(1)

March 10, 2000.

There is a demonstration on the Autostrad just outside my parents’ building. It is a Green demonstration of all things. I stand near the stop lights on our side of the Autostrad trying to cross the streets, there are policemen everywhere trying to contain the demonstrators, who are coming from the direction of the Umayyad Square, and allow the pedestrians to cross. I finally manage to cross.

I find that the other side of the Autostrad has been roofed. Indeed, there is a second level over there now, and I haven’t the slightest idea what is going on over there. My level is filled with columns.

All of the sudden, a quarrel breaks out in my level between a group of demonstrators, I can detect four of them, the policemen, for some reason, are willing to watch them fight, they do not interfere. There is a bearded man with long hair (although at times he seems to have short hair and to be beardless, and at other times beardless but with long hair tied in a bun). He is the victim in this entire affair, the other three are beating him up and calling him traitor.

One of the assailants is a woman (short hair, T-shirt, jeans). The second one is a dwarf for all practical purposes, short hair, fat, tightly wrapped in a jacket that covers his short neck and a tight blue jeans. He is wholly engrossed in the beating and seems to lead it in a way, so that whenever the fervor seems to die down, he somehow lights it up again. At one point he somehow manages to wrap his right arm around the victim’s neck, who is forced to bend down, and he seems to be willing to strangle the fellow. The third person involved is a tall man, not very enthused about the affair, and always on the sideline of the my vision.

I feel a tremendous disgust. I cannot help but cry out to the group that by doing this, by quarreling so violently among each other, they are in fact betraying their whole vision of a peaceful world, that they are helping defeat their own cause. My cries seem to have an effect on the young woman and the tall marginal man, but not on the Dwarf who keeps on fueling the quarrel.

I finally find myself having to get involved physically. I manage to free the Victim from the stranglehold of the Dwarf, and he runs for cover behind the columns. Enraged and maddened by the cries of the Dwarf, the marginal man and the young woman pursue the Victim, and I hear him crying for help, I run in his direction, and suddenly, I can feel a stab in my hip.

I feel the pain, I feel the blood pouring out of me in buckets, I taste blood in my mouth, I taste the stench, I am agonizing, really agonizing. I turn around, I see the Dwarf smiling stupidly, he is the one to have stabbed me, though I can’t see his dagger. I cry out: “Why? Not now, not like this.” But then, I start wondering. Why not now? Why not like this? It’s death, it’s just death, it's rest, there's nothing to be afraid of. These thoughts help calm me down, I can no longer see the Dwarf, the whole quarrel is no longer material.

Still, I decide that I cannot die before I tell something to D.A. and B.N.…

[I haven’t met B.N. in real life yet, but D.A. had talking so much about him I felt fell he, too, needed to hear what I had to say]…

But I walk towards the crowds of demonstrators, now held back by the police and seem to be very calm, perhaps anxious to hear what I have to say. I am trying to put my right arm on my wound, but I cannot reach it for some reason, and that is disturbing me. still I have to say what I have to say. So I speak, and I apologize for the putrid odor coming out of my mouths and my equally putrid words. And I head back to the columns, and the dream stops.

[After the end of the dream, I found myself making a conscious effort to remember it so I can relate it to M.A. later, for he often relates his dreams to me.]

 (2)

March 10, 2000.

          A group of little girls from my parents building form a gang under the leadership of the night-guard’s Z, and S (for some reason she was called Farah in the dream. I almost made the mistake of calling her Farah when I saw her for real on the following day), the daughter of our 7th floor neighbor (they’re both around 10).

             An accident takes place on the Autostrad, I can see it from my bedroom window which overlooks the Autostrad (and in this particular dream, it seems, all the circumference of the building). A young man who is carrying an amazing number of big carton packages is hit by a car and the packages are scattered all over the Autostrad. The girl gang, spurred on by their two leaders, jump at the packages, steal and hide them at the other side of the building. I get so dismayed by this, I decide to tell Farah’s father about it (for some reason, I don’t think of telling Z’s father. Farah is Christian, by the way, and Z a Muslim Kurd). Somehow, the girls are made aware of this attention of mine, and the two leaders beg me not to go ahead with it. But, I shake them off angrily, and I tell the mischievous-looking Farah that I am very disappointed with her, that she should have known better. When I see that she is showing no signs of remorse, I end up having a meeting with her father.

             When I get to see the father, I get immediately struck by how degenerate his family is, and how careless he is about the whole thing (this is not at all an accurate and realistic image of the S’s family). I am immediately made aware by the Observer  - that omniscient bit of  subconsciousness that underlies a dream, sometimes intermingled with my own consciousness, and which is always aware of the fact that this is only a dream - that the son is no less mischievous than the daughter, and that no one really cares. The father tries to justify the deed of his own daughter even before I get the chance to say anything on account of her age.

             I proceed to leave in disgust, and begin reliving certain aspects of the dream again with some new variations which I cannot remember, until I am awake.

(3)

April 5, 2000

             Dream 1. This was a Star Trek NG dream. I dreamt that Captain Pickard had fallen into a mysterious coma, and that the Enterprise was speeding out of control towards a deadly destination. Moreover, there was a gathering of other famous captains on board. The doctor was unable to revive the Captain who was lying on an operation table. Number One was doing his best to retain control over his guests. The presence of the counselor is vaguely felt although she is nowhere to be seen. That’s all I remember.

             Dream 2. A continuation of the earlier dream. The Captain awakes, an attempt is made against his life by one of the other captains, who is then killed by yet another captain, who is trying to hide his involvement in the conspiracy against Pickard. The dream is lived in two sequences, the first one was interrupted by the Observer, the second remains unfinished as I slip into the third dream.

             [A few weeks ago, in Lebanon, as I accompanied my Mother to the meeting of the Arab Women Parliamentarians, I got to watch an old episode of Star Trek NG in my hotel room. The episode was about Captain Pickard falling in coma as a result of memory implants in his brain, he lives an entire life on a different plane, where he marries, has children, and dies.]

             Dream 3. A cat fell from a very high window over and over again, but is always able to scrape against the wall and tumbles along it, and always manages to land on her feet and survives.

             In the second part of this dream, I observe a cat from the balcony of our old third floor apartment in White Bridge. I am aware that the cat and I had developed a good rapport when I had earlier played with it. The cat wants to reach me, so she climbs an electricity pole that runs next to our balcony, and though high and dangerous, it manages to reach the edge of the balcony unharmed, and jumps in my lap.

             The scene gets replayed twice afterwards, each time the cat’s presence in our place is rejected by my Mother. But when I hug the cat after its third climb, I am aware that this time my Mother will not object, for I had called her to watch its tenacious climb this time, and she was stuck by its daring.

