California Dreaming

I woke up yesterday and couldn't remember where I was. My dream was so vivid and moving that I felt that I had awoken from a coma, having missed the last 8 years of my life. My move from Toronto to Los Angeles was drastic to say the least. Suddenly, I had no friends. I had no home. I had no girlfriend. I had no snow. I started from scratch, as was the plan when I made the decision. Since this blog is about psychology, I should let you know that I am a big fan of Freud and the power of the subconscious. People often get sad, depressed, invigorated, happy, or even goosebumps from certain feelings that they simply can't explain, and in my humble opinion, that is the subconscious expressing itself consciously. The subconscious has been studied in many ways, and my next post, about Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's concept of flow is just one example. I say all of this to relate to my dream, to my first life that was lived before this new one began.

I'm playing basketball in the Lett Gym at my high school Upper Canada College. I'm probably 12, and I'm with my oldest friend from home, Ed Cottingham. There's a slight feeling of anger, as if we had just gotten into a big argument, when abruptly, he trips me as I sprint to the hoop. I take this slight as a challenge, the anger (from an argument that I have no recollection of) is unleashed and I head full steam to rugby tackle him. Growing up, Ed was always bigger than me. He would have the upper hand in arguments because I couldn't really defend myself. Now, there's a sudden shift in my dream and all sorts of feelings start to pour out. I'm 6 foot 3 inches, 220 pounds, and I am not scared anymore. With people yelling (faceless noises coming from the backdrop), I pick him up, slam him down, and hope that I don't hurt him too bad. Suddenly, I propose two options; I ask him, "we can either fight this out and risk ruining our friendship, or talk it out in the locker room." We decide on the latter. Fast-forward and we're jovial, kicking it in the locker room, and decide to go have some fun.

I'm not convinced that we can explain our subconscious, and as much as I believe in Freud, I don't think that we can rely on our dreams to reveal it. Nonetheless, this dream really summarizes our relationship. We're always competitive against one another, always caring for each other, and always willing to put the past behind us and have some fun. The reason that this dream was so powerful was because it reclaimed these feelings of my oldest friendship, something that I've forgotten about as I have an entirely new network of friends, and no memories of home other than a few pictures.

Life is a book of chapters, and sometimes it's nice to re-read certain pages. For now, it's back to the California dream.