Dream for 11/5/2021
I dreamt I was driving a car through a nicer part of a dreary town in the Midwest of the United States.
In another scene, I was on a mountain where I met three Native American boys ages 11 to 12 who were wearing traditional outfits worn before the Caucasians forced their culture upon them. They had horses for their transportation. I joined them. We embarked on a quest to fight the resistance, the forces that beat humans down until they submit to the slavery of popular culture.
The boys and I quickly became friends. By being with them, the child in me fully returned. I was no longer an adult. Imagination was thriving in me again.
We fought off different elements of nature under control by humankind such as hay and manure. It attacked us like beasts. We fought them off and defeated them. When we were finally free from the control of humankind’s overwhelming culture. It was just the four of us on the top of the mountain with nature. Trees, shrubs, and breeze. It was wonderful!
When it was time for the boys to depart, they hopped on their horses and rode them backward down the mountain. I felt so sad. I could tell they were too by the looks on their faces. We watched each other as their horses slowly walked backwards down the mountain toward the great plains.
In the final scene, the three Native American boys were walking through a crowded sandy beach in Hawaii toward the ocean. People stared at them because they stood out with their old traditional Native American clothes. The boys walked by them as if they didn’t exist. I was there sitting on the sand among the crowd but I wasn’t. It was like I was a ghost. I started to cry.
The leader, the eldest boy entered the ocean first. He gracefully glided through the glassy water. His face said it all. He was at peace and free. I cried harder.
I woke up from my dream in my bed at this point. It was as if I was really crying. The message was powerful.
This dream represents our desire to break free from what popular society pressures us to do. We have become slaves to it. The three Native American boys represent a life that has become extinct after the Caucasians forced them onto reservations and into re-education systems to learn their culture and language. As history has shown, much of the old ways of the Native American culture has died and can only be relived through stories. This is how important stories are. One of my screenplays about Hawaiian culture has this same message. The pressure from popular culture has been making me feel doubtful about my love for writing stories.
The Native American aspect of my dream was likely influenced by an NHK television interview I watched last night with my parents at their house in Pearl City, Hawaii. It was about Larry Littlebird, a Navajo in his senior years who overcame his suffering to find himself and his culture under the overbearing pressure to conform to popular culture. He is a storyteller who founded Hamaatsa, a place to reconnect with nature with indigenous wisdom, by listening to nature and to each other in this challenging time.
The beach scene in Hawaii represents my desire to be with the ocean and sand, a place where I feel connected to nature. I am at peace there. The pressure of whether or not I should get back with the program of popular culture or continue to rebel against it has been weighing heavy on my shoulders.
JON RIKI KARAMATSU 