INTERPRETATION OF MY DREAMS.

INTERPRETATION OF MY DREAMS

Oh, how many times my professor at college had told me to read Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams. It had been among the recommended reading lists prescribed to help us analyse the text, allotted by the Calcutta University syllabus. We had the book in our house. We still do. It is a hardbound volume and ensures that the over-inquisitive bibliophile stay miles away from it because the gathered dust on it was enough to wean them away. However, the synopsis of the book had been provided in class at college, in case we decide not to read the mind boggling tome of philosophical treatise.

Freud, in his epic book had talked about dreams and how we would go about interpreting them, if we ever attempt to. Existentialism and its tenets stand on the very pillars of this book. Freud had attempted to divide the human mind according to the various emotions that we perceive – the id, the ego, the superego. Whenever we dream, these pent up feelings take the shape of distorted images which, in some way or the other, can be related back to these feelings.

Dreams are a subject which has interested mankind ever since Freud had published his masterpiece. I often dream dreams. When I do not happen to doze off into a dreamless slumber, that is. I often dream that someone is coming at the back of me, calling out my name. Then, I also dream about a person, I always fail to assign a face to him/her, who is chasing me and I am forever running. I have often related these types of dreams to the competition I face every day, both in my writing career as well as my daily chores. Again there is one where I dream of a possible strangulation. I often wake up, drenched in cold sweat. I am afraid of dying and fear death. Probably the reason why I throw up images of dying, when I am in slumber.

But a good dream can always make my day, brighter and more look-forward-to. Like the one I dreamt recently, where I seem to be signing a book deal with a leading publishing house of the country. Or the one where I dream about winning the writing contest I recently participated in. But when I sit down to analyse these dreams, as I am now doing, I realise that all of them hover or border around my writing career and its progress. Almost all. Which is to say that I ponder much about the same during much of my waking hours.

All said, dreams are meant to ponder about the whole day. But most of us are so tired by the time we hit the bed for the night, that we don’t get the time to even dream. Call it a satirical take on life, call it a mockery, that’s the way it is.