Dreams
Welcome to Exhibition #6
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<3
Mary & Ilaria
01 — Asserpark 44 07B006 23:26 — ila — Netherlands
An Estonian, a French, and an Italian in the Netherlands for an end-of-day candlelight debrief chatting about dreams.
02 — DREAMS — Yasmine Hassar — Melbourne, Australia
Using each letter of the word as a base, I wanted to explore how traumas affect sleep and when dreams become a daily nightmare.
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Drowned in tears, my chest tight and repressed, gasping for breath.
Reassured, as rhythm returns, my breath flows once more, and I open my eyes to the blank, immaculate ceiling, mirroring my emptied mind—secure, free.
Erasing the night, I stifle the sorrow of the past, and turn toward the dawn.
Alas, I repress. Night falls, and as my eyes close, the day slips away; my gaze turns inward, toward the shadows of memory.
My mind storms and swirls, an explosion of fear and searing hate.
Screaming—silent, unheard. Louder, but ever more distant, drawn into the loop, the cycle that rises with the moon and slumbers with the sun. Every night. Every day.
03 — Beautiful Place — Mia Navarro — Arlington, Virginia
This is an oil pastel drawing of a treelined path going up a hill. At the top, there is a large white house (castle?) with a small lagoon in the front yard. This image is based off a recurring dream I keep having of a friend who passed away. Each time I dream of this place, my friend is there; occasionally, he has been a mermaid tail sitting by the lagoon laughing with me about his attire; other times, he is sitting with me telling me "he's okay" and he "likes his new house".
The dream usually happens when I'm in that half awake half asleep state. To me, I feel like this is the space where spirits can reach us and send messages. It. brings me great comfort to feel like he's okay and somewhere beautiful.
It felt comforting to draw my dream vision because it made me feel closer to him. Each time I worked on this piece, i felt like I was visiting him.
xx
mia
04 — in my dreams — Priyanka Dangol — Arlington, Virginia
in my dreams
My dreams have always been bizarre and super random, and my feelings in the dreams linger for a long time after ive woken. im grateful for getting to live a thousand lives through them <3
꿈 (kkum), refers to 'dream' in korean, and is one of the first words i learnt in korean a few years ago.
05 — Are there any dreams you’ve given up on? — T.S.
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In May I hiked the Camino de Santiago in Spain. While on the trail, I befriended an older Cuban man. He asked me if I had recently let go of a dream. “Are there any dreams you’ve given up on?” I know this might seem like an intensely personal, borderline invasive, question to ask a stranger; however, the spirit of the Camino engenders deep, meaningful connections with people you’ve never known before and will never know again. His question troubled me. Not because of my answer, but rather because I lacked an answer. I realized I didn’t have any dreams. I have aspirations and goals, but they are mostly career-oriented and straightforward. If I follow a series of steps, they are attainable. I do not believe dreams can have a roadmap. To be a dream, they must have a nebulous, ethereal quality to them. Whether a dream comes to fruition cannot be foretold. I am terrible with ambiguity. I like plans — love roadmaps — and need to know what’s next on the agenda. But realizing that I was “dreamless” made me sad. Very, very sad. Was I so obsessed with planning and calculating my next move that I couldn’t let myself dream? Was I so logical that I never even considered “shooting for the stars”? It seemed so. When I told my fellow peregrino (Spanish for “pilgrim” — a term for those who hike the Camino) that I didn’t have any dreams, he looked at me with sorrow — with pity. I was so vexed by his disposition. I didn’t want to be the career-obsessed, soulless American woman. I knew I had to find a dream.
Upon returning from the Camino, I told anyone who would listen about my encounter with the elderly man. I would ask them if they had dreams. I was desperately searching for a clue, a beacon, anything (I would’ve taken a smoke signal at that point) to direct me towards my own dream. I was also trying to define a dream: how formed should it be? how concrete? does it depend on internal or external factors? While obsessively trying to set the parameters for my dream, a friend made the acute observation that “dreams should be both exhilarating and terrifying. Exhilarating because if a dream comes true you would be so happy. Terrifying because you have no idea if or how it will happen.” This became my definition and I knew my answer instantly: moving out West. I have always loved the mountains. I am my best self sitting on the edge of an alpine lake, camping in my trusted neon orange tent nearby. Being sore, freezing, and smelly while trying to boil water over a firelight stove is one of my favorite feelings in the world. My dream is to move out West.
Now, I fear that what I am about to tell you will undercut any trust you had in me as a reliable narrator. You may think that I’ve tricked you or that I’m a hypocrite. This whole time I’ve emphasized that a dream must be far-fetched and elusive. I promise that I really did think moving out West was a ridiculous, unlikely, improbable thing to happen any time soon. I live on the East Coast, my family is in the Northeast, and all my career paths point to staying on the East Coast. Not only was I not looking for any jobs, I was actively applying to graduate school programs (you guessed it) on the East Coast. In July I met a girl at a picnic who convinced me to look into her company that is based out West. I decided to apply to give myself the time and space to really consider this newfound (but deeply-rooted) dream of mine. I did not, however, believe there was any chance I would get past the first round interview, let alone get the job.
