On the morning of a day off, I had a long, relaxed breakfast with
my partner at home. He told me that he had just seen an interesting
dream the previous night. His “interesting” dreams usually bore me, but I
reluctantly agreed to hear it out of habit.
In his dream, it was my
birthday. We had a party by ourselves in a fictional shabby apartment
with half-price deli foods from the clearance shelves of a supermarket. A
leftover of three-day-old dessert was converted into my birthday cake
and waiting on the kitchen counter. A door bell rang although we didn’t
invite anyone and nobody was supposed to come.
My partner opened the
door and two Japanese couples showed up. Each couple was fictional, rich
old friends of mine in the dream. They were prim in luxury brand
clothes and bringing expensive sweets as gifts. They had apparently
expected a glamorous home party in a gorgeous apartment. At the sight of
them, I shouted to my partner, “Let them in and keep company!” and
stormed into my room for a change and makeup because I was wearing
worn-out clothes and no makeup. My characteristic wasn’t fictional and I
was a vain person even in his dream. He showed them into the living
room. They looked disappointed and regretful that they came to where
they didn’t belong while he hurriedly cleared the table and fixed drinks
for them. Then, there was the second door bell.
This time, a modest
woman was standing at the foot of the stairs that led to the outside of
the building. She had something handmade as a gift and looked up
nervously. “Another guest showed up!” my partner yelled toward me. I
rushed out, ran down the stairs, tripped, and dived into a big puddle
beside the woman. He saw me sprawling in mud, with my best dress ruined
and red and blue from my makeup spread on the surface of muddy water.
This part of his dream was familiar to me. In reality, about a month
ago, I was walking with my partner looking upward somehow and fell over a
big rock. I landed onto hard asphalt and hit my cheek. My palms got
grazed badly and covered with blood. That clumsily shocking sight must
have remained in his brain.
At this point of his dream, he was
resigned to a ruined birthday and his motivation gave out. He went back
inside and said to the couples of preceding visitors, “Hidemi dived into
a puddle. Would you mind leaving now?” They seemed relieved to be
released from a wretched place like this and hurried away.
Photo by Jeffrey Czum on Pexels.com
Just after they had left, strangers appeared one after another. An
American man with a camera, a Chinese family and a group of Southeast
Asian women came in, all asking “Is this Hidemi’s apartment?” They were
looking around curiously and taking photographs. Other people of various
races kept coming and the apartment that began to expand was packed
with them. He saw more people from the world heading toward my
apartment. He became worried that everyone would be disappointed at this
place that had nothing to see, nothing interesting. On the contrary,
all of those who came seemed content, talking each other at ease or just
sitting in a relaxed mood. Looking at them, he realized that what
people seek was healing. And he woke up.
Little by little, the number
of people around the world who visit my website has been growing since
last year. Some visitors leave a comment or a like, some follow me.
Those kind actions may have contributed to his dream.
In the
meantime, I also had a dream on the same night. I was with Will Smith
and a world-famous dancer in my apartment. A box was delivered for me,
that was a secret award for the most distinguished person of each
fields. Both Will and the dancer had received it before. “You got it!”,
they exclaimed. I opened the box excitedly, and there came out a pink
hippopotamus headgear. I put it onto my head with profound reverence,
felt a sense of achievement, and woke up. In Japanese, ‘hippopotamus’
means ‘Kaba’. If you read it backwards, it is pronounced ‘Baka’, which
means ‘fool’ in English.