             [I’ve been seeing too many cats lately: M.L.’s cat, D.A.’s cat, all sorts of really nice looking street cats, and I mean actual cats not pretty girls. Still, I don't feel ready to have my own kitten].

(4)

 
April 9, 2000

            I saw that, contrary to her expectations and assertions, M.L. (my diplomat friend) did need my help, and M.A.’s as well, in showing her parents around when they finally came to Syria. In the dream, however, her parents did not come alone but accompanied by an undefined number of children and adults. I can remember having to escort them throughout Damascus, we were all happy.

M.A.’s role in this dream was marginal contrary to his role in the two previous dreams I had over the last two nights. In those dream M.A. was angry with me for one reason or another, but I cannot remember any of the details. When I told M.L. and M.A. of my dreams about M.A., M.L. said that they meant that I needed his approval on something. I calmly replied that I really only needed my approval on that which concerns me. But was that the truth?

[When I compare the kind of dreams M.A. occasionally relates to me with my own dreams, an interesting contrast arises. His dreams are about his inner development vis-à-vis the world and the people he knows or knows of, but mine…well, I can’t see inner development as being a concern. All I can see in my dreams are some vicarious compensation for my introversion. In most of my dreams, I always play the central figure of a hero, or a savior of some sorts, a person who is liked and admired. I do indeed seek the acceptance of others, that much is true, but I have never, consciously at least, compromised a principle of mine to get that. I am more at principles' mercy that they are at mine. As such, I always wanted people to accept and like me for who I am. Since M.A. already does, or so I believe it at the time, how and why would I be seeking his approval?

On the other hand, I think I have always felt that there existed a certain strand of genius inside of me, to put it bluntly, that has always been ignored and unnoticed by others somehow. It is for this strand in me that I wanted approval. But is it really genius that is involved here, or is it simply ambition? What is genius anyway? Do I simply want to be the center of attention simply because I have always envied my Mother, for instance, for her fame? Or is there something deeper than this, something much more genuine, and much more related to me as a person, an individual, to my being, to my becoming? I don’t know. All I know is that when I speak of a potential genius buried inside of me, I don’t think I am being conceited or arrogant. I am just probing around searching for the possibility, trying to better understand myself.

During the Damascus Film Festival last year, everybody complemented me on my abilities as a simultaneous interpreter, everybody, including our idiot of an ex-prime minister, our conceited ex-minister of culture, all the members of the jury, my co-workers, the journalists I encountered, the other interpreter who handled Spanish, and so on. They all complemented me over and over again, all through the festival, on an ability which I took for granted. The same thing happened to D.A. when he was translating for B.N.. Is that genius? Is that my genius? If so, that is not very satisfactory. Besides, I can't do this anymore. Does that mean that my genius is gone? Can genius evaporate?

What is it that I want anyway? What do I mean by saying that all I want is for my genius, if I really had it, to be recognized? What sort of recognition am I looking for here? Do I want to be worshipped and start my own religion? Oh heavens no. We have had enough of this bullshit already. What sort of recognition that my peers can give me which can satisfy me? I do need an answers. Menstruation will be published soon, and God knows what will happen afterwards.]

(5)

April 10, 2000

             Dream 1. A bookseller is displaying his books on a hapless sidewalk. The bookcases containing the books are rather luxurious, and the bookseller, who is not necessarily poor, is, nonetheless, scruffy-looking, though earnest, and is sporting a dark beard. The whole scene is quite dark, it is as though the source of light is some hapless candle somewhere beyond my vision. It is evening. I am sifting through the books very carefully, and am delighted to find copies of the stories of the Five Adventurers, the stories I used to read as a child, and late into my teens…

             …[this is a recurrent themes in my dreams, though not of late, the stories of my childhood, especially those of the Five Adventurers, sci-fi novels, esoteric Arabic manuscripts…]…

             I especially notice a story with the picture of Shawish Farqi’, the foolish constable who is annoyed by the Five Adventurers successes, on it, [I had had a brief glimpse of, on the night before as I was sifting through some old books, such a copy, but I did not stop to look in it]. Shortly thereafter, I come across a sci-fi novel with the title Once Upon An Eon (there was a remainder to the title but I forget it), which reminds me of another novel, a real one this time, titled A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernon Vinge, for indeed, this dream novel was of the space opera variety. It dealt with the life on some hapless orbital station inhabited by robots. The robots had long needles for legs, metallic boxes for body, and lightbulbs for heads, with regular human facial features. All the robots flew horizontally, but one day, and for no apparent reason, and no will of his own, a traveling robot begins to fly, or rather, hover, vertically. The novel deals with his life from that point on. I am very pleased to find this novel, because I have been looking for a novel that deals with such an issue, of one who has to go against a certain current or mode, not necessarily by his own volition, for quite sometime.

             I later find an esoteric Islamic manuscript, I am not sure now why it felt esoteric, and what exactly it dealt with.

             At this stage, I become aware of an ongoing situation. The bookseller will have to sell all of his books by the end of the day to the vegetable peddler, stationed nearby and hovering on the periphery of my vision, rarely intruding therein, a rogue character who is delighted to be able to take all these books for a very cheap price, and for purposes unknown. The bookseller is distraught, and there is nothing I can do about it. I continue to sift through the books, amassing the ones that caught my attention on the side, knowing that I will not be able to buy them all, I don’t have enough money for that.

          At a certain point, an old man (or perhaps a young man) who is a descendant of Abdul-Qadir al-Jazairi (the Algerian Prince who fought against French Occupation of Algeria in the 19th Century and was exiled to Damascus and died therein), appears on the scene and is made aware of the situation and offers to buy the entire stock. Here, the Dream Observer, that vague presence which embodies my desires and that part of my consciousness still awake despite my sleeping, interferes and alters the situation. Now, I am made aware that I had received a generous check from Saqi Books for publishing my novella through them, and I make the offer to the bookseller to buy his stock, the bookseller is delighted and agrees to sell me his entire stock, the handsome bookcases included, for 20,000 Syrian pounds (400 USD).

[On the following day, I received the contract from Saqi Books].

Dream 2. B.N., D.A., an unknown Saudi man, and I (M.A. appears very marginally and briefly at the beginning of this dream), form a gang of sorts, and proceed to rob an old mansion, we leave the mansion with a huge bag full of money, and ride away in our 4WD land-cruiser. M.A.’s presence is felt in the front seat very briefly, I am hovering all over the backseat.

