian-style house which sits next to the bus stop area. It's co-ed housing for a bunch of college students. They're all very friendly and mellow. There are several cats around, including cute kittens. I tell them my predicament, and they tell me the correct subway entrance I need to go into to get home. I thank them and leave, still carrying the damaged Qur'an.

3 comments:

  1. Magz here- What this looks like to me is that your brain is clarifying your subconscious's notion of Good and Evil. Evil, in this case is personified by Mr. Hipster- he represents shallow trendiness, vapidity, willful ignorance, and even worse, is smugly superior of his willful ignorance.

    In the course of the dream, your brain gives you the chance to rescue a sacred object from abuse by Evil. Now, what's interesting here is that your brain choose the Qur'an to be the sacred object-

    In this context, the Qur'an was inherently problematic. It had been laid out specifically for purposes of proselytization, so it clearly represented the more obnoxious/abusive aspects of organized religion. But as you said, it is valuable because it's a *book*. It is knowledge, information, philosophy- and these things are inherently valuable, regardless of the type of information. Basically, in this dream you are defending something you consider inherently good- knowledge- and while you are aware that it may be misused, you believe that the good contained in having the information outweighs the potential abuse of it. Had your brain chosen a more neutral text, you would not have had the opportunity to clarify through your actions why the book was inherently important.

    It's also worth noting that Mr. Hipster's throwing of the Qur'an on the ground is specifically insulting to that particular tradition in a way that it would not have been if he, say, hurled a Bible.

    Having rescued your sacred object, you are pointed back on the right track by people your subconscious tells you that you can trust. For one, they are college students and therefore potentially scholars and fellow seekers of knowledge. And two, they not only have cats but are successfully taking care of a number of them, including young and vulnerable kittens.

    So, yeah- my two cents. I don't think your subcon necessarily is telling you anything you didn't already know, but when does it ever?

    Mr. Hipster didn't look like this guy, did he?:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAYL5H46QnQ

    PS: We still on for PtV on the 29th?

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  2. That's pretty much the same interpretation I finally came up with. I noted that kittens are the embodiment of curiosity as well as cuteness, LOL.

    Unfortunately, I can't go to PTV. Mom twisted my arm too hard this time around, and I must make an appearance in the Carolinas at T-Day time. Which means no vacay days for recovering for a night out having fun. I has a sad.

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  3. And the hipster guy looked sorta like this, but wearing a suit: http://ttttrunk.tumblr.com/post/10798110668/patrimonium-joey-by-skye-skjelset

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