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Dream of Death,
Death of Dream.
2011-01-09
Dream of death :
Almost 5 years ago, I had emergency heart surgery.
After the surgery, I was moved to the intensive care unit to recover. That night I believe that I saw someone’s death. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I saw a man who was dying in front of my bed. His daughter was crying so sadly and said something to her father, and he murmured something that I could not understand. Doctors and nurses ran around the intensive care unit. I could not see their faces or appearance through the translucent curtain around his bed; I only witnessed their silhouettes and heard the vivid sounds of their voices. After a few hours, some people came to see his last moment, and their shadows crossed over to my bed, Then I fell asleep again.
The next morning, when I woke up, I immediately looked towards his bed. He was not there. The bed was so clean and empty...empty... Soon, a cleaning woman came and cleaned the bed to what seemed to be excessively clean. And I realized that he had passed away.
A few hours later, my Dad phoned. He said that I called him in the night and repeated, over and over again, ‘I saw my death in my dream!’ I could not remember whether I called him, nor whether I had a dream like that. After the call, I began to get confused about everything. Did I really watch the moment of someone’s death? Or was it just an imaginary thing that could be attributed to the anesthesia? I believed that I witnessed the man’s death and the daughter's crying, but in the dream that I described to my father, I witnessed my death.
I have been captivated by this experience, since the experience has had a mirrored, reiterated structure within my dreams. Also, it was very mysterious for me because I don’t know which memory is true and which is imagination or dream. What I know is that it was a life/death experience and a conscious/subconscious experience for me, which shows a deeper level of myself. I also realized that the night in that moment was a cipher of a life.
I found this paragraph in Jorge Luis Borge’s writing beautifully abstracts my experience.
Within the space of a few hours, I’d learned how to make love and I’d seen death at first hand. To all men all things are revealed or at least all those things that a man’s fated to know; but from sundown of one day to sunup of the next, those two central things were revealed to me. The years go by, and I have told the story so many times that I’m not sure anymore whether I actually remember it or whether I just remember the words I tell it with. Maybe that’s how it was with the Captive, with her Indian raid. At this point what difference does it make whether it was me or some other man that saw someone killed. (Borges, 963)
From this experience, I have been recalling the night continuously to understand the uncanny moment that I had. It has been repeated in my head to reach something, the otherness which I don’t know.
Death of dream :
I had a dream quite a while ago.
I ran away to the forest to escape and survive from my fear, death, and cruel memories which I tenderly called father. When I encountered with a house in the middle of mysterious dark woods, I felt that the house is for the people who already died long time ago. I saw my mom among the people who watched me through the big windows, and I felt that the haunted place will be my new home.
When I hesitated to get closer to the house, a beautiful translucent silk glided through the air like an airwave and cut off my head from my body.
My head levitated on the silk.
In front of the house, I shouted without my voice,
Mom, why should I be killed?
Dad, why should I be killed?