I sit here writing to you on October 29 to tell you that I am moving out West in 28 days. I got the job. I got the dream. I still do not know if I pursued the dream or the dream pursued me. I like to think it’s a bit of both.
07 — Creating space to dream — Mary Bibbey — Rio Grande, Puerto Rico
By chance, I’m taking time off from work right now with friends in an Airbnb called “Casa mi Sueño” i.e. “my dream house" in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. We’re staying by the El Yunque rainforest and I’m writing these words out on the porch as it downpours.
It seems fitting to write about dreams in this setting :).
I dream mostly vividly when life is in balance or when there is time to fill. It’s on a walk or in the moments after a pause that I find the courage to course correct or consider where or what it is I’m marching towards. If how I spend my days is how I spend my life, I need to create space to consider if what I’m doing right now is how I want to fill that life. Is this a stepping stone of the kind that helps me the leap to the next? To the one I want to land on?
In the aspirational sense, I dream loosely. I find myself chasing feelings over realities I can touch and see. Maybe I am afraid to speak about dreams concretely. Or is it simply a force of habit? Or perhaps, more likely, I’ve convinced myself there is a sense of freedom, tranquility, and balance, alongside a nourishing and expansive set of highs and lows, that make up the kind of life I’d like to live. That kind of journey is my dream. And I expect so many smaller ones to fill it and be rooted in that place.
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Below is what I wrote in my dream journal & dated January 22nd, 2022. This is definitely one of my most absurd & strange ones.
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I’m some kind of tech intern in a room sitting at a table that has broken legs. I’m with other people and we’re constantly trying to stabilize it while having the meeting. The meeting feels intense and exclusive. They sound mean. I remember feeling lucky to be on their good side.I remember someone telling me to make a note of “using jokes about musical bins (British version of trash)”
Then i am in this loft like space with so many bags and my luggage everywhere. I am supposed to be meeting someone down outside who is eating a sandwich. it’s impossibly hard to get all the gear and bags in order so I decide I’ll just have to come back later to pick it all up.
I meet the person downstairs and there’s some parmesan noodle tower (really tall looking) that entices this person after a woman asks us if we’d like some. They eat some noodles.
Then we are being driven on a parade float convertible like car— the man driving us starts to fall asleep at a stoplight so we ask him if he’s okay, then he drives on like a madman weaving in and out of ongoing traffic in mission impossible like fashion.
Somehow we’re split up- I end up with this older woman on a motorcycle and the other person is being driven elsewhere. My woman is crazy and we get stopped over and over in scary areas. I feel very confused by the situation try to lay low and survive—also scared of this maniac woman driving me.
Then at some point we both get into some kind of accident on our journeys to wherever we are going, and I take the form of a chicken egg and am set down on the side of the road or something. I’m still conscious but know that people don’t know it’s me nor a human and I’m terrified I’ll be cracked open and eaten bec they don’t realize. Somebody ends up finding me and I end up in a doctors like office and a woman with a lab coat examines me and stairs into my egg soul and even tho there’s no face she explains to others that there is an energy or something that makes her need to protect this egg.
I think the other person might have also been in a weird non human perhaps a tea bag form at this point after they also got into an accident.
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08 — Ce Serait — Hugo Henaff
Ce serait une petite clairière blanche
Ou les gouttes de pluie s’accrocheraient aux branches
S’incrusteraient a l’écorce des troncs
Soudain recouvriraient mon front
Ce serait un petit village entre deux montagnes
Ou le soleil serait toujours sur le point de se coucher
Et ses rayons battraient la campagne
Enceinte de rêves viendraient m’accoucher
Ce serait un petit puit d’eau trouble
Creusé si profond dans la terre
Que nos mots compteraient double
Et plus encore nos vers
Ce serait une petite cheminée fumante
Par laquelle nos peurs nocturnes s’enfuiraient
Quelque part une maisonnette aimante
Au foyer des nuages les recueillerait
Ce sera un petit sentier de verdure
Une forêt coiffée d’une tresse
Par lesquels nos espoirs perdurent
Quand les traces de nos pas disparaissent
C’est enfin un petit jardin de mousse
Ou nous enfouissons le mal qui nous ronge
En attendant au printemps que pousse
Le salutaire fruit de nos songes
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It would be a small white clearing
Or the raindrops would cling to the branches
It would be embedded in the bark of the trunks
Suddenly, it would cover my forehead
It would be a small village between two mountains
Or the sun would always be about to set
And his rays would beat the countryside
Pregnant with dreams would come to give birth to me
It would be a small cloudy water well
Dug so deep in the ground
That our words would count double
And even more our verses
It would be a small steaming fireplace
By which our nocturnal fears would run away
Somewhere a loving little house
In the focus of the clouds would collect them
It will be a small green path
A forest topped with a braid
By which our hopes endure
When the traces of our steps disappear
It's finally a small moss garden
Or we bury the evil that gnaws at us
While waiting for the spring to grow
The salutary fruit of our dreams
That concludes Exhibition #6. Thanks for stopping by. Consider sharing a thought, reaction, or question in the comments below!
If you didn’t get a chance to submit something but would like to contribute to this collection, email strangersbound@gmail.com with your entry.
If you’d like to keep exploring & learning about dreams here’s a video Ilaria found this month relating to why we dream.
