The dreams I dream…

Dregs of half-forgotten memories. Fears surfacing from the subconscious mind – unfounded, unvoiced, unarticulated. Snatches of conversations. The faces of people I’ve loved and lost. The visages of those who live in my every waking thought. Ghosts of the past lurking in some corner of my busy mind. Events as fresh as the morning’s newspaper… These wake up when I go to sleep.

I dream so many dreams every night: vivid, multiple dreams with the power to cheer or chill. Vestiges of the dreams linger through the day, colouring my mod – sometimes a bright, sunny yellow, sometimes a bleak grey.

When I was studying in Chennai and later working in Bangalore, I’d have nightmares about losing my mother. I’d rush to the Telecom Office near my Hostel at a decent hour and call home. I could relax only after I heard my mother’s voice and assured myself that she was fine.

After a friend, Sujatha, once paid a surprise visit all the way from the US, I dreamt my best friend and soul sister Ranjana had surprised me too. I shared the dream with her in an email and she went to a great deal of trouble to make my dream come true!

Sometimes my dreams are a harbinger of things to come. I had dreamt of my nephew’s arrival before my sister announced her pregnancy. I dreamt of the unraveling of a family when only the adults knew what was happening. Returning to Bangalore after my father’s funeral, I dreamt that my second sister had a boil on her left shoulder that refused to heal. I called her up the next morning and told her to get herself checked for diabetes. A couple of months down the line, she did develop diabetes.

One night my daughter and I shared the same dream - of Bellary being bombed. It was as if we had both embarked on the same nocturnal journey and alighted at the same station.

My father appears in my dreams often. As do my uncle and aunt. My cousin Azra is another person who frequents my dreams regularly. As do my friends. In fact, when I was planning our School Reunion, I would dream of it almost every other day.

Work spills over my dreams too. I wake up in a panic after dreaming about errors that I overlooked in a brochure or annual report artwork. The next day I go back to check it once more and sure enough would spot a typo I had earlier missed.

When I was in Bellary last week, I had a terrible nightmare of my pet Tubby being mauled by a huge dog and lying unmoving. I kept calling out to her, crying and sobbing… And woke up in a sweat, my heart beating erratically.

My dreams are fresh in my mind when I wake up. Then they slowly fade into the crowd of activities that fill my day. Many a time, I’ve told myself I should keep a notebook and pen near my pillow and record my dreams as soon as I rise, Maybe I’ll see a pattern there? Maybe I’ll be able to interpret my dreams? Till such time though, I share them with my husband and daughter, whose dreams are as vivid as mine. For now, they are the keepers of my dreams.