If a thought is an undifferentiated cell, then the dream is like a whole new plant organ which sprouts from it. Sometimes the dream is so fully fleshed out I wake up with clarity and peace. Other times the dream is so cryptic, it keeps me looking for answers. Dreams are metaphors, or snippets of the future we are yet to see. In a way, dreams are like poems— I always feel like I’m in someone else’s dream when I read a poem. Like I do with poems, I eventually figure my dreams out. I use my tools and extract the meaning useful to me. Dreams are internal guiding systems, at least for me.

I dreamt I was riding shotgun in a rust-colored sedan my dad was driving. We were somewhere I couldn’t recognize. The roads were unpaved and muddy in a storm’s aftermath on a windy road near a wooded cliff. I could see a few houses and it was all misty and gray. There were no road signs to indicate how the road would bend, and my dad kept flooring the gas pedal. I’d caution him to drive slower since we do not know the road, but he just did his thing. Then we got to a sharp bend on the road at a high speed, and we hit a tree on the cliff’s edge. The tree tilted from the force, the roots jutted out like an old fishing net and prevented us from falling over. The sedan’s bumper was intact but bent. I asked my dad if he was okay. He pulled his face and complained his leg hurt a little. I did not know what the dream was telling me and I just sat at the edge of my bed, holding my head.

I thought about it for a while until my niece pointed out I wasn’t in control in that dream. Everything else started to make sense when she said “control”. We got into a deep conversation I’ll not transcribe. But we figured out a meaning rooted in my specific experiences and thoughts. I’m processing the near-fatal accident of my family. I’m processing life in the diaspora, and the perpetual liminal space international students find themselves in. In a way, international students are strong trees rooted in foreign spaces, yet somehow uprooted by sudden forces. All this to say, I feel at peace after thinking through this dream with my niece.

In this dream, my dad represents the authority figure— the professor, the church elder, the guru etc. In collectivistic societies, there’s always this trust for the elder or the authority, I was raised to respect elders, and as a child I thought every word that came from an adult’s mouth was pure gospel. I thought elders knew it all because they’ve lived through it all, and what they say and do is always logical. Elders know enough based on their lived experiences, but how can they guide us when we are navigating experiences foreign to them? Nobody knows everything, but we all already know this.

Yes, everyone needs guidance from an experienced person, but there comes a time when we need to take the wheel and make our own choices. Nobody has the roadmap to life, even sexagenarians are trying to figure things out because the road keeps changing, life keeps changing, and indeed we are living in the aftermath of storms that came before.

If everything we know is mangled, and the landscape changes, we cannot trust the old ways to guide us, because chances are the rules have changed. The dream says, I should trust myself and take the wheel, in the next phase of my life. There are a lot of unknowns in this next phase, the road is not going to be straightforward, and my dream tells me to look inward for guidance, or to use the cliché, “trust your gut.” Take it slow, keep your eyes open, and take the next step.

I want to hear your thoughts about dreams and what they mean to you. Do you take your dreams seriously, if so why?