Tigers

I had a dream where there were many tigers sleeping in the hallways of a building. I don't remember all of it. That's how dreams are. I remember there was something that brought me to haste, and I went to traverse the building with a sense of urgency. When I did, I saw the tigers. They were at my feet, sleeping, three or four to a cluster. They were lying in the hallways, and would move a bit every once in a while to get more comfortable. I had to be very careful where I placed my footing I didn't provoke them. Their presence did not slow my haste, although they did redirect my focus, bringing an aspect of held-breath anxiety to each of my steps.

I remember seeing an old friend in this building. Their hair was a color I have never known them to have: a blonde both brighter and duller than than any naturally occurring shade. They were not there for me. I think they were clustered into a conversation with two or three others when I crossed their path. When we looked at each other, their attitude toward me was unlike any I have known them to express. Their countenance showed an indifference verging on disdain, a quiet cold reserved for those strange few who inhabit the precarious terrain that bridges the gap between casual acquaintances and mortal foes. I don't know that we spoke in this dream. I do suspect that communication between spirits can take many forms other than speech. For this reason, I know that we communicated. What was said is just what I am looking to decipher.

Was it in China? Perhaps. The architecture of the interior resembled that of the quadrangle temple that I once built as a wooden model. There are many sorts of analysis that I could pursue, drawing connection between certain elements of my dream and the history of self-knowledge I have managed to cultivate. According to Freud, we are everyone in our dreams. Indeed, I could recognize elements of myself in this strange old friend I remember meeting in the temple. So too, the tiger represents my sign in the Chinese Zodiac, and is an animal that I have always had a special relationship with.

I am my friend.
I am my acquaintance.
I am my bitter rival.

I am the tigers.
I am the trees.
I am the hallways
Dividing me from me.

Is there a way that I can return? Has this place in my dream been constructed by my mind as a method of bringing structure and form to that which has so far been neglected and or abandoned? If I can visit this place in my dreams, could I somehow return there even in waking? If everything I dream is a part of me, and since I cannot help but always be myself, no part of my dream is ever lost upon waking. It is not a question of whether I can return to the dream. Being part and parcel of my essence, I can no sooner leave the dream than the dream can leave me.

I am the dreamer and the dream,
The navigator and the sea.
At times we need not eyes
Because we are the scene.

Since the dream world manifests itself as a setting populated with characters, we think it must have a story. It does not. A dream can be told, but the dream is more than the telling. She who speaks the story of a dream conceals the critical truth that no dreamer is master of their dream. Although our dreams may resemble art, they are not crafted by our hands. That is what makes dreams special. A painting does not paint the painter. A sculpture does not sculpt the sculptor. But a dream does dream the dreamer. The dream is a spontaneous event in our realities, as responsive and subject to our wills as the storm clouds and the sunrise. It would be wise to treat them with the same respect and reverence that we would treat the brutalizing forces of nature. If the dream is a hurricane, the dreamer is the eye. In waking I recall the silence that distinguishes the center, but the storm rages around me just the same.

I wish to return to that storm. I wish to retrace my steps through that world in waking just as I did in sleep. There was one tiger that was not sleeping. They stood and stared and met my eyes lazily, with an intent borne of an animal consciousness alien to my own. I did not expect them to harm me, although I thought it best not to push my luck by lingering too long. What urgent mission started me on my path, I have forgotten, and I do not think I ever arrived at my intended destination. But this dream is also its dreamer and in waking I know that it has not gone away. I know that the destination I am racing toward is still present even if the dream could not tell me what it was. I know the motives that drive me drive me still even if the dream could not explain them.

The dream did not care to look for drives or destinations. I choose to trust the dream, and believe it if it tells me that the whence and whither aren't relevant to its truth. They say one should let sleeping dogs lie. It would go to reason that one shouldn't disturb the sleep of tigers either. Are the tigers the many forces that stand between me and my destination? Are they saboteurs, literally lying in wait so as to fatally punish any missteps? I was not stopped by them. Does that necessarily mean I evaded them? The wakeful tiger saw me clearly. They were very near to all the other tigers and could easily have alerted them all to my presence. Why did they let me go? Why was I spared? And are there still more tigers ahead?

If it were real, I would chalk many things in my dreams up to chance and not consider them further. Were I to actually observe the behavior of sleeping tigers, I wouldn't think much of how they chose to arrange themselves. But I am the tigers and I am the halls. I can't seem to shake this image of the tigers clustering against the outer wall, conveniently and consistently leaving ample space opposite for me to rush through.

I think back to the old acquaintance with the dyed hair. I couldn't figure whether she didn't recognize me or if she actively loathed me. There were only two pairs of eyes that met mine in this dream: theirs and the lone tiger's. I keep thinking there might be a reason why. I don't know who that old friend was to me, and I don't know who the tigers are. I only know what I don't know. I don't know what they thought of me. I have no idea what they wanted.

I know I got through alive. I know I'm still going, and I know there are more tigers out there. I don't know what they see when they see me. Am I a nuisance, to be tolerated peacefully? Am I a renegade, to be hunted mercilessly? Or am I a lost friend, to be taken in as family? I don't know. So I rush on, grateful to each tiger that grants me safe passage, and ever wary that the next is under no such obligation to be so kind.

Solipsism, In/Finity

We are representations of others to others, just as others are seen as representations of ourselves to ourselves. The human condition predisposes us to a certain psychological solipsism, wherein everyone is separated from everyone by their preference for themselves. Disposed toward self-absorption, we hurt one another because we do not see them, but only various projections of ourselves. The trick is learning how to look past one's vision. This is not an easy feat, and none of us is born with this knowledge outright.

This is the human condition. We are born finite, yet instilled with the impetus toward infinity. Cast at the intersection of two impossibilities, we are foreordained to fail. Unsettled in our limited nature, we seek to improve ourselves. But since we are finite, we essentially lack the knowledge requisite to become infinite. Inevitably, the various ways we seek our own expansion are too limited in their conception. In trying to control the uncontrollable, humans fan the fires of their existential tension, threatening to burn to ash the very fabric of their moral lives.

We burn ourselves, over and over. We dance in orbit about the cosmic fires, lured in by the gravity of their infinite promise. Too close now, we are scalded and flee. Too far now, our frail skin shivers and we turn back. Cast between the dark empty of space and the white center of the sun, we are promised many failures in our life's journey before we attain balance. This is the source of much of the strife on earth. We must fail before we succeed; we must suffer before we find peace.

All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again. The question is not whether there will be suffering, but how much suffering there will be. We cannot control whether we fail, but we can try to learn as much as we can from our failures. When success, balance and peace are attained is not for us to know. That does not mean it is impossible for us to surpass ourselves.

We must trust to the infinite, for only its power may draw us into harmony. Starting from ourselves, we will always fail. That which is finite can only ever reach the finite. Learning to succumb to the steady pull of transcendence can be difficult. One does not reach enlightenment desiring or wishing for enlightenment. That which dwells beyond and between all things draws us to it always, and we are always already lingering beside it. It is precisely in the seeking that we are separated. Once we learn to stop looking, perhaps we can see that we have always been just where we needed to be.