10 October 2023
I had a peculiar dream. It was a segment in the midst of a long, loosely connected series.
It was just after sun set, or thereabouts. Twilight. The western sky was a deep blue, almost gray. I was at a beach, or perhaps near a beach; I did not see the ocean, but somehow knew it was nearby. I walked inland, moving uphill, following a twisting path through boulders and shrubs, and came to a flattened rise. There were others there. In the twilight I could not make out their features. They were more than shadows, but less than shades hades. They came together into a crude circle, and I joined them. I don’t know why. I just did. Then they began joining hands. I was a little reluctant, but the person next to me reached out and so I took his hand. Everyone crouched a bit, and so I did too. And then we all jumped, straightening our legs, propelling ourselves into the air. And up we went, slowly, and at the apex we floated for a moment, and then, captured by the faint pull of gravity, we sank back towards the earth, touching down softely. Again we jumped in unison, and floated, and sank. And yet again.
After the third time it was finished. The circle disbanded. People drifted away, moving down the hill. I wanted to ask if this would happen again, and when, but they were gone.
I think I walked further on my own, along a ridge. It got steeper, and I had to choose my path carefully. Sometimes I would reach a place that was too steep, or impassable for some other reason, and have to backtrack.
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I realize that I have had dreams like the last part of this before. Hiking over a landscape, the path ahead not clear, and it becoming steeper and more treacherous. Sometimes I am climbing, and have to go back. It seems, quite clearly, to be a metaphor for post career life.
I used to have anxiety dreams about traveling, and about getting to the airport in time. Sometimes I would be packing to go to the airport, and for reasons I couldn’t understand it took far too long to pack and I feared I would miss the plane. Other times I would be on the way to the airport, and realize that I had drastically understimated the time to get to the airport. But these dreams have ceased — although I still am prone to getting to the airport well in advance — and have been replaced by the climbing dreams.
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It reminds me a little of Nabokov’s story of his father, tossed into the air by a blanket stretched among a dozen of his serfs. Nabokov saw him floating in the air, outside the second story window, fully at ease, his white suit ruffled by the wind. It seemed a ritual that affirmed trust, in which the powerful put himself into the collective hands of the weak.