Sifting through my dreams, he hangs catching all those beams
I dream every night, without exception. I don’t know when this unusual pattern started in my life, but as long as I can remember, I lodge in alternate realities when I am asleep.
Most of my dreams are dreary like I am tunneling through a conflict. My mind is alert, and I find myself plotting to evade the inevitable. Few nights I fail, and some see me through a calm. I have heard that many dream of drowning or falling from heights. I, too, have an occasional stint with stunts like these.
A dream interpreter once reasoned that people who dream have either an active mind or one that’s distraught. He challenged me to listen to what my dreams said, and the more I tried, the more elusive they became.
A few plots remain in my memory to an excellent detail, but I forget most of them as soon as I slip out of my slumber.
I read a folk story many years ago where a little boy dreamt of demons and evil kings every night. The grandmother wove a beautiful inanimate object and hanged over the little dreamer’s head post. And magically, the boy starts to sleep peacefully after that.
As I read more about the spirit guides that weave a magic web to extend protection from the evil eye, the more fun it seemed to try it.
A Dreamcatcher is an apotropaic web of natural fibers woven around a hoop with feathers and beads hanging down from under the ring. Vividly colorful and happy to look at, these mystical trinkets adorn many window-sills across many continents.
Dated in the early 1900s, the North American tribe that’s most associated with the advent of Dreamcatchers is the Ojibwa Chippewa tribe. The term coined for this ornate talisman is asabikeshiinh, which means ‘spider,’ referring to the web woven around the hoop or the beads in the dream catcher itself.
Although spiders are the inadvertent reason for fear and nightmares for many, the Ojibwa natives considered spiders to be an epitome for protection and comfort.
As per the legends, there was a mystical ‘Spider-woman’ in the tribe with special spiritual powers, which served to look after young kids and babies. As the tribe flourished with families migrating farther and farther, it became difficult for the spider-woman to watch over all the kids. She created the first dreamcatcher to counter her physical limitation. Learning from her, many mothers and grandmothers ritualistically made dreamcatchers for extending mystical protection to their progeny.
When the dream catchers are hungover bed frames, they attract the dreams, both good and bad, from the air. The good feelings sift through the web and gently flow through the pillow-like feathers descending into the baby’s dreams, whereas the unpleasant thoughts are caught up in its protective web and burned in the morning light — the faint light of dawn.
After many years of wanting one, one colorless afternoon, as I was walking past the streets window-shopping in Singapore, my eyes fell on the most bright and cushiony feathers in the display front of a corner store. I levitated towards it with full conviction that my dream of holding a dreamcatcher was finally coming true.
Looking back, I was naïve enough to have asked the store lady if they work. She only laughed in response, and I bought the blue and pink feathered trinket to home with me. I hung it the very night in my room and wished the night to be dream-free.
Like the lady at the store, I cannot say for sure if the dreamcatchers work. Because I know for a fact that for things to work, one needs to believe that they do. It has nothing, as well as, everything to do with the dynamics, of how this mysterious Universe we live in, flows.
Every night when I sleep
I doze off into the very things
that I run from in my day
I cannot stop them from coming
Every night when I wake up
He puts his arms around me
And pulls me into an embrace
his arms tightly wound around me
My head resting on his chest
the thumping of his heart cradling me
once again into my dreams
Now the big dog shape-shifts into a wolf pup
wagging it’s tail and licking me all over my face
I sometimes wonder if even in my sleep
he is standing
to keep me safe from myself.
