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  IDEAS & IDEALS

The Old Man and The Dreams

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One of the things I miss most in my advanced age is the good and sweet dreams that I used to have through my youthful years. In fact, I do not have any dreams at all these days in my sleep. If there be any, they are just some jumbled, blurring, overlapping, disconnected images that disappear altogether from my memory on my waking up. All those vivid dreams that have a coherent story or an episode with memorable scenes in them (so that I can recall clearly after and tell the contents to others) do not visit me any more. I feel sorry for that and wonder where they have all gone.

     For a long period of time one of the most frequent and recurring motifs of my youthful dreams has been associated with the river that runs through my rural hometown in the country where I was born and spent my boyhood. My house which had a roof of thatch stood on a hill by the river. The river provided the boy with almost everything he needed in his life. Unknowingly but certainly the river seems to have seeped deep into the boy's psyche and continued to flow in his sleep and appeared in his dreams.

     Often I was walking along the river in my dream. I see a fishing rod fixed upon a prop with its line thrown far into the water, but only without the angler. Suddenly I see the float start bobbing up and down frantically and I know what it means. I cannot resist the temptation of snatching up the rod. I feel the weight and the size of the fish at the end of the line. The fish struggles desperately to get away. As the fish comes nearer to the land with its white belly glittering in the water, I find it enormously huge. By the time I land the fish on shore after a great endeavor, I wake up only to find it a dream.  

     I used to swim far into the river with a glass fish-trap in my hand and dive down and place it very carefully at a designated place holding my breath for a minute or two, and kick myself up to the surface breathing heavily and swim back to the shore and wait for a while. When I dived down again to collect the fish-trap, it was always full of the large minnows struggling desperately to escape. It was a great sight, a real fun and adventure in reality as well as in my dreams. Now, removed far and long from the time and the place, I cannot tell the dream from the reality.

     These dreams have departed from me. The river, the old thatched-house on the hill, the fishing rod, and the minnows in the glass fishing-trap no longer appear in my dreams. I no longer fly in the sky as freely and safely as a bird does in my dreams, nor explore the strange grottoes under the clear and clean water, nor run, like a roe-deer,  over the field stretching far and wide, usually full of beautiful flowers in full bloom. With these exciting dreams all gone my sleep has become a dry and mechanical necessity; it is not a journey leading and inviting me to an adventure or a romance any more. Without these dreams I feel I have lost one more important asset in my life.

     Among so many incomprehensible things in the world dreams seem to be one of the most mysterious phenomena in human life. In fact, we don't know anything about our dreams at all, although we experience them all through our entire life. Since time immemorial, therefore, we have tried to analyse and interpret them logically and even use them practically as a holy prophesy or divine revelation of the things to come, fortunate or unfortunate. Even today, I heard, some buy a lottery ticket when they see a pig in a dream and hit the jackpot. Once I did the same without any good result. So long as dreams are concerned, we are all, without exception, a very superstitious beings.

     Now, recently my dreams have made a very strange and even a dangerous turn. I had a dream the other night in which I confronted an ugly and harmful object. I can not remember nor recall clearly what it was. Was it a thief, a furious dog, a tiger, or a bull? Anyway, it stared at me. Being afraid and desperate, I kicked it very hard with one of my legs with all my might and woke up with a shriek feeling a terrible and unbearable pain on my toes. The object I had kicked so hard in my dream was the hard apartment wall beside my bed. I sat up on my bed in the middle of the night moaning miserably for the rest of the night. "Thank, God, it was the wall, not my side," said my wife. I agreed. I could have broken several of her ribs.

      I feel sad, worried and miserable. Not only the good and healthy dreams have departed from me. I am no longer able to control myself even in my dreams. Of course, I have kicked or hit something in my dreams before, but I could contain the action within the realm of my dreams. But, now, I find the line separating the dream from the reality has disappeared. They have converged. I am afraid of even going to sleep. My advanced age is the very culprit for all these wrongs and misfortunes. Old man should die.  
     (November 15, 2010)

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김나영님의 댓글

김나영 이름으로 검색 작성일

안녕하세요, 전 전공은 전혀 영어와 무관한 간호학을 했으나 언젠가는 영어로 교수님 처럼 쉽고도 아주 재미있게 글을 쓸 수 있기를 희망하는 김나영이라고 합니다.

제가 요즘 매일 신문을 읽지 않아서 잘 모르겠지만 예전에 잡지(리더스 다이제스트) 에 열렬한 애독가(?) 이셨고 연세가 드셔 더 이상 구독하지 않으신다고 뭐 그런 내용의 글 이후로( 그때 그 글 내용이 아주 재미있었는데
이것밖에 기억이 안나네요) 정말 오랜 만에 다시 교수님의 글을 읽는 것 같아 반가운 마음에 메일을 보냅니다.

혼자서 교수님 글의 좋은 부분을 적어 뒀다가 그냥 연습삼아 다시 써 보기도 하고 했었는데 요즘 교수님을 도통 신문에서 못 본것 같아 아쉬웠었습니다.

그럼 이제 발가락은 괜찮으신건지....
좋은 하루 되시고 다시 만나게(?) 돼서 반갑습니다. 교수님 건강하세요.

PS) 전 교수님을 한번도 개인적으로 뵌적도 아무런 연관도 없는 그냥 코리아 타임즈 애독자 임을 말씀드립니다. 혹시나 교수님께서 아는 사람인가 고민하시지는 않을까 해서.....

김나영 올림

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이창국님의 댓글의 댓글

이창국 쪽지보내기 메일보내기 자기소개 아이디로 검색 전체게시물 작성일

김나영 씨께:

제가 코리아 타임스에 쓴 글을 재미있게 읽어주신데 대하여 감사드립니다.
영어가 전공이 아닌분이 영어를 퍽 좋아하고 썩 잘하시는 데대하여 축하드립니다. 사실 영어는 전공과는 무관하지요.

나의 오른쪽 발가락 (특히 엄지 발가락)은 아직도 아프고 얼얼해요.
병원에 가서 사진도 찍어보았다구요.

독자로서 이메일까지 보내주신데 대하여 다시 한번 감사드립니다.

이창국

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