this year's dream and last

reconstructed dream fragments, 15 July 2011

I dreamed last night in the shape of 10,000 rubber bands bound together into a ball, a three-dimensional circle with nothing in its center. There was my best friend from middle school and people I barely knew from high school. All of them wanted to know why I wasn't with them, and I was unable to explain to them that those times – whatever they were – have long since passed.

This dream segues into (or from, perhaps) another dream of more recent acquaintances and friendships – a place and people to which I will return in six weeks time. There is boredom and waiting and uncertainty. All of us would rather be somewhere else, but we cannot leave until the director of the Center (or was it the Director of the center?) returns.

Only upon waking and writing and typing it all down did I begin to see the similarity of this dream, with its themes of waiting, alienation, and loss of identity, to one I had a year ago:

transcribed on 12 July 2010

Dream of Chris Marker's doppelgånger, working as an Anglican priest in Paris. The imposter goes by the name Aaron Marker, and I go to his church, which is packed with university students and hipsters. To pass the time, I speak to the videographer recording the event.

Time passes.

Eventually the imposter arrives. Something is off. He is far too young, perhaps in his late thirties, and as I listen I grow frustrated. The rains come and most of the students and hipsters leave, hoping to avoid the drenching they deserve.

I stay.

Eventually I speak to the imposter, wondering why he was signing autographs during the service. Why would he – the infamously reluctant model, the famously uncompromising photographer – agree to behavior so banal? I tell him that i'm writing my thesis on him, but the imposter looks mystified.

Time lapses.

Eventually I realize the imposter as such, that he is merely part of an act, an elaborate ruse designed by le Marker verité to deflect his fame. Realizing all this, I begin to disrupt the next service by throwing compact discs at the imposter.

Time passes.

I find myself at a university, questioning the path I've taken, wondering how I will support myself. I run into an acquaintance whom I knew seventeen years ago. He now works as a pharmacist, and I wonder if i should go to medical school.

I know it's too late.

Time lapses.

post-scriptum, 14 July 2010

"The Buddha was not interested in some metaphysical existence,
but in his own body and mind, here and now." - Shunryu Suzuki