Dream: 1/15/08

I took a nap this afternoon at about 3:00 and awoke with teeth clenched from a very vivid dream at about 5:04.

The dream was autobiographical. I was in my hometown, riding my bicycle to a local university, SIUE to work on my dissertation there. I was humming in my head and aloud that I was engaged in an affirming activity of finding a public place to work on this paper and that I was, in fact, going through the motions of finding a place to write. I was humming this as I arrived at what looked to be the library. I opened the door and was flanked by books in a dimly lit building. Along several walls were lit reading rooms where college students were engaged in reading stories to children. As I walked around the book stacks I noticed that all of them were children’s books. I was in the children’s library. I exited and in the hallway were two study carrels at which two students were reading. One student made eye contact and I kneeled down and told him my predicament.

“I went inside there and all I saw were children’s books. Do you know where the college library is?”

“Yes, the library you want is downstairs.” He pointed down the hall toward the stair well.

“Ok, thank you sir.”

In my mind this was a very affirming conversation. We were very attuned to the moment. I wasn’t bothering him. He was happy to oblige my request for information. All was good at that moment. I began my descent and turned a corner in the well to the next floor below. That’s where I saw a man with a gray plastic tub walk past. In it was a dead gray rhesus monkey splayed out like a drunken man in a wheel barrow with his arms and legs draped over the sides. The monkey’s eyes were closed and it was perched atop numerous body parts of monkeys. I caught briefly an eye as the man carrying this tub passed and continued down a very cramped corridor and out of sight. I turned and looked around. This floor was also dimly lit except for the light from offices and rooms that were occupied. This place was alive with the conversation of researchers. I looked into one room and there was another rhesus monkey strapped into some kind of devices that kept it firmly in place. Its eyes were looking up above its head at the researchers who I couldn't see from my vantage point into the room. Its gaze was a mix of resignation and puzzlement, and I knew that its fate would be that of its brother or sister that was carried past me in the tub.

Tom Waits sings that what keeps mankind alive is "his billiance in keeping his humanity repressed." He's takling about the bestial acts of humanity that retain our humanity. What strikes me about the dream was the environmental detail of this research floor full of normal conversation while monkeys stood by forced into the role as objects, living systems, surfaces upon which hypotheses would be tested. They were mere elements in a scene of scientific research taking place one floor below a library filled with children attending to the storytelling of older women. The human care one floor above matched the callousness one floor below.