Dreams Unlimited

How many times did you wake up in the middle of the night, sweating? It’s 2 o’clock in the night and you can’t figure out what happened. And a realisation through a weak memory dawns upon you, that it’s a dream. The details of which you can’t remember because you woke up with a start. No matter how hard you scratch the brain, it won’t reveal your dream at that moment. You sleep again and in the course of the day, you get some weak images of your dreams. But it gets difficult to recollect and piece together the exact scenario.

But sometimes, the dreams are remembered the moment you wake up. Such dreams, stay engraved on your memory, for a lifetime.

Dream would have been an unaccepted phenomenon in this world, had it been experienced by a select few. But it has never been a subject of taboo. That’s because, everyone dreams. And I am speaking about those particular incidents that happen while one is asleep. There are other forms of dreams, like the day dream of a person who does no work. Or even the dream of making it big in this world. But the dream I speak of, occurs when a human being enters the state of sub-consciousness, while resting, exploring the unexplored section of mind.

Everyone dreams. Everyone wishes of sweet dreams. Few times, you have them. But most of the times, you have nightmares!! Such kind of dreams will always relate to the happenings around you, or all over the world. This is because, a section of the brain stores in to itself, what you want to forget. And when you attain the subconscious state, the rascal part of your brain, plays this trick of rewinding the tape of your thoughts, and replaying them, at the exact moment you have attained a deep slumber. But this is scientific stuff, and I dare not divulge deep, given my poor knowledge of the subject.

Anyway, sweet or nasty, those dreams which stay in to your memories, are hilarious most of the times. Sometimes you feel shy to reveal to others your funny dreams. But it does no harm. Here of some of mine :

This one, I dreamt(I mean the rascal part of my brain rewound this one) when I was a kid, may be about 5 years old. My grandmother had told us a story about how a tiger had wandered into our village and killed one of the women, before being captured(or killed it think it was, I don’t remember that part). That night I dreamt that I had just come out of our house on to a veranda, which was at a small height and had three steps to it on one side. I saw a tiger sleeping some distance away from the house. Seeing it asleep, I jumped down from the veranda to take a closer look. The noise of my footsteps, woke him up, and I was terrified. I knew that the steps were on the other side so my only chance was to climb up on the veranda from where I was standing, as quickly as possible. I tried, but the height of the veranda was too much for me. I saw behind, the tiger was on it’s feet but not moving. I took a step towards the stairs, keeping my eyes on the tiger continuously. It took one step towards me. I stopped, fearing an attack, and it stopped in it’s place. Time went by and it did not move. I took another step ahead, and it did the same. I got a weird feeling about this, and just to check out a doubt in my mind, I took a step back. It took a step back too. I tried it a couple of times, and the tiger did exactly what I did. I felt that there was no end to it, and didn’t want to be stuck in that position for ever. So I cried for help to my Mom. And my mom woke me up, asking me what was wrong and why was I shouting. The scene in that dream are still very fresh in my mind.

During the course of my life, I dreamt many more of them, some pleasant , but most of them nasty ones. Many of them had had the theme of exams. Many a times it has occurred in my dreams that I wake up late on the day of any important exam, and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t get myself to hurry up. And in the middle of all this frantic exercise of getting to the exam hall on time, I check my watch(in dream) just to find that it’s already time for the second paper of the day. And I am nowhere near the exam centre. These are the dreams which I get more frequently. When I wake up in the middle of them, I feel glad that it was just a dream, and I still have enough hours left for sleep. Of course, for the fear of getting up late in real life, I can’t sleep anymore.

Here is another gem. This was on my first ship. Now, during our training period, it is engraved upon us that it is a sacred duty of a junior engineer on a ship to be down in the bilges of the engine room, checking out how the pipelines flow, and keeping the bilges clean. The bilge is projected as the most horrifying place on a ship. It is the lowermost portion of the engine room, where there is limited access for mankind. On old ships it feels like the pipes are routed more with the purpose of blocking the access to the bottom floor of the engine room. It gets very dark down there when the electrical engineer on the ship decides not to change the constantly fusing light bulbs in that portion. Anyway, on my first ship I dreamt that, I was sent to the bilges of the engine room to check something, and I went to the aft most portion(the back portion of the engine room) where the propeller shaft rotates and goes out to the sea. At the precise moment that I went down, the power went off, and the ship blacked out. I couldn’t see anything. I had placed my torch on the ground, and to retrieve it, I squatted down(least the propeller shaft hit my head) and begun my frantic search of the torch on the soft, spongy engine room floor. I couldn’t find it, and I panicked. And in this state of panic, I woke up in my cabin which was completely dark. I didn’t know that I was out of the dream, and I started feeling suffocated(Amazing isn’t it? You can’t see air, but you need light to breathe it properly). I tried to reach sideways(I didn’t get up, least I bang my head on the shaft above) to find something to hold to. But all I felt was soft panel of the walls. Then I calmed myself. Soft floor, soft walls…….I was in my cabin, not in the bilges. I was relieved, and slept a peaceful sleep then on. I did get those bilge dream once or twice after that.

In the state of dream, you become helpless. It becomes impossible to lift your arms, you can’t breathe properly, an elephant may as well be squatting on your chest. And if in this subconscious state you do manage to move your limbs, you are bound to wake up with a jerk, because, the limb which you have lifted up, does not defy gravity forever. Also, there may be other things you want to do during a dream, but it becomes physically(or virtually) impossible to do them.

This one I had very recently. I was roaming around in my neighborhood, when all of a sudden, I heard a big roar from above. I looked to the skies, and saw a very big and beautiful, red plane very close above.(If ever I dream of planes, I would love to dream of those shiny white ones with red engines.) So this plane was moving very slowly, just above me, and I noticed that it was a very different kind of plane, with three very big engines, and a small cabin area. As it keeps on moving slowly, I realised that it had just taken off from an airfield, and I was surprised that they have constructed an airfield near our house. Suddenly I realised that the plane was going to hit the electric pole in front of it. I think the pilot realised the same at that precise moment, and lifted it’s nose to take it above and avoid the pole. But the destiny of the plane was written, and the tail wing did hit the pole, and ripped off. The plane went very high up in the sky, and then started coming down, nose first, to crash in a field not far away. A tragedy, which could not be averted anymore, was to happen. And the mourning would began soon. But for now, it was time to shoot this and upload it to you tube, and become famous. I pulled out my Samsung wave, and pressed the button to start the camera. That bloody thing took like hours to start.(See, I told you, some things become impossible to achieve in dreams, when you most need to do them.) I started the recording just moments before the impact, and then I couldn’t get the bloody thing to stay stable in my hands. My hands were shaking, making it impossible to record the good quality, impact video, that I was hoping to get. I was planning to go to the crash site and record some good videos(the rescue operation would be carried out by others who would arrive soon), precisely at which moment, I woke up.

All I wanted to do at that moment was to go back to sleep, and complete the video.