Dreams

I’m a serial dreamer.

Well, not serial serial, I dream maybe twice or three times a week. I just needed a catchy first sentence.

Oftentimes, my dreams are fantastical, surreal, and traumatising. It’s actually quite impressive how consistent they are. I’ve heard that dreams are a reflection of your subconscious - that what you dream is related to the thoughts circulating in your head, whether you pay attention to them or not. I guess I have a lot on my plate when it comes to some of my dreams.

1. Wings

This was a dream I had back in 2019, I think. It’s the dream I remember the most vividly, and also the dream I remember most often.

I’m on a grassy green meadow, on a rocky island. The sky is grey with clouds, but it’s not gloomy. The sun still pokes its rays through what little openings it can find, but they aren’t warm. The lights are more white, creamy, milky, than they are golden. It’s beautiful in an eerie sort of way, but I wouldn’t call it welcoming or happy.

Something like that.

I have wings. They’re not the typical wings you’d imagine a person to have (in the stereotypical, media portrayed sense). I have ratty, grey, pigeon wings. They don’t rest between my shoulder blades, they protrude from my back between my hip and my shoulders. They’re ugly to look at, they’re small and bony, and they definitely wouldn’t attract any girl angels (damn).

But they do fly.

And I feel myself flapping my wings, I feel myself leave the ground, and I feel free. It’s a crazy feeling, I can still feel some of it even now, 7 years later. The joy of leaving the earth below you, the endless possibilities in that quietly beautiful sky. I could go wherever I wanted to, I could see whatever I wanted to see. I could dance among those clouds and feel the wind and look at that dark blue ocean beneath me.

I land back down on the ground. That was exhilarating, wasn’t it? It felt like inhaling ice cold air after a hard run on a summer’s day. But something felt off.

I hear footsteps, and before I know it, a hand is grabbing me. Then another, then more. A mob of people are running towards me across that grassy meadow, determined to make sure I never feel that wind, never leave the ground again. They grab me and pull at me and tear at me and my wings.

I don’t feel anything, though. I feel my wings get torn apart, rip from my back. I’m desperate to keep them. I do anything and everything I can to get those hands off my wings. But it’s no use. After a short while, they’re gone, and the angry mob that stripped me of my freedom disappears. I don’t feel pain. I feel empty. I feel naked. The only thought I have in my head is how I’ll never see those clouds again, I’ll never feel the wind again.

And then I woke up.

That dream clearly paints a picture of me feeling my freedom was restricted due to outside influences, but at the time I was nothing if not excited to go to the US. I was struggling in the Korean public education system, I didn’t understand Korean as well as my peers, and I was battling undiagnosed depression. I had friends, but I felt very alone.

To this day, I can’t figure out the meaning of that dream. I actually wrote 3 or 4 paragraphs of possible interpretations, but they were too boring, so I deleted them, lol. It feels weird. I was so excited to study in the US, why would I dream something like that?

I’ve always liked to write down dreams that I’ve had as soon as I wake up. My dreams leave an afterglow of melancholy, it’s quite rough actually. If the dream was good, I’ll feel sad because I had such a fun time, and it’s over now. If the dream was sad, I’ll feel sad because I had a sad dream. There’s no winning sometimes.

Looking back on these dreams is always so weird. Like what was I even dreaming about, man? Some of these dreams make absolutely no sense. My mum calls them “dog dreams”, or 개꿈.

I actually find that quite nice. Even in my dreams, I’m the same person. What may seem ridiculous in retrospect can mean something to me on an emotional level. The emotions I feel in the dream are real, and although they make me sad after I wake up, I think that feeling what I feel while I’m asleep is good for my emotional health. I’m able to deal with grief, farewells, and other forms of sadness easier. Sadness is more bearable. It’s easier to empathise with others who are going through rough patches.

Maybe dreams are just dreams, and not representative of some metaphysical consciousness. Maybe there’s no deep meaning to it, and to look into it is futile. As my friend Nina likes to say, “it’s not that deep bro”.

But sometimes you don’t have to think about it, sometimes all that matters is you felt it.