            As we ride away, the Saudi man speaks of what sounds like an inappropriate, if not necessarily evil, scheme, and B.N. is dismayed. The car stops, D.A., B.N., and I descend. The Saudi man disappears from the scene, the bag of money is disposed of, somehow, and D.A. and B.N. return to the car pleased. Before I follow them in, I find an old quarter, an old Syrian quarter, I bend down and pick it up delighted by my find, and I realize that there are other things around for me to pick up, but, at this stage, the car drives off, with D.A. managing to stick his hand from the back window somehow, with a finger pointing backward, I can see him smiling, I know he is just joking, I am disturbed by his joke nonetheless, because it meant that they won’t wait for me to pick anything else. The car returns, I hop in.

             [The following morning, D.A. called and said that he wanted to introduce me to someone, and we made an appointment for them to come to my place on the following day]

(6)

April 11, 2000

            Dream 1. D.A., M.A., R.J. and I are returning to my parents apartment from somewhere. We stop at a new kiosk by the small park next to my building. I buy chocolate, and some sweets. R.J. buys a bottle of Barada beer. I pick one up too, then I notice that the seller has foreign beer, I ask for a Corona, my favorite, not expecting him to have any, it not being very known in Syria, but to my happy surprise, he has. Still the first bottle I pick up, turns out to be a cylinder that he nothing to do with beer, then the seller digs around and find me a bottle, it was Corona, though the bottle is somewhat different, it looked more like an old oil lamp.

            Dream 2. The same group is at my parents home, the old one, the one in White Bridge. We are in the living room, next to the old and cozy gas-heater. The door to the bedrooms is closed, and near that corner M.A. put his chicks, the ones he bought from the kiosk, there with some food and water…

            [Last nigh we went paid A.F. and I.A. a visit in their place near the airport, and we did speak of chicks and raising chicks, and coloring chicks]…

            I decide to put my chicks right in the corner, next to M.A.’s, all the chicks are violet by the way, his and mine. Since I didn’t not put any food or water for my chicks, they decide to share the food and water that M.A. has put for his chicks. M.A. is not happy with that and he chases my chicks away. I immediately rush to put food and drink for my chicks and calm things down. But M.A. is not satisfied, he teaches his chicks to attack mine, and he himself harasses my chicks. I get upset. And the two of us engage in a scuffle, I end up by carrying M.A. on my shoulder and I cross over to the guest room and am about to open the window and throw M.A. right out from the third floor. But I then see his reflection in the window. We both calm down and begin to laugh, and each of us return to his place.

            [I don’t know how relevant it is, but it is very obvious to me that M.A. and I are developing a Khâlid-Wasîm type relationship (two different yet somehow complementary characters from my latest novel, The Whore with the Trillion Vulvas. I have always been good in predicting the future patterns of my life in my novels, or in superimposing the current patters in my life on my novels. It is very hard to tell which is which when you are in the midst of it all. Indeed, my analysis of the situation here seems to have been wrong on account of this confusion). We both attract the same girls, and compete, no matter how unconsciously, in attracting and keeping the attention of girls, and we are both jealous of each other, in this regard, but we are both too aware that what we have is all too important to be spoiled by such a competition. M.A., though, is much more successful than me in this regard, attracting girls that is, he is comforting, I am intimidating. I don’t understand why, but I am.

           For instance, I.A. seems to be attracted to both of us, I think there is someone else we don’t know she is attracted to as well, but she clearly finds M.A. to be more her type, both on account of his demeanor and his looks (he is much more Syrian than I, after all, he has black hair and a mustache, and whether she likes it or not, she is a country girl). Last evening, she spent most of her time talking to M.A., but I did get the feeling that she was rather forcing herself not to glance in my direction. Moreover, it is me to whom she chooses to send her chocolate gifts. But she also makes sure that M.A. knows about these gifts. Syrian women, I tell you…

          Three years after the fact, I can say that this analysis was wrong. I completely misunderstood I.A. motivations, perhaps intentionally, being too conscious of the fact that I.A. were simply too different to develop a real peer-to-peer relationship, so to speak, and I always craved real things I guess, because I needed to be rooted. I.A. too was conscious of the differences between us, but it was hard for her to ignore her infatuation with me, I would later learn.

         On the other hand, and be that as it may, M.A. and I were too unequal in many respects to develop a Khâlid-Wasîm type relationship. No. It is not too presumptuous of me to say that anymore.

(7)

April 11, 2000

             M.A. and I are attending a conference on Transdisciplinarity in Paris. Naturally, we are received by B.N. and his wife Anne. They take good care of us and take us all over the various restaurants in our luxurious hotel. Most of the workers in the hotel are of North African descent, except for one Lebanese cleaning lady.

As usual, B.N. and M.A. are hitting it off, I feel a bit neglected. At a certain point after having lunch, I return to my room, I find a North African cleaning team making it up, with one of them, a nice looking young man, very polite, very formal, putting various elaborate gift items on the table, including: a real tiny watch with magnetic bottom that can make it stick everywhere. It has a magnifying glass surface, so we can see the time, that’s how tiny it is. He takes an old plastic alarm clock, and puts a fine ornamented silver one in its place, and he adds another fine gift that I can no longer remember.

On the last day, B.N. and M.A. go for a walk in the city. That’s all I remember.

(8)

[My sleeping for the last few days has proven too troubled for me to keep track of my dreams. I remember having a dream of the President, yes, of the sickly old lion himself, but I don’t remember any of the details. At another occasion, I dreamt that M.A. was telling me about a new power struggle inside the Palace between the President and a brother of his, unknown to me up until then. Finally though…]

April 17, 2000

            I had many dreams last night, I can’t remember but this one and snips of the others, my sleep is still quite troubled. I think it’s due to seasonal changes, my body is very sensitive to that, has always been.

            Dream 1. I dreamt that I was in Egypt and that the Egyptian government has decided to cut down on the water allotment to peasants. I was in the middle of the desert but was surrounded by farms on all sides, there were two farmers around who were obviously upset by what was taking place, they were nonetheless irrigating their plots of lands. One of the farmers (a Syrian) is an old high school mate of mine…

            [well, not exactly, I know him, we were in the same class, but we were never bodies really, just acquaintances. Why should I be  seeing him in my dreams now? I am not sure. But for some strange reason, he is one of very few high school mates that I see in my dreams. Two things about him I recall: on the first day of the baccalaureate year, he came dressed in an azure blue pants and shirt, and he had a deeply tanned skin (not that I see him dressed like that in my dreams in this particular dream, in fact, he is wearing a white T-shirt. I think we all are, but I can’t be sure). The second thing goes to the days proceeding graduation, perhaps even after my return from Moscow, we met in the street and he told me that another one of our mates, who had gone to study in America, had had an accident and was in a coma, the report was later belied by some other mate I chanced upon in the streets; the accident according to this one was not that serious and he had recently spoken with the alleged victim and he was all right. Since I never got to hear from any of these people again, I still don’t know the truth of this matter.]…

…I am not sure about the identity of the other farmer, but he could be a former student of mine from the days when  used to each at an international school in Damascus.

