My father, my dog, a dream, and I.

I suppose YOU might call this ‘journalling’. You, who must be here because -much like the tree that falls in the woods- without you being here, nor would I. To an extent at least. Perhaps to many. I do hope that none of this comes off like those scheduled sessions of absent-minded self-reflection that form part of an all-inclusive journey toward immaculate well-being. Will you just look at me hyphenating my way through life. How silly. I am not on the brink of self-discovery, sat at some cafe near my resort in Bali, drinking overpriced avocado coffee. On the contrary, I am fresh from a walk in the rain, as more of it pours down outside, silencing the populace. Their cloud is my silver lining. That's just how I've grown to be. 

This morning, I was awoken by the tears in my eyes, and one of those deep choking sensations that you'd associate with deep loss. I span myself round so that the wife and I were top-and-tail. I pulled Huxley -my dog- close to me and kissed his head. We snoozed like that for a while, as the choking sensation revealed itself to be the tail-end of a dream, and not of the waking world I was shifting towards. 

You see, this dream I had experienced was rather traumatic, and an extension -or should I say 'deeper exploration'- of a previous dream. In the former dream I found Huxley dead. As I approached him he slipped back into existence for a moment before dying again. Upon waking, I quickly went to find where he was laying -in reality- and held him close. 

This new dream carried much more detail. I was back in my hometown. Huxley had gone missing. I wandered the town looking for him, enquiring with those I passed. At the bus station, a group of youths approached me. One was hesitant to let another speak. He knew the information the other had would upset me. I urged him to open his mouth., from which he told me that four girls had stolen Huxley. They had taken him somewhere and tortured him, for fun. He then told me that the four girls were close by at a bus-stand. Specifically, for the bus to Angel, Islington. Such a bus does not exist. There is no bus that traverses the rather large distance between Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and Angel, Islington in London. A journey of approximately 200 miles.  

It probably doesn't need to be noted that there is no pleasure in waking to a flash of reality in which your dog has been tortured and killed for sport. It is the first time my eyes have watered in months, and there is much more water to come. The most interesting thing I find about dreams is not so much the dream itself, but what happens afterwards if we give it the time and space it needs to grow.

I began to unpack the dream, starting with the less cryptic parts... My hometown: Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. The time I lived there, and the events that transpired during that time. Secondly, there is the bus to Angel, Islington in London. I have never lived in London, but I have visited once or twice. I did live nearby for over a decade, and perhaps close is close enough. I wonder if the emphasis should be placed more on the presence of the word 'angel' than it should be on geographical location. I'm not sure. Perhaps this bus is not for ordinary passengers, but for the soul of my poor Huxley, or whatever he might represent.  

Next, the more difficult part. The part which requires the most discomfort: The torturing of my dog by four girls for their own amusement. The immediate question you might ask is 'Why would you destroy a life for a moment of macabre joy?' Well, it needs to be acknowledged that people do. Even if we are to use the torture and murder of a dog as a metaphor -and an extreme one at that- this aspect of the dream felt to be clearly hinting at a universal lack of empathy displayed in the pursuit of self-importance. Whether it be shiny-white four-by-fours, driven recklessly on the same roads on which impoverished families crowd together on rusty 125cc motorbikes. Bicycle helmets and hardiness being their only protection. Or something so trivial as being unnecessarily loud in an otherwise quiet public space. These are all branches of the same tree, as I see it.  

Before I dive into Nietzschean rhetoric let me stop myself and get to the real magic of this dream. The exploration of what or who my dog might represent. Something harmed. Killed, in this case. Abused for pleasure. Possibly through twisted impulse, perhaps through deliberate cruelty and the ripples it would cause. In order to find that out, I had to explore the time in which the dream was set. You might have noticed that I have avoided discussing the events of my childhood spent in Huddersfield, much like I will allude to them now. There are ghosts I wish to remain ghosts. Most importantly, there is really not much more I can say without going into details of childhood innocence and the actions that might bludgeon it. Following that, I'd have to mention the inescapable weight that one carries after such events, and how some call it 'the burden of trauma', while those who walk tall in the rain tend to just refer to it as 'life'. And anyhow, I really must mention my father.

So, it turns out that Huxley seems to represent not only me, but also my father, and also my relationship with my father. You see, he passed away when I was twenty-one. When I was almost sixteen, he -with the collusion of my step-mother- evicted me. As a result, I never got to speak with him as an adult. To this day, the only things I really know about my father are surface details and the things that present themselves in my character as I get older. Something like being possessed by small fragments of a ghost. 

Jumping forward a little bit, from which I will have to jump quickly back… A few moments ago I walked the dogs in a heavy rain. Beneath which I felt light. I suppose there was a sort of closure or maybe something more like an acceptance. Despite the story-telling I am hesitant to embark upon, I suppose my father must have loved me as any father loves his son. Once you strip away all those layers -the proverbial torturers of dogs- things act as they should. 

I worry that this might all be a bit abrupt, but that is the nature of dreams I suppose. I feel that the explanation of what is being dreamt comes in small drips after one has stopped dreaming, and therefore the meaning of what one is writing about when they are writing about dreaming should come in small drips after the reader has finished reading. Or not at all. The ficticious 200 mile bus journey from Huddersfield to Angel, Islington might serve to represent a rather long, tiresome and ongoing journey from a self-absorbed past towards repentance and sacrifice, but who knows, it was but a dream.  And that's how it will end: with me, brushing my teeth, one dream closer to being at peace with where I’ve been, watching my face in the mirror as I start to cry.