I hope the title will mislead you into thinking that this is something related to Freud's psychoanalysis. :o)
Many years ago I had a dream and hurrah! it was not a B & W dream, it was definitely in colour because I was wearing our traditional costume: the Tsughumini with its zig-zag patterns of rich red, indigo and yellow on black and the hips-embracing Akhichelachi, the heavy bangles and armbands, long flowing earrings, gold and red head band and the layers and layers of multi-tinted bead necklaces. Something very similar to this:
There was nothing unusual about this dream, it was just a normal REM sleep dream. I am not the prophetic type though I really wish I were; I do try desperately hard to interpret dreams and make the best possible prediction for myself even if the dream is about a dry slice of bread but I fail miserably in the future-gazing department. I like to dream at night and day-dream as well and I also have this annoying habit of narrating my dreams to anyone I see first in the morning. I wonder if people keep a journal of their nightly dreams....
Anyway, I still remember this particular dream not because I was lucid dreaming or something that sort but because of what happened after I woke up. I narrated this dream to I cannot recollect whom but this person clearly told me that I had a "pagan" dream. Dreaming about our ancestors, our ancient traditions and rituals and especially participating in our traditional festivities of our pagan past in a dream was certainly not a good sign at all. I was younger and less interested in these meanings then but it did strike me as odd that dreams could be classified into pagan and un-pagan.
I understand the word "pagan" refers to people following polytheistic religion or also "followers of rustic or provincial religion". The interpreter of my dream did not use the word "pagan" since we do not have an equivalent word in our language but the meaning conveyed was exactly as the word suggests.
Years later when I was living in a girls hostel I had another dream...by now I think I sound like a female Joseph but the interpretation given by my friends was quite thought-provoking. In this dream I saw a very popular goddess known for her physical power and fiery temperament throwing something (probably a power-pack lol!) in my direction. A group of friends thought this was the queen of all pagan dreams and I might face something difficult to dream such a thing. In an unrelated event when I was discussing about something with another friend (who speaks a different language and is not from Nagaland), we somehow got into a conversation about this goddess and it reminded me of my dramatic dream. I mentioned it to my friend and to my surprise she also had an interpretation - she thought I was blessed to have seen this goddess in a dream.
These interpretations are interesting but what is even more interesting to me is how we have come to form these assumptions and the meanings we give to things as harmless as headbands or traditional dresses, even in a dream! It must have taken a lot of brain-washing to make ourselves despise our own culture as "pagan" and to love and embrace something else more "un-pagan". We cannot deny that we have learned so much from others and we still need to learn more. Many good changes have taken place and we've given up our horrific head-chopping habits as well as many "uncivilized" methods of living as the world slowly evolves into one big flat village but I hope we can interpret our dreams without condemning who we were as "too rustic" or "evil".
I feel this great need to resurrect what is lost and things from our past that were denounced as filthy and heathen creating this forceful unnatural gap - like the growth of a plant suddenly stunted taking the present buds to nowhere. Digging up dinosaur remains is important so is finding an 800 year old Roman helmet, searching for some bits and pieces of a pagan necklace and mending them together will surely be worthwhile to ease this sense of loss.
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