It has been quite a while since the last time I wrote an entry. Even though I
despise the activity of maintaining a blog as a fashion statement, I do have
rare fits of pouring out junk from my brain just to clear up spaces for the
exams. Therefore, the entry is kind of long, and you have no choice but to live
with it.
Sui Dream
Having enjoyed dreamless slumbers for the past 18.539726027 years of life, I
suddenly had a complex dream on this very day. Of course it is not like I have
never dreamed in my sleep before, but it is certainly rare enough (once or twice
a year) for me to call it an event. Besides, it was at the time of those few
miracles when one actually remembers what the dream was about. So I am going to
do something about this. I am going to spit the words of His Fateful Eternity1 right into your left nostril: I had a dream, bitch.
This is called "Sui Dream" simply because I was recently engaged in a
relationship with a Japanese anime series – Rozen Maiden. I was never really
interested in watching Japanese anime until September, 2005, when housemates
encouraged it, singers threatened for it (in exchange for acquaintanceship),
friends prescribed it (to treat boredom), and a giant population of on-campus
students forced all the newly fansubbed series onto my screen through the
residence network. Before I could realise what video file was being played on my
computer, I was already known as another victim of this post-consumerist popular
culture.
Anyways, Rozen Maiden is a series directed towards a male audience that would
mistake magical dolls for sex toys and then realise, after a few episodes, that
the dolls are just mixtures of darkness, fantasy, Gothic Lolita fashion, and
perhaps interesting characters. Due to this somewhat attractive story, the main
character/doll persuaded me to suddenly feel English and try having tea with
Victorian tea sets. Despite the facts that the Irish have been reminding me to
be wary of birds and Englishmen (or in this case, Englishwomen) ever since the
dawn of time, and that my cafeteria cups were far from being Victorian, I still
gave it a try. However, I will not comment on this activity because today I do
not judge people based on their daily habits – be the case with sipping
breakfast tea or drowning in whiskey 24/7.
Coming back to the main topic – another doll is more relevant to what I was
going to write in this entry; Suiseiseki possesses an artificial spirit – Sui
Dream – that allows her to enter each person's dream and discover that the dream
world always truly reflect the person's values, views, and heart. It just so
happens that this metaphorical dream I had (when I accidentally fell asleep
while cramming for an anthropology test) made me think about the inner-most part
of myself that might wander in such a dream world and the possibility of it
being studied by some sort of expert dream investigator in the form of a doll.
I was walking toward a dark tunnel some 50 kilometres beneath the surface of the
Earth. An old lady appeared. She accused me of doing something bad to her
daughter. I was confused. I had no idea what she was talking about and I am
definitely not a rapist. She pointed her finger at me and yelled and cried. I
felt sorry. I felt bad. I was a criminal. Crowds of people pointed their fingers
at me, calling names. I did not know what to say to the woman. I ran away.
Behind the woman, I faintly saw a weeping girl at a distant corner.
The sun blazed, quickly heating up the Earth and me. The sidewalk almost melted.
I was thirsty and tired. I walked into McDonald's to get a drink. However,
people were rushing out, giving the impression of an emergency. Fire, volcano,
nine eleven, whatever, I just want something to drink. The manager said "fine,
but we are all leaving and closing down. If you still want your life, get your
damned coke and move your arse out of here as fast as possible, and don't forget
to lock the doors." Then it was just me sitting in an empty restaurant. I got
some sort of liquid and started taking huge gulps. I sat here for hours, not
thinking about anything. When people started to come back in for their Happy
Meals, I realised that I forgot to get out. So I rushed out the doors and
remembered that I had left my jacket inside. I rushed back in. But now people
were already getting ketchup for their "freedom" fries. I grabbed my jacket in
panic and ran away, again.
The afternoon was still fiery. I took a walk with my friend on the 50°C
pavement. The deserted streets, having the steepest slopes, looked like downtown
San Francisco without the tall buildings. It's great for skateboarding, I
thought (though I don't even know how to skateboard). Speaking of which, a
skateboarder came from behind. The guy was skateboarding alright, but without a
skateboard. He was merely running, in a skateboarding fashion. The movements of
his feet were odd yet interesting; it looked like he was actually on a
skateboard, and what do you know, he was actually doing the coolest stunts! The
guy was not wearing any shoes; even more strange, he was going uphill at a speed
that awed both my friend and me. We must have thought this skate-foot-ing was
some kind of new sport that's becoming one of the official Olympic Games, so we
started mimicking. Furiously shuffling my feet, I failed to recognise my friend
was already far ahead of me and almost catching up the guy. I became impatient.
It was not very pleasant.
The feel of responsibility for my anthropology test woke me up. I had napped for
almost four hours. While cramming the text book into the brain on the day of the
test, I somehow got the idea that the dream was reflecting something, telling me
something. Maybe the usual pity I show toward my friend is really a side-effect
of severe competitiveness and jealousy. Maybe and maybe, there are way too many
maybes in this world. This is deep. It's either psychology or philosophy. Anyone
interested? I might even take a summer course in this crap.
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1 This was my newly acquired style of office for the honourable task of
bog-sitting in a neighbour's brand new bathroom.
P.S. Another connection to Rozen Maiden is that I just thought of Alice in
Wonderland, which one can potentially draw an analogy to when talking about any
weird and insinuating dreams.