Anyway, I am riding a bicycle and I want to go to a place and rest. It was daytime and it was scorching hot. I seem to have been working, but I am not sure. Another figure appears now, he is A.T., AKA, at least when he was in America, Alex…

[Alex and I, and two others, were the last of the Point Bunch, he left two months before I did, and left me some of his stuff as a compensation for money owed. I dream of him on rare occasions, but I don’t know what made him show up in this particular dream. Hell, I don’t know why any of these people showed up in this particular dream of mine.]…

             …I seem to be heading in the wrong direction, Alex points me in the right direction, and we both go into a large, empty cafeteria of sorts. We sit down and watch TV. But after a while, the cafeteria turns into a mosque, and Alex stands up and performs the ablution. I realize that I am following suite, and when Alex assumes the position, (he is dressed in a gray dishdashah now), I stand next to him, he will be the imam. I am aware that I am no longer a believer, so I just mumble the words and garble them as I go along. Alex, meanwhile, is sliding all over the place as he prays. After a while, I decide that what I am doing is quite ridiculous, and I stop in mid genuflection, and begin to laugh. I notice that Alex has stopped as well, and laughing too, but I know that he will try to pray again.

            [Note: I never actually hid my change of heart vis-à-vis Islam and religions in general from Alex, or any of the others. They received my atheism, in a quite manner, though, they were all caught by surprise, seeing how religious I was throughout our period of acquaintanceship.]

             Dream 2. In my other dream, I killed somebody, a stranger, and for an unknown reason, since I don’t remember the entire dream. Still, I killed him rather deliberately and maliciously.

             We were struggling in the sea, near one of those cement barriers. I had him by the neck and I had shoved his head under water, he was struggling to free himself. Two people, whom I knew were evil and meant harm, and knew the man, came after me, they wanted to save their friend. One of those guys was a big man (mustache, white T-shirt)…

             [in fact, he is the villain in the Real Mackoy, I had caught the last part of the dubbed movie in the Qatari satellite channel last evening. Do I always incorporate figures that I met, one way or another, before I sleep, in my dreams for that night? Well, I seem to be doing that a lot lately. Perhaps it’s just an exceptional period in my life, and I am just grasping at anything. I can’t be sure.]…

            I realize that I need to run away, because these guys want to hurt me. but, for some reason, I wouldn’t do it until I made sure that the guy in my hand is dead. The twosome come to the rescue, but the Observer interferes here, and slows things down somehow, giving me time to do the deed. There is blood all over me, I know I killed the man. Why the blood? Whence the blood? I don’t know.

            I am now surrounded by the twosome, obviously they want to kill me, and take revenge for the death of their friend. The Observer once again interferes and buys me enough time to run away. I run into a parked taxi, there is no driver, I do the driving myself, the twosome follow me in another taxi, the same one they had come in, the big man driving. I elude them somehow, and that’ all I remember.

(9)

            [Ever since I started recording my dreams, it’s as though the whole project met with a stiff internal resistance. Something inside of me thought of this as some sort of an intrusion, and began to cut down on its level of commitment to dreaming, as it were. It does not seem to understand that by recording my dreams I am just trying to communicate back to it, on a level different from that of my literary writings. After all, making love to the woman in your life is not a substitute for the simple hand-holding, simple hug and simple kiss. The simple things in life and love are as important, if not more so in many occasions, than the more complicated and elaborate operations. Perhaps, that thing inside has finally begun to appreciate that, for last night’s dream signaled a return to the Feature Dream, the long complex, full of many unexpected twists and turns dream. Oh yes, it’s a return to simplicity all right. And one has to bear in mind that I have forgotten most of the details.

By the way, and as it is customary in my case, this was not the only dream I had last night, but it was the last one I had. I was embarking on another dreaming adventure when the phone rang and woke me up at 12:30 pm. Yes, I am a lazy-bone. Well, I use to be at the time, I no longer have that luxury, it seems.]

April 18, 2000

            I am in North Ireland of all places. I arrive there by plane, I am Irish myself and a member of some terrorist group…

[Over a month ago, I had chanced upon that movie with Brad Pit and Harrison Ford on one of the channels, this was the second time I see this movie. Moreover, yesterday, and for some reason, I thought of a girl I had seen last week in al-Hamrah Theater during La Symphonie de Hanneton. She was obviously from that part of the world, or one of her parents was from that part. I found myself imagining that it was her mother who was Irish, and I spoke to her in my mind in my ragtag Irish accent.]…

            I am at a certain point in the beginning Sylvester Stalone [such transformation is somewhat uncommon in my dreams]. Anyway, I am received by some people, I go to their place, they tell me that they met with my girlfriend, or, should I say, love-interest, in the restaurant they had lunch in. I go to see her, I am here, in part to see her, she had abandoned me.

            I am in the restaurant, she is there, dressed like a typical waitress with the short black robe, white apron and hair pulled back in a bun. She is not happy to see me, she harasses me and treats me cruelly, she does not approve of what I do. She, nonetheless serves me, Créme Caramel and some Apple desert which tastes good, [I usually don’t like apple-based deserts], she knows I have no money, she had taken all my money when she ran away from me. A friend of hers (dark hair, same dress scheme, my love-interest has light red hair), and her boss (big, handsomely dressed guy, but very rude and formal) keep on checking on us, to see that everything is all right. I finally decide to leave (I am me now, by the way, I have been me eversince I arrived at the airport), having had heard enough insults, she gives me back my money so I can pay the bill, all $150, I pay the bill, but, just before I leave, I smack the boss with my elbow on the side of his head, and he falls flat on his face. This was just my of telling him that he would not have been able to make any difference had I decided to become violent. I leave, she comes after me with her girlfriend, she’s agitated and muttering all sorts of things, but I don’t listen [in fact, I can’t remember any of the things that got said in this dream], and I open my coat, and take my scarf of, and tell her that it was over for me too, I know that for some reason, that she is hurt by that. it’s OK for her to be over me, but it’s not OK for me to be over her, that was the deal. In reality, nothing was over for both of us, but we are too proud to admit it.

