{"id":1519,"date":"2023-10-16T14:51:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T14:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/?p=1519"},"modified":"2024-08-10T21:42:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T21:42:01","slug":"a-dream-in-amsterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/2023\/10\/16\/a-dream-in-amsterdam\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dream in Amsterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

10 October 2023<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a peculiar dream. It was a segment in the midst of a long, loosely connected series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019t know why. I just did. Then they began joining hands.\u00a0\u00a0I 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reminds me a little of Nabokov\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

Views: 25<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, … Continue reading A Dream in Amsterdam<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federate","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily_entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomeri.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}