Dream - Part II

There are a great many visual details in the dream I mentioned two entries ago. Most of the imagery in this dream parallel the sights and sounds of the country of Egypt! Today I am going to go through some of the elements of the dream and explain how each detail parallels images or experiences I have encountered since arriving in Egypt.

If you recall the description of my dream, it began with me moving through an area covered in water with the remains of cement buildings protruding from the water. The picture of these rundown, collapsed cement buildings is one that can be seen literally all around the city of Cairo, which I think may be where the thought of these came from. The water can actually be seen as sand, with the water simply being a mirage on top of the sand. Thus, this first scene of my dream where I am moving through the flooded landscape of ruins actually mirrors the trip I took from the airport upon arriving here in Cairo. As we drove through the city on my first night, I was sort of in a dreamlike state on the way to our house. I stared out the windows at all these foreign sights and sounds of Cairo. Everything moved slowly past me (just as in the dream) because of the traffic. While we drove, I remember seeing all these rundown apartments, archaic-looking remains, and ancient structures and I wondered what the story was behind each of them.

In the dream I mention moving into a dark tunnel-like structure. This tunnel may symbolize the metropolitan area of Cairo. As we drove further into the city on my first night here, it felt like I was being closed in by tall brick and cement buildings, much like a tunnel. The streets were often dim, and most people drive without their headlights on at night, so the unusual partial darkness contributed to this tunnel feeling. Few stars are visible from inside the city of Cairo, and so when the moon isn’t out, it almost feels like there is a black roof over our heads when we stand outside. Just as the tunnel walls in my dream were made out of “brick, mortar, cement, wooded up windows, etc.” that is what many of the apartments I saw along the way were made up of.

Next in the dream, I came up to an old door and proceeded through it. On the other side of the door there appeared to be a secret settlement of life. I think this door loosely symbolized the entrance into Maadi. Maadi is the fairly Westernized portion of Cairo and can seem sort of out of place when you look at the surrounding city of Cairo. So, in an odd way, Maadi may be the ‘secret settlement of life’ in that dream.

So, the long and the short of the dream is this: I arrived in this foreign place that seemed faintly familiar, almost as though it was my home. Likewise, I arrived in Cairo, a place foreign to me, and yet when I reached Maadi, it felt strangely familiar to me. I arrived at my house here and tried to convince myself that: “this is my home.” After I had this dream, I think I finally realized that this is my home.