            I take a taxi, on the way to wherever, (and now I am back in Damascus, after all, the entire world is a Damascus), I see the remains of a castle, very much like the one at Burqush (a castle near Damascus located at the top pf a Mount overlooking the Golan Heights), I realize that I had always wanted to go there and never got the chance to, I tell the accommodating taxi driver to make a detour. I visit the place, all the people over there know me for some reason, and I gradually remember that I have been there before. I finally decide to leave alone, though at this stage, I get escorted by some people I know into a nearby apartment. I don’t feel comfortable with this situation (my memory is hazy here), but I am supposed to do something wrong, participate in an assassination, as it will turn out.

There is a huge gap in my memory here, I know that I have met with my love-interest and her friend again, but I finally decide to leave the country. On my way to the airport in a taxi, the taxi driver is very talkative, I look around, and I see my love-interest’s friend on a motorbike dressed in leather, with her own girlfriend sitting behind her, naked but for a pink underwear, pressing her breasts against the other’s back, hiding them from the world, she looks at me and smile just like her lover had done, her hair is red. Next I see two girls dancing on the balcony of their apartment, or, rather, their room, for I am aware that this is a college dormitory, one of them is completely naked and is hiding her private parts with her hands as she dances on and on. Later, on another balcony, two ladies are sitting, perhaps reading, their thighs exposed. I wonder what’s happening in town. Then everything become quite, the town is empty, I am heading towards the airport knowing that my own life is now in danger…

[I can’t help but think of the sightings of all those girls as making up what I call the raw elements of the dream. The raw elements in a dream are key elements, they help decipher not only the dream involved but when put together with other raw elements from other dreams, the personality of the dreamer himself. They are very guttural, they reveal something about the dreamer, and not just about a particular stage in his life.]…

             The taxi-driver, too, seems to think that my life is in danger, and he offers me many guns to add to my own gun, I am sitting to his left, of course, we’re in Ireland again, after all. But at one point, at the point when we reach the airport, and I see the castle to be located there, too, I reach behind the driver, I pull up another gun, aim it at his head, tell him that he cocked it too loud, and thus revealed that he was one of them to me, he was about to kill me, but now, it is I who gets to pull the trigger, and the man is dead. [Yet again I kill in my dream, this is not a good trend. At least, this time it wasn’t too brutal, but there is more to come.]

             I am inside a lecture hall now, my guys are there, so is my love-interest, the one the guys plan to kill is someone I had met during that gap in my memory, he is none other than (brace yourself) Adlai Stevenson…  

[Yes, Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for President in 1952 and 1956, who once said: " public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for."

I have no idea why I should dream of him, I don’t remember much about him now, other than the above quote. But, like it or not, he’s part of the dream. His role is being played by an America actor whose name I don’t know, and I can’t think of a movie in which he played, sorry. But I think he plays the role of a racist in one movie,  and the role of some kind of fanatic reverend in another.]…

The attempt goes as scheduled, there is nothing I could do to stop it, Adlai was speaking as a representative for the Irish, for some reason, and is about to make a peace proposal that everyone knows somehow will be accepted by the British, but is controversial among his own followers. He calls his proposal Terms of Endearment (well, I said it’s a feature dream, didn’t I?). As he is about to announce them, two people pull out of the front seat,  he invites others to take their place and these two turn up to be his assassins. When he sees guns in their hands, he is dressed in a priest’s robe, an Anglican, I think, he tears his robe as a sign of defiance, he is wearing a white T-shirt under it, and he is shot.

After that, the place becomes a battlefield. I shoot people dead, spare others, kill more others Kung Fu Style, helped by my love-interest and some other young fellow. In the middle of the battle, dessert is served (Crème Caramel again), but, since I cannot kill on a full stomach, I continue the battle alone while the others eat. I don’t recall what happens later. I think it was a happy ending, or the dream could have stopped there, having lost my interest.

[As one can see, there is no sexuality in my dreams so far. This is not very usual. Perhaps that thing is holding back still. But on this score, and since I am currently translating “The Planetary Man,” and reading “al-Khawâtim” by Unsî al-Hâj, and discussing psychology with R.J., I would like to jot down this thought that came to me this morning.

Survival and the quality of life for the species are not separate issues. The quality of life has to be such that it could allow the species not simply to adapt to the changes around it, but to continue to evolve, for stagnation is very dangerous in the evolution business. The survival of the species occurs in an evolutionary mode, it requires openness. Hence a species as a species has to be instinctively involved in setting the pace for social life, it doesn’t dictate, but it does interfere, through the individual it interferes. Since sex is the cornerstone for survival through time, with instincts like aggression, fear, etc., having an auxiliary role in this, though not at all secondary, Freud, in assigning to sex such an important role in our existence, is correct, but only in this sense. Well, this is what I think anyway, if any of this makes any sense to begin with.]

(10)

 April 20, 2000

             [This is a reconstruction of the dream I had last night from the various bits and pieces that still clung to my memory upon waking up. Of course, this situation applies to all dreams, but to some more than others.]

             I am in the courtyard of my old high school, the court is empty except for me, I start to shoot some hoops,  a man comes out of the building to inquire about my identity, he is very polite, I ask him about the students, he tells me that the students of grades 7, 9 and 12 have a military march, and that they will be back in four days, as for the rest of the students (including primary grade students, who, normally, shouldn’t be here, for their school is located in a different neighborhood) they are having their regular classes.

             After a little while, the students come out for break, I here turn into an international inspector of our school system, and I go to the old primary school and I fire some corrupt supervisor, I, with help of others, (some revolution is somehow taken place now, and there are many people who want to really change things) decide to establish a new curriculum that will be immediately incorporated at all levels rather than gradually, for the level of scientific knowledge did not change much, and we don’t want to let the process take years, we wasted too many children already. We also institute a training course for teachers, so they could adapt to the new ways and theories in teaching, not to mention the new curriculum.

             Here R, the nice and veiled assistant librarian from the international school where I once taught) suddenly comes into the picture, she is a teacher here, I use her classroom to show some of the weaknesses of the current system of education, there are cameras with me, I am addressing the world, after we leave the cameras, I return briefly to talk to R, she has taken off her veil for some reason, yet she doesn’t seem embarrassed by my presence, in fact she is still smiling, and she will continue to smile all through the dream, "Sorry for barging in,"  tell her, she tells me not to be ridiculous. I can’t remember anything beyond this point.

             [I had a brief discussion over the inadequacy and corruption of our school system with A.Z. late last night.

As for R, I really don’t know why she should come into the picture, there was never anything between us, the veil killed off any possibility. Still, she is nice, good-looking and educated, and in an old picture of hers in an old yearbook I saw her without the veil, she was still liberated then, she had long hair and wore jeans, she looked nice, perhaps, she looked like the kind of girl I’d be interested in, perhaps that’s why she came into the picture.

Another thing I can say about R. Once, as we left the house of the Pakistani Ambassador in the aftermath of  some meeting, we took the same cab home. But I left before her, I didn’t think that I was supposed to stay with her until she got home first, until I left the taxi. On the following day I apologized, and we joked about this, I told her that having lived in America for so long, I forgot about some of our customs, but, come to think of it, staying with her would have been the appropriate thing to do even in America, Whatever, I could be a dunce sometimes, she understood that, and laughed about it, even the taxi driver, she told me, had noticed the bizarreness of the situation.]

 
(11)

April 21, 2000

            [Another reconstructed dream.]

            Mother received a gift of five new cars. It was vaguely felt that the side showing this rather generous gesture was the government, although for reasons unknown. There was a Sangyang, a Mercedes Coupe, a Corvette, and two other sports car.

            I was very happy and I immediately set out on the wonderful task of test-driving the cars. I knew I could drive now, somehow, but the cars were many, and, except for the Sangyang and the Mercedes, the only car suitable for Mother really, the others being sports car and all, they were all mine. Of course this did not mean that I could not make use of the other cars, Mother understood that I liked 4WD jeep-style cars. [In reality, I was never the sports car type. But things are different in this dream.] So, in time, I knew, all these cars will be mine, one way or another.

            As I was about to hop into the black sports car, strange enough, I didn’t immediately go for the Corvette, I ran into my Libyan friend from my Los Angeles days…

            [why him, I don’t know. He was one of those Libyans  who lived in Egypt, then he went to Sweden for a while, before embarking on his American venture. He was a manual laborer, a hardworking manual laborer, that was all he knew, that was all he cold do, which wasn’t bad, but for the fact that he was suffering from a chronic back injury, which made things rather difficult, not to mention painful, for him. I never heard from him after I left LA]…

            after I told him the news and what I was about to do, he jumped into the car with me to supervise my training. I drove well, I made some errors but nothing serious, I drove slowly and managed to cruise between the speeding cars of the Autostrad without any problem.

            On my second run, I took the Corvette, a dark blue shining Corvette, [do they really make them in this color?] I went into terra incognita this time, a rather mountainous but not isolated road. In fact, there were concrete structures and people on both sides, obviously they were poor. The road, too, and as usual in this country, was in a very poor condition. At one point, (and here I have to say that I don’t know what had happed to my Libyan partner, he simply wasn’t there anymore), a traffic cop stopped me, for absolutely no reason, he just wanted to weasel off some money from me, seeing that I was riding in a luxurious car. He asked for my papers, strangely enough, I had some to give, I didn’t mind giving the guy some money, after all, I knew he was doing it out of necessity, but there was something about the way he tried to convince me that I had done something wrong, when I knew I hadn’t, something about the way he stopped me for no reason. So I told him strait off that I won’t be giving him any money. I was out of the car, by this point, and the two of us were now standing by the edge of a cliff, we were surrounded by kids. I demanded my papers back, he refused to give them to me, I reminded him that one in his position should not be messing with someone who drove a car like mine. He wasn’t necessarily too intimidated by that threat, but for some reason he fell off the edge, he held on to it with his elbows and his hands, he expected me to help him out, but I saw that the distance he would fall was no longer than a couple of meters, in fact, he was only about a half-meter from touching the ground…

            [A.Z. had told on the night before of some such incident involving traffic police]…

So, instead of helping him, I simply reached out and retrieved my papers, he was upset by  that, he fell, he wasn’t hurt, nonetheless when he climbed out he showered me with all different sorts of threats, saying that he could have been hurt. I drove off, but in mind, I was disturbed by his threats, and I thought that I should go back and face him again. I went into a small alleyway to the right to make a turn, I parked the car for a while so I can think things things over. Some small Suzuki truck drove by slowly and hit my side mirror, the fellow apologized and drove off, I was upset, and went out to check the mirror, no harm was done, I drove back to face the cop, and ended up attending a wedding near my building.

            Of the wedding I don’t remember a thing, but upon leaving I find a young woman in the parking lot, black hair, white skin, beautiful, I couldn’t tell by the way she was looking at me whether she liked, hated, or simply didn’t give a damn about me. I drive my Corvette, intentionally it seems, over a hedge, then head back to the parking lot where the young woman was still waiting. Another woman showed up at this stage, she was older and I knew her, she was one of the women in our Sheraton Bunch,…

            [her name is J, and for a while she was after me to hitch me with her tomboy of a daughter, F, she was disappointed, of course, for in time, when I realized what was happening, I gave mother and daughter the cold shoulder, I was not interested. F was thirteen years younger than I, and simply not my type. She wears her hair long these days, but she looked better as a tomboy, there was nothing wrong with her then, she was herself, she didn’t exude femininity but she was a woman, and a good-looking one at that, when she didn’t tan herself to hell. Not everyone looks good in a tan. She still has something for me, I know, but she could never compete with R.F. If I were to fall for anyone that young, it would have been for R.F. In fact, what I am talking about, I did fall for R.F. for a while, but  quickly sobered up]…

            she informed me that that girl was the bride, silly me, and she introduced us to each other, and told the girl all about our good fortune for that day. And guess who the groom was (and I had attended the wedding)? My cousin B whom I haven’t seen for year. [Why him? Why now?]

            I slip into wakefulness, and not for the first time in this dream, and I slip back. I am now in good old Stevens Point, with the Corvette, I parked it in the parking lot of our building, which was no longer our building but a dormitory, I now have to go through the halls of our interconnected dorms back to my own room in Hyer Hall. I fear that it could be a girls dormitory and I might run into some embarrassing situations, but no, it a was a boys dorm, and I ran into some bald-headed guy whom I know, [not in reality, only in the dream], who smiles and sympathizes with the fact that I would have to walk a long way before I was home, the whole length of the Autostrad in fact.

(12)

            [More troubled sleep, more hacked out dreams, difficult to remember…]

April 23, 2000

            M.H., J.T. and I like to go hiking in the mountains in this dream, which takes place in an unknown land. We usually take the microbus up to a certain pint, then we go hiking from there. (Gap). Once upon returning from wherever, someone hands the driver the fare in terms of old Syrian francs (no longer in use these days), the old brass-colored franc, however, is now worth two francs, and the one franc is represented by smaller pieces blackened through aging. The driver is mystified and gets more so when we inform him that the francs are in use again. he parks the vehicle and comes to sit next to me, our backs to his seat, he is till amazed by this, and he waits until more people enter into his vehicle, then he collects the fare and goes back to his place.

            As we drive off, I notice M.A. and D.A. carrying backpacks, wearing colorful clothes, and looking like tourists, they too were hiking today. They don’t see me, they stop an empty microbus, and hop right in. I excuse myself from the fellows and join them in their microbus. (Gap).

            I am in the balcony of a hotel with two Japanese girls…

            [long ago, when I was about eight or nine, I used to consider Japanese women to be the most ideal in the world, because I read in an article that they usually know how to pamper their husbands, and I wanted to be pampered, I guess. I sincerely believed that my future Japanese wife and I could easily live on top of the dresser in my Mother’s bedroom, which was also my bedroom. I shared the same room and the same large bed with Mother until I was twelve or thirteen, then we moved into our new apartment in Mazzeh and I had my own room. During schooldays, of course, I stayed in my paternal grandmother’s house, and we shared the same small bed until I was fourteen]…

            we have already had a discussion about the new old francs. Now, one of the girls is showing me a composite photo of her done by a Japanese artist. It is a photo of her as she sees herself, the artist does it by asking some questions first, then he takes some photos from different angles, manipulates them in the computer, then he produces these photos. The photo is somewhat different from how she looks to me. Then, the girls show me photos of themselves in glass coffins, too small for them to fit in without bending their legs, they look as if they were asleep, sometimes in a fetal position.

(13)

April 25,2000

            Dream 1. [This is the second part of the dream, I have completely forgotten the first part.] I am swimming in a pool somewhere, doing my laps when I am approached by Mother who asks me to swim faster so she could show me off in front of a certain rich acquaintance of hers. I do just that, going to and fro in 14 seconds, (I feel I could have managed it faster, but something is holding me back). The friend is duly impressed, I continue with my laps wondering what was holding me back, then I decide to go as fast as I can again, the woman, my Mother’s acquaintance is watching me, and was again impressed by my second 14 seconds performance, there was some betting involved here, and I know I got a bundle. Though I am still amazed why should anyone be impressed with a performance like mine when the professionals could it in less than 10 seconds.

            It’s next day, I am sunbathing, suddenly I remember the money, I look in my pack for them, I find a clip of dollars, but it’s Syrian currency I am after, somehow, I fear the woman have taken them. I inquire of my Mother and she says something about letting the woman taking them, I get angry, how could she have done this, I ask her, as people look at us. We go looking for the woman, I find her in an auditorium, sitting in the last row, I sneak from behind her, and catch her by the shoulders, she is terrified, she is no longer the same person, she’s skinny now, and young, and poor-looking, she is only a servant, I ask her for the money, she cries, suddenly there is a knock on the door, I open it, it is a bearded man with long hair, coming on a motor cycle, dressed in a white shirt, he is the poor girl’s boy friend, he gives me the money. They had planned the robbery together, I somehow knew, but they grew repentant, and even before I started looking for them they had decided to return the money. The girl confirms my impression. People around me ask me if I am going to press any charges, but I shake hands with the girl and kiss her on the cheeks, then I take her by the hand and take her outside, before I go out, though, I give the money to Mother who was still half suspicious of the girl and her friend.

            Outside, the Conscious Observer sermonizes the girl, he explains to her how things are difficult for me too, though my Mother is famous and all, how we are not as rich as people think, and that people who have the courage to own up to their mistakes and take responsibility for them have nothing to be ashamed of. I can see the smile return to the girl’s face again, I can sense that she is attracted to me now, and the dream ends here.

            Dream 2. I stop with M.A. in a sidewalk café in Lebanon near the Syrian border, though the exact area is not defined. I find my former work-mate W.S. there with many others sitting side by side drinking and sucking on there hubbly-bubblies. I sit by a young man who is happy to see me, and he seems to be connected with the first part of the previous dream, I sit besides him and he makes a lewd comment about the girl nearby, and how she might fancy me too, this comes as a reference it seems to a similar event in the forgotten part of a dream. But the girl here is too young, obviously in her early teen, and she is veiled, she has a nice face, but notwithstanding that, I take offense to his comment, but I say nothing. After a while, M.A. and I decide to leave, we are offered a ride, but we say we have business to do here first before going back to Syria.

            Next thing you know we are sharing a car with a few girls, we’re having fun, and though we are in Hamah, I somehow think of it as Jdaydeh, to the extant that I show the girls my apartment there, from outside, though, in reality I am thinking of my apartment in Qaryat al-Asad, people play along though, M.A. is smiling after all, this was Hamah, one the girls’ in particular, not very pretty, is more interested in playing along than the others, she tells me about her apartment there, as we stand by the door to my own, and here the dream stops.

(14)

April 26, 2000

            I am in our apartment at White Bridge, but the kitchen and the internal set up is that of our current apartment. I notice a water leakage from the ceiling above the faucet between the bathroom and the kitchen, I tell Mother, I climb to the attic on top to check, I notice that the leak is from a hole in a large pipe that passes there. This time it’s us who are leaking and not the neighbors (here the situation in my apartment is present in the mental background), we decide to fix the problem before the water begins to seep to the neighbors, in fact, it was already all over the kitchen area.

            I try to find a way of plugging it up until the next day when a professional can be called in, I fail, I constantly fail, I am now on the roof of something, the back wall of the attic had turned into a door and led me there, I notice how the neighbors too are leaking, in fact, there is a huge flood coming from their balcony down on top of our apartment, I tell Mother, this is only going to make the situation worth, the neighbor, not usually polite, apologizes and says that the cleaning lady was washing the balcony. How could she, why would she, why didn’t you stop her, questions that ring in my mind, but go unspoken. I busy myself again with the problem of fixing our own leak, to no avail.

(15)

April 29, 2000

            [This dream was preceded and proceeded by too many dreams, including a feature dream. Some of my dreams had a political slant of late,, I even dreamt of the President again, but, for the life of me, I cannot remember anything about that dream. Good thing it wasn’t a nightmare.]

            I am standing on a bridge over the Orontes. It’s raging, its waters are plentiful, it seems that the rainy season in Hamah was good this year [was it?], or at least this was the conclusion I had to draw in the dream, and it was, indeed, confirmed by a local who was there to receive me. I am supposed to go see the governor of Hamah, [being my mother’s son, I guess]. I try to stop a taxi, but all the ones I see, for some reason refuse to stop, well actually, I wasn’t standing in the right place, I was still on the other side of the street. I finally get to the right side, and I see an old car driven by an old man, but it doesn’t stop for me, the old man signals that he is off-duty.

            At this stage, my father shows up, I greet him, we are not going to the same place, he is going to the hotel, but we decide to take the same taxi nonetheless. He manages to catch up with that old taxi, and the driver perhaps seeing that my father was old stops to pick him up. I get the feeling that he wouldn’t like it when I end up sharing the ride. For some reason my father rides on the driver side, in front, and the old driver simply moves to the passenger side, and my father, who I had know no idea he could drive a car, ends up driving the car.

            He isn’t any good, and he drives fast, too fast, he used to drive 54 years ago, he says…

[The old driver, by the way, was none other than Abû Hassan, an old neighbor of my grandmother’s. His house was just next to hers, we used to visit his family quite often. He was a retired judge, and the father of a few children, males and females, including the beautiful Nermine who liked to flirt with me when I was young, though she was three or four years my senior. Of course, she quit school at a certain age, and took on a veil, not very rigidly though, and then got married to someone who worked in Saudi Arabia, I think.

Anyway, Abû Hassan, or rather his wife, noting how much I enjoyed reading, once gave me a book that documented certain court cases. There was a lot of raw violence in, it gave me nightmares for a longtime to come. This was no movie, these stories were real. Abû Hassan’s wife knew how to read and write by the way, which was quite unusual for a woman of her generation, she used to read the newspaper for the sake of her female guests, to flaunt her ability rather than educate and that annoyed my grandmother, she didn’t like her much.

But why am I dreaming of Abû Hassan now? Does it have anything to do with The Whore with the Trillion Vulvas, part of which account is based on my recollection of Abû Hassan and his family?”Well, what other explanation is there?]

When Abû Hassan, who was just a driver in the dream heard that my Dad hadn’t drove for so, many years, and seeing how he was driving, he politely asked him to let him out. Of course, this was intended as a joke, Abû Hassan was not the customer and my father was not the real driver, so my father understood that Abû Hassan wanted to change places with my father, so my father pulled on the breaks, and…

The car rammed against a wall, but only the right front headlight was damaged, I wasn’t hurt, neither was Abû ‘Hassan, still my father keeled over the wheel, and died.

[I don’t think I often dreamt of the death of my parents or one of them. I daydreamed about that more often in that macabre fashion that was designed to prepare one for the eventual, I guess. Perhaps I am worried because my father is diabetic, though, otherwise in perfect health, internal health that is, the vital organs are in good working condition. Still, my father has recently been re-appointed as the General Director of the National Foundation for Cinema, he doesn’t like that job, it’s giving him a lot of headache, but, it also rejuvenated him, so, I don’t know. I did catch myself over the last year, peaking at him when he was taking his afternoon siesta, checking for visible vital signs, I used to do the same thing when I lived with my grandmother, she had died in her sleep like her husband, and she had often reminded us that that was how she wished to die herself. I think my father has the same wish, his younger brothers died before him, one suddenly and as a result of a hit-and-run, and the other in the aftermath of a long sickness, so that leaves my father to carry out the family legacy of dying in one’s sleep. I hope he gets to do that, but not too soon. I still need him.

My father passed away on January 17, 2004 at the age of 73, diabetes having quietly gnawed at his insides, until nothing was working anymore.  In the span of one month, following his the end of the Damascus International Film Festival, in which he was honored one more time for the last time, he suddenly developed hearttroubles and had to undergo a triple by-pass surgery that seems to have been a success for all practical purposes, except that this kidneys and liver simple stopped functioning. It was his time, I guess. There was nothing we could do. His brief period of illness gave us, his immediate family, and him, enough time to absorb the reality of his inevitable passing. As such, even in death, he was mindful of the people around him, and of their needs.].

 (16)

May 4, 2000

             Dream 1. I am in a Syrian military camp, we are doing some exercises. There is a girl in a tight white jeans and black shirt that is getting my attention. After the end of the session, we go to some large dining hall, we climb a staircase, with the un-avowed intention of finding some isolated spot so we can kiss, we fail. We go back to the hall, we find it empty, we kiss there.

             Suddenly, I get transported into a large courtyard, I am lying on a cot on the side watching TV, there are two girls standing in the diagonally opposite corner, they keep on watching me, they are interested, and one of them in particular dressed in a white polo T-shirt gets my attention, they are standing behind a rope. I am watching a soccer match between Syria and some other country, they use the game as an excuse to talk to me, and we chat for a while. After the third such a session, and after Syria’s 8-1 victory, I finally find the courage to go to the girls, and chat with them, I am devouring the girl in white T-shirt with my eyes, she seems to welcome the attention. The dream ends.

             Dream 2. I am standing in my grandmother’s kitchen, in her old Arabian-style house, she comes and starts putting some clay on the door to prepare it to get painted, I take over from her. after a while my late younger uncle arrives with the actor James Stewart, my uncle in the background, seeing that we were busy, they don’t stay long, I continue to paint.

(17)

 May 8, 2000

             She is very beautiful on dry land and we make love, but when we get into the waters, she turns into a she-ghoul, and she tries to devour me, I eventually mange to kill her, and save myself. [This is a recurrent theme for me.]

             [In Aleppo, I had a dream about my parents getting divorced, I take my father’s side in this, apparently my mother had allowed some guy to shower her too much with his attention, although no betrayal takes place, and there were no intention or real threat of that, still, my father is incensed. Eventually, though, my father and I decide to straighten things out with Mother. This is a very strange dream. There is nothing in the offing about this kind of situation, but then, it’s been over six weeks now since she left to Jordan, and it will be more than three before she returns.]

(18) 

June 21, 2000

[For a long time I couldn’t remember any of my dreams, it was as if there was something inside of me fighting against remembering. In fact, there was. I don’t know what it is, I don’t understand why, but I know it exists. Well, whatever it is, it loosened its hold on me a  couple of nights ago, and the result was that I remember this one dream from the many I had. Also, the President had died on June 10. ]

             I was on a ship, a large commercial type ship, I was with M.A.. The ship stopped for some routine, though we were in the middle of the sea, I and M.A. left it and landed on a small plastic float shaped like a big punching bag. There were other floats and boats around us, but we didn’t pay any attention to them at this stage. Perhaps we didn’t even become aware of them until later. There were some sharks around us, swimming around the float. At one point, M.A. decides to swim in a shark free area, I stay, I don’t remember if I had any plans to join him.

             I notice at this stage, that there is a shark climbing onto my float, a small one, and a bigger shark coming behind him somehow riding on another bag, but it is coming towards me. I feel afraid, but the only way to avoid them was for me to face them, to go towards them, I do, and they ignore me and pass by me without paying me any attention. At this stage I notice two things: the float is being dragged away by a boat, and the ship is about to sail. M.A. is somehow on it, I don’t think he was left in the waters. There was nothing I could do to draw anybody’s attention, I was afraid, I don’t know where the people on the boat were going to take me. There were many other boats, pulling many other floats away, but I was the only man on a float. I was afraid. But all of the sudden, I wondered, why can’t I think of this as an adventure? It is nice to have adventures? Perhaps I was meