Believe in Curious Dreamers

Believe in the Curious Dreamers

"Why sometimes before breakfast, I've believed as many as six impossible things," by Lewis Carroll.

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake," by Henry David.

Mr. Perry (walks in the classroom holding his suitcase): Hello everyone, how is everyone doing today?

Class (has an unexciting look on their faces): Good.

Mr. Perry (Shakes his head and slams his hand on the desk): Awwe fuck, I forgot my glasses I left at the house.

Class (laughing and shocking and has and excited look on their faces):

Quetip (sitting low in his seat, putting his balded hand at his chin): Ha, this nigga too funny.

Mr. Perry: Well, they are just my reading glasses so I do not need them permanently, I can go a day without them, so class, I am you all new teacher, my name is Demonico Perry, and I came across this subject I thought would be an important matter to discuss, so, we are going to discuss about dreams in context throughout the year.

Class (looks at each other): Dreams?

Shonte (eyebrows goes up): You think that's important to talk about in a science class?

Quetip (puts his two hands upward): Right, what's so important about dreams? We have em every night when we go to bed and and none of em turn out the way we want em to, and we forget them, so what's so important about them?

Mr. Perry (walks around the classroom with his hands folded behind his back): Dreams does pertain to science, but you never hear any teachers nor college professors does not discuss this topic in any typical science course, I have been teaching at this school for 11 years now and I always bring up this topic every year to my students, dreams are important for us to learn, dreams help you learn and pain shows up in our dreams, and it affects a person's mood, dreams matter because they can be symbolic to the dreamers, symbols in our dreams are a unique aspect of the dream that provides the dreamer clues about the meaning of their dreams.

Shonte: What you mean when you say pain shows up in our dreams, and that dreams affects our mood?

Mr. Perry: Okay does anyone knows what a stimuli is or heard of a stimuli?

Jesus: Is it something that excites you in having a dream?

Mr. Perry: Well you are partially right, but a stimuli is what scientist studies the oneirology of dreams, that a dream can be distinguished from dream interpretations, and it aims in the study of the process of dreams instead of analyzing the meaning behind them to quantitatively study the process of dreams. instead of analyzing the meaning behind them, the stimuli is what oneirologist calls it, the external sensory stimuli, what I meant, is when I said dreams affect a person's mood is that we all do things during our waking state that can affect us on how we sleep during the night. Drama, excitement, stress and pain are what a person can go through during the day that can have an affect on the brain of how we all sleep, dreams also predict our future during the waking state, for example, if you are a man in the military surrounded by catastrophes, depressions, riots everyday, all of that can affect that man's brain, because he is drawn to death and destruction and he feels that's is his life, some soldiers come out of the military feeling depressed, lonely, and they often suffers from mental illness from combat, soldiers have a lot of gruesome nightmares about fighting in combat and soldiers feel that their nightmares are haunting them.

Quetip (Trembles his head): Damn, that's sad.

Mr. Perry: Yeah it is.

Quetip (Sits up in his seat): Okay let me ask you this, so you sayin is, everything a person does during the day like fighting or for example, if you are from the hood and you see chaos and all types of violence every day that goes on, all them things can affect yo brain?

Mr. Perry (Nodes his head): Oh yeah, it can affect the brain when you involve yourself around violence every day, or even experiencing trauma, and chaos would affect your brain by having nightmares, even when you are not thinking about a person, or the bad things that happened yesterday in your neighborhood, but you will still end up having dreams about that person or event.

Quetip (Nods his head): Interesting, okay.

Shonte: I can relate to a lot of that because when I'm not thinking about a person, I still have dreams about them all the time, that really doesn't makes sense to me, I thought in order to have dreams, you have to experience things, and always think about someone or something to have dreams about them.

Mr. Perry: Not necessarily, it can be the things that you have experienced one time in the past, and you can still have a dream about it now, even if none of your prior experiences in the past is not on your minds anymore, or even when you have forgotten what happened in the past, you can still have a dream reflecting that past, has anyone had a dream that affected you guys in the waking state?

Shonte (puts her hand up): I got a dream that affected me a few years ago.

Mr. Perry: Okay share it with us.

Shonte: Four years ago, my aunt was diagnosed with lung cancer and me and my family visited her for awhile and her sickness was on my mind and I could not eat or sleep.

Mr. Perry: Aww I am sorry to hear that, how old was she?

Shonte: Thank you, and she was 63.

Mr. Perry: Man, she was young.

Shonte: Yeah she was, she died of lung cancer triggered from smoking, my family and I was taking turns visiting my aunt to comfort her, we brought her flowers and stuff, and for a few months she was doing okay and the day after I visited her, I couldn't stop thinking about her, I couldn't eat or concentrate on my work, in one of my art classes I was in, the teacher had assigned me to do a drawing board of images of my aunt Millie to create a collage and draw pictures to symbolize the significant things in my life, doing that made me cry and when I went home, my mother told me to rest, so when I rested and went to sleep, I had a dream about my aunt being in a hospital bed and me and my family was out in the waiting room hoping that she would make it, and when the doctor came out, he told us that she was gone, I woke up from that dream crying, so a week later I found out that she had died and there was nothing the doctors could do.

Mr. Perry: That is because you were in sorrow, that is normal. That is a sad, strong story and again, Shonte I am sorry for your loss. Yeah when a person goes through pain and stress over someone's death or thinks about that particular person everyday, you will have a dream that can sometimes predict what is going to happen in the waking state, it does not have to take place the next day, but it can happen some weeks or some months later even a year later, according to Strumpell's experiment for example, is that he gives an expression to a long familiar experience when he declares during sleep, that the psyche of the mind becomes far more deeply and broadly in the conscious of its corporeality in the waking state, and according to ancient greek philosopher named Aristotle wrote in his book that it is possible that a dream would draw our attention to morbid conditions of dreams which we have not noticed in our waking state, owing that the intense exaggeration of impressions we experienced in our dreams is sometimes false images, but most of the time dreams can be a symbolic expression of our waking state, okay guys when you get back from your lunch break, we are going to discuss other symbolic things about dreams, enjoy your lunch, I am hungry too.

(The class enter the cafeteria)

Cheetoe: So what y'all think about the new teacher?

Shonte: He cool, I like em, I think he talk about some interesting stuff about dreams, and letting us talk about our experiences, that's cool.

Quetip: Yeah he cool, he ain't no boring ass teacher compared to all our other teachers, talking about dreams is interesting, but I think it's an odd thing for a teacher to talk about doe cause I don't think dreams ain't go get us nowhere through life, I think he's a weird ass teacher.

©ciara1