The River

Back to Wednesday morning's dream:

I had this dream two times that I remember, perhaps three. I usually don't dream often, perhaps once a month. This time I dreamed in the hour or so before I woke up, so the dream took place in the world between deep sleep and wakefulness, thus why I remember it so well.

As I dreamed I became aware that I was dreaming, largely because I had had the dream before. Once I realized it was a dream, I heightened my senses to take in all of the dream that I could, hoping to make better sense of it.

This time the dream started later than before and ended a bit later. I was on a bridge with a person I never clearly saw. The bridge was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom style with wooden slats and a hardly-moving river below. However, it wasn't nearly as sturdy as the bridge in the movie because the sides were single ropes that were unconnected to the bridge. This resulted in the part of the bridge that we stood on tipping wildly back and forth as we ran across it. I don't know how we got on the bridge or why we were there, but it seemed as if we were both running away from something. It also felt as if we were competing with each other and perhaps even enemies.

We stumbled along, running, running. I was out of breath and my side hurt. My shoes kept catching on the boards and pitching me forwards; my hands grasped at the sides and I felt pain as the ropes cut into my hands. As the bridge dipped in the middle, I grabbed on to the sides more frequently but found the single ropes unable to support me. I continued stumbling along, sometimes in front of the other person, sometimes behind, but always propelled forward as if shot out of a gun.

At one point when I was behind, the bridge tipped and I fell off while holding on to the rope on the side. I went down a bit but was able to pull myself back up onto the bridge, feeling the strength in my arms. I wiped the sweat off my brow and continued. Running, running.

A little later the same thing happened again, but this time the rope lowered me all of the long way into the water. The other person also fell into the water, just ahead of me. We clung to the rope, trying to pull ourselves back up onto the bridge. No alligators came to swallow us up, but we were in a big hurry to get to the other side. Again, I wasn't sure why. The first time I had the dream, it seemed that we continued to compete even while we struggled in the river. This time, though, it seemed that perhaps we were cooperating.

We tried to get back up onto the bridge, but it was impossible. Pain was shooting through my arms; I had no strength left. Yet, the person and I were able to use the rope to pull ourselves across the river at a high speed, practically skiing on the surface of the water. Again, I felt an urgency. I had to continue; I had to get across. I didn't feel fear at what may have been chasing me or panic at what would happen when I reached the solid rock wall on the other side of the river; I simply felt an urgency to get across. Pulling, pulling.

While I was dreaming my logic wasn't turned on, but now that I analyze things more fully, there was a highway bridge crossing the river less than 100 feet away—why weren't we using that to cross the river instead of this pathetic excuse for a footbridge?!

As I got closer to the rock wall on the other side of the river, the other person was no longer there. Had I passed the person? He/she had been ahead of me but was suddenly no longer there. The closer I got to the wall, the fuzzier things got. It wasn't a fog or anything, but my sight grew worse and worse, like I was suddenly very nearsighted. Things had a ring around them like after you've been in a highly chlorinated swimming pool all day. Despite my distorted vision, I thought I saw a break in what was previously a solid wall. Was it a beach with people swimming and children playing? Was it a cave? What was it?! I peered ahead, squinting, straining to see what lay ahead of me. I woke up.

Having dreams like that, no wonder I'm so tired when I wake up! Thinking about it more, the river was definitely the Taehwa River. The setting was a cross between the river at the Sam Ho Bridge, where it's wide and slow-moving, and the smaller part of the river at Standing Rock, where it's swifter, perhaps deeper, and with huge cliffs on one side. The river in my dream is much, much, wider than either of those places, though, almost like the ocean, but with no waves. It's weird how our brains take settings we know and mix them together and make crazy dreams out of them.

I thought about this dream a lot. Usually I don't think dreams are important, but in Korea I've had more frequent, vivid, and strange dreams than ever before. A couple of them have also come true. When I have a dream more than once I can't help but wonder why.

What does this dream mean? It was so important to get across the river, but what was on the other side? Where am I going? Why am I in a hurry to get there? Who's competing with me? Or does it only seem that we're competing? There was more than one way to get across, yet I was on the more dangerous path—what does that mean? There's more than one path to where I'm going, so choose carefully before setting out? Or do both paths have their share of danger so it doesn't matter which path I choose? Some paths have visible dangers and some have dangers that you can't know until you try them? As I got closer to the other side things became less clear. Is that anywhere along the lines of how we have to make decisions and then have things become less clear as we wonder if that was the right decision or not?

I'm nearing the end of my time in Korea. I do have a lot of questions as to what's next, and things certainly aren't becoming any clearer as time goes on. Could this dream be my worries about the future?

Back in June I wrote a paragraph to remind myself of decisions or things coming up. Of the four major things, two have already been taken care of, and pretty easily. Granted the other two are more complicated, but perhaps they'll be just as easy as the first ones? Maybe? Perhaps the smallest chance?

Yeah, yeah, it was just a dream. But it was a very real dream, and it felt like it meant something, or that I was supposed to learn something from it. What?