dreaming of reality

often, one wakes up astounded or mystified by their dreams. crocodiles under the bed. large snakes that envelope. doors that lead nowhere. making love to a man with no face. biting down on metal fingernails. getting eaten by a wild boar. what do these dreams mean? these convoluted concoction of metaphors and imageries, mixed and intertwined across content and context to cohere within this level of the subconscious that intrudes into reality through our dreams. heavy-laden symbolisms to be deciphered. dream dictionaries can be found on the www. they offer pretty interesting interpretations to the symbolisms in our dreams, encompassing a nice mix of the good and bad connotations of each object or situation dreamt about. but perhaps, we can also turn to self-reflection in aiding the deciphering of our dreams.

i once had a dream about this large crocodile that was discovered somewhere - dreams are usually either very specific about sites, or not. and so, in this dream, this enormous crocodile was dug out, preserved in its semi-alive state, and kept frozen in time. it was placed in a garden, surrounded by bushes of roses, as if it was a Greek statue, posed. everybody loved it. a spectacle. when night came, they all went home. somehow, the crocodile 'thawed' back to life and it was on a prowl. it swallowed up buses of people, eating everything and everyone in its path. i was sleeping in my bed and suddenly it came in. i saw myself asleep. the crocodile coming into my room. i was still sleeping. it crawled under my bed and stayed there. it just stayed there. and then i woke up.

heart racing.

i'm not a believer of dream dictionaries but this time around, i thought i'd check it out, for fun (and curiousity)

To see a crocodile in your dream, symbolizes freedom, hidden strength and power. It forewarns of hidden danger. Someone near you is giving you bad advice and is trying to sway you into poor decisions. Because crocodiles can live in water and on land, they also represent your conscious and unconscious and the emotional and the rational. Perhaps something is coming to the surface and you are on the verge of some new awareness.
Alternatively, the crocodile may be an aspect of yourself and your aggressive and "snappy" attitude. Or it may reveal that are being insincere, displaying false emotions and shedding "crocodile tears".
To dream that you are chased or bitten by a crocodile, denotes disappointments in love and in business.

i also refered to an Islamic interpretation of dreams and 'crocodile' churned out:

represents a cunning enemy without compassion

hmmm.

and so, i did my own assessment of this dream. why a crocodile? i recalled my obsession with the Sarcosuchus or 'Supercroc' that was unearthed a few years back. the massive reconstruction of a dino-croc that swam the deep waters of what is now Africa. (it's both fascinating and scary how much our earth has evolved) i followed the excavation documentary on the National Geographic Channel and when it was on 'tour', i remember heading to some mall here in Singapore to witness the 'Supercroc', in its 'real' form. the majestic reconstruction of its bones. how small we humans are. i have been secretly in love with crocodiles since then. in love and yet fearful of it. i never did manage to decipher the dream. didn't care to. i got caught up with the 'Supercroc' and started reading up on it once again. the crocodile under my bed. i've left it in my journal for a possible story, someday.

the most recent dream that inspired this post is one that disturbed me the most, because it was so real. in fact, it IS still real. i dreamt that i kept missing my thesis submission deadline. this is in fact, true. it is very much real. and so i woke up that night thinking, hmm. ok. so what else is new? my reality has infiltrated my dreams, in absolute terms. no masked symbolisms. no picturesque metaphors. no room for deconstruction. damn.