Subconscious Shadows

I woke up with a headache today. Actually, a headache, an entirely full bladder, an unsure stomach, a stuffed nose, and an achy body—the headache has lasted longest. But, what has lingered and will now become part of my subconscious memory, are the feelings from the dream I had last night.

I married a man I'd never met. In my dream-understanding, I knew I had known of him, heard of him, but I hadn't had the chance to come to know or love him. I have no idea why we were married, we just were. It arranged itself. It happened.

He wasn't bad looking, and he seemed nice, but I didn't love him. At one point during our special day, I turned to him and said, "I'm not going to have sex with you tonight, just so you know." How could I? I had no feeling for him whatsoever. His face was hard to read (again, I didn't know him; I couldn't read him), but I could tell that wasn't something he wanted to hear. If anything, I would say his countenance fell. That wasn't a great start to building trust in our new arrangement, I guess.

But, sex alone doesn't build trust (though it will scream to claim to). Time, experience, sacrifice, love: these build trust. And then, after these have been built, then sex builds and compounds trust, and love. I guess I don't know this from personal experience, but that's the way life, trust, and love were designed to work.

Still, it was our wedding day, so we had a hotel room reserved and we went there. It was a really nasty place, actually. That's curious for my brain to invent. First it invents me a complete stranger husband, then it takes me to a dirty motel room where there aren't even sheets on the bed. . . . If I could write my own dreams, trust me, they'd be more luxurious. However, my subconscious is largely out of reach of any such useful pen or pencil.

Here's what lingers most about my dream: the feeling. I kind of felt bad for my new husband. Even though I didn't know him, trust him, feel I'd truly given myself to him, or that I wanted to, I still went through the motions and had sex with him. (Yes, I have sex dreams sometimes. Secret's out . . . but, once again, I don't write my own dreams, so I am not responsible.)

I'll spare you the details, but it was completely awkward. We didn't know how to communicate, cooperate, or connect. I wanted to be cute and show him my personality, but then I remembered he didn't know what that was, and I was nervous to let it show in case he didn't like it. I wanted to joke, laugh, have fun to break that "first time together" tension, but it was just all nerves and uncertainty and "I'm along for the ride, just keep doin whatever you think is right" awkward. I wanted to flirt, and have the proper desires one should have for her husband, but I was empty. We didn't share love, we just shared our bodies.

What a terrible feeling. But, was I really feeling? It was a dream, after all.

As I contemplated this dream and the lingering shadow feelings of emptiness and sad resignation to an uncertain life with an unchosen husband, I penned this phrase in my conscious mind:

Experiences in dreams cast a shadow of empathy into the waking reality


In the physical world, we see because light reflects into our eyes; in dreams, our eyes are closed. What then are we seeing in dreams? There is a light in the subconscious within each of us. For some it shines more brightly than others; we remember what we dream, and then the feelings and images linger, they incorporate into the memory, threatening to become believable as part of our past if we don't categorize them as originating from the subconscious. I personally remember some dreams better than I remember parts of my own life. It can get tricky at times, because our reality supplies our dreams.

As one who dreams and remembers dreams often, I believe that, for the great majority of dream material, the subconscious draws on the conscious occurrences from life. We dream of real and familiar people, places, things, feelings, obsessions, and fears. The waking components of our life curl up with us as we fall asleep, like young pets. And, restless as they are, shortly after we slip to the dream world, these conscious thoughts skitter about, making a mess of the trash bin (things we'd hoped had long-since been deleted), tearing up homework and shoes and other treasured things (ever dreamt that you showed up to a test without studying? or gone someplace and realized you weren't fully dressed? or lost someone you love, or something you cherish? I have, every one of those situations, multiple times), and occasionally those scurrying thoughts, though in some circumstances intimidating, will cower to intruders and let in the terror (nightmares).

If our feelings are the result of physical interaction with all sensory and existential components of the waking world, and our brains fire off habitual or reactionary pulses of emotion, feeling, desire—well, then in the subconscious world, why would feelings be any different? It's still the brain reacting to perceptions of the components of life, or of the world, of whatever composes your thoughts. And so, as that subconscious light shines, our subconscious self lives. It feels.

I do not know what it's actually like to be forced into an arranged marriage. Dreaming does not complete the experience; it is only an image even if the feelings appear real. We wake up and don't have to live real-life consequences. But, I want to claim that dreams do, in reality, cast a shadow of added empathy to what we often can't live or feel in the waking reality.

Some things we do in dreams are impossible to do in the waking world in quite the same way as we can dream for ourselves to do. Our minds let us fly, die, breath under water, operate machinery or gadgets not known to this world, change appearance or gender even, act in ways we suppose we never would in real life (like killing another, or voluntarily having sex with a complete stranger, for example).

But, if the subconscious memory of these perceived feelings lingers in the waking reality, and our physical bodies still feel the emptiness or the fright, even when we know it wasn't real, can we claim to have felt what someone else has felt who does experience such a thing in real life? Of course not to the same extent, but can we still sense the fear we felt in our subconscious memory? Sense the pain or pleasure, emptiness or joy, dread or excitement?

If so, what a wonderful thing, dreaming. I have vivid and often too-realistic-for-my-liking dreams and I always wake with a new "memory" to ponder. Perhaps the memory is more a shadow than a thing itself, but there is no shadow behind what hasn't first faced the light. Therefore, if dreams exist (and probably no one would say they don't), and if the subconscious exists (which it does, though we scarcely comprehend its entirety, I'm sure), then there's a reason for this existence. And if not to help us maintain vitality in our imagination and empathy and soul, then why?

My soul (the body of my being clothed by the body of my flesh) has a very empathetic and compassionate nature. It loves to exercise this nature. I observe people and I can't help but think what does he think, feel? Who loves her and cares for her feelings and desires? What has life taught her? Who will be the next person to enter his life and change its course forever? I'm always wondering and pondering; I consider motives, I ache when I see their aching, I yearn to comfort and assist the heavy hearts. Some things I will never understand. Unless, perhaps, I live those things a moment under the light of dreams.

Though our sleeping eyes see as through frosted glass, clouding and separating us from the cold reality of actual experience, if we get close enough to the feeling and let the images press against the pane, the dream leaves an imprint through which we can see through the window of empathy into the soul of another—another whose eyes were forced to witness the real-life version.

There is a light that shines behind our eyes while we sleep. We sense the subconscious shadows of that light when we wake. If we let them, those shadow feelings will heighten our empathy and compassion as we live. Dream on.