THE DREAM RUN
The unseen hides behind the patently obvious
The more drenched a dream the more real it appears
(Hai ghaib-e-ghaib jisko samajhte hain hum shuhood
Hai
khwaab mein hunooz jo jaage hain khwab mein)
This mind-bending couplet of the
Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib tells us about the consciousness of dreams. It states
how the most powerful dreams are those that we experience as if in full
wakefulness.
But wait a minute, is it then possible
that our wakeful consciousness is itself a big dream and are we actually all in
a deep sleep or state of ‘forgetfulness’ as Wordsworth put it, unaware of our
true eternal existence somewhere else.
You may say these are
disturbing questions, spurious speculations that should never be discussed, but
today for just a little while let us pursue this line of thought and see where it
takes us.
A few years back a major
Hollywood blackbuster, directed by one of the greatest directors of our times
Christopher Nolan, took the world of both entertainment and philosophy by storm.
The name of his movie was Inception
starring the Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo Di Caprio and the legendary Michael
Caine.
The movie became an instant hit
both with the critics and at the box office because it mixed the Dream Argument
of the philosopher Descartes with the ‘whodunnit’ mystery of a conventional
thriller. The multi-layered action sequences in this movie were all lived in
the dream state of its various characters, who were all trying to achieve a
bigger dream – that of putting an idea into somebody else’s mind through dreams.
Do not be disturbed if you do
not understand what I just said and see the movie for yourself to make sense of
this. But the director of the movie was in a way telling his own story about what
he does for a living. As the proverbial dream merchant, he and his team make a
dream (which is a movie) and then ask an audience to dream it with him, which
is an exercise in collective dreaming which in turn leaves its indelible impression
on the collective memory and mass psyche.
This dream sharing technique is called ‘Inception’.
In fact, ‘Inception’ is a
technique used by all artistes and even political leaders. These are people who
can conjure up collective dreaming and ask their followers to bring these collective
dreams into reality. In our reallives, these dream architects are seen as our heroes,
be it our political leaders, our bosses or our teachers and mentors. We are
always busy trying to fulfill either our own dreams or their dreams, which we may
even sometimes willfully construe as our own dreams. Dreams may even come true
and become part of our waking consciousness, which may be both beneficial or baneful
for us.
The movie also shows us how in
this state of collective or social dreaming, sometimes the faulty dreams of our
co-dreamers and collaborators, who are important for the fulfillment of the dream
project, might conjure up perverted individual dream patterns and nightmarish
visualizations that could potentially ruin the larger collective dream. The
weaknesses, insecurities, vices and bad intentions of other co-dreamers may mar
the bigger dream and make life hell, be it in our families, in our
corporations, in our countries or at the international level. Thus all dreams
should be in harmony, even minor dreams revolving as cogs for the success of bigger
dreams.
In fact, when dreams clash with
each other there is conflict, as happens between the hero and his wife in the
movie. Both had once shared a dream of a beautiful home together, but that dream was lost because the husband started evading it with another, professional dream.
The wife was left alone with her romantic dream. Finally, she thought of snapping out of her conjugal
dream but alas it was too late for her. Some visionaries mystics warn us about
higher truths lying outside the realm of our worldly dreams, while others deceive
us and drag us into darker nightmares.
As you must be quite confused by
now, let me stop our talk here and end with a quote from Shakespere’s play ‘As You Like It’”.
‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on and
our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
Thank you for sharing with me this
dream. Step back from the Penrose stairs and have sweet dreams!
*This is my original English script for an Urdu Youtube channel (watch above).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldn4JkJsBsE
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