THE POWER PF DREAM: A tribute to Doreen

Today I write this column with a heavy heart. For about a week I did not know where to start, what to say and how to say it. It was not easy and never will it ever be. I mean, just how do I explain this dream which somewhat came to pass?  I am no prophet but every time something that concerns me is about to happen, one way or the other, I invariably get the signs.

It is how I interpret them that will make the difference and most of them, if not all, always come to pass. Many of us do not believe in dreams either because of fear or denial but mostly, I would argue, it is due to ignorance or lack of skills when it comes to dream analysis. But exactly what is a dream? The Collins Cobuild Advanced Leaner’s English Dictionary defines a dream as an imaginary series of events that one experiences in their mind while they are asleep.

It goes on to define imaginary as something that exists only in the mind or story and not in real life. However, there are others ways, maybe two,of defining dreams – spiritually and philosophically. 

Thus, since most of what we experience happens a lot in the subconscious mind those who are skilled in dream analysis are able to explain it in real terms. Therefore, one cannot divorce what one experiences in dreams from what is actual or reality. Spiritually one may argue that a dream is a vision or the power to foretell the future.

This power one possesses because they are, one way or the other, connected to a super being that controls our existence. Philosophically and probably in Sigmund Freud’s dream symbolism, “dreams are the royal road to the unconscious”.

Notwithstanding, in Taoist theory the word dream may be just a human term to try and understand our existence for we, together with everything else that exists in whatever form, come from the same matter - some form of energy that exists somewhere.

Consequently, that is why we are able to discern and experience certain phenomena because we are part of that single energy existing in different forms just like water which can exist as vapour, liquid or ice but still remain water.   That said, I picked on these three definitions to show a common thread that connects us to all life. I picked on talking about dream because of the tragedy that befell us as the Kutlwano family after death robbed us of our deputy editor, Doreen Kopie Morupisi, last month. It just so happened that I saw myself attending a funeral in Mahalapye.

In terms of Freud’s analysis, the dream symbolism was in two levels displacement and latent - in that the real subject was not manifest and neither did I know whose funeral was I attending. It was just a funeral. Even when my colleague or Kopie, as I fondly called her, took ill and like many others who doubted, it never occurred to me that we would not be with Kopie this moment. Not until the last two days of her passing on did she show any signs that her illness would rob her of life.

I feel sad that I had to be the one shown the signs that someone close would be no more even though the dream was not that explicit. However, I take solace in the Taoist belief that birth is the beginning and the end while death is the end and beginning, which suggests life and death as a circle. 

Even in the Christian faith we must die for the soul must ascend to God, its true home, for in Plato’s terms, dying liberates the soul to achieve an ecstasy that lifts it above the dreary confines of the ego to a larger, fuller reality. 

Thus, when we die and our souls ascend to God, we leave “passion, the senses and even language behind, because these bind us to the imperfect world”. So let it be with Kopie, Le Doza, Mmamokimanyana, The Dor, Doreen Morupisi!

Thomas Nkhoma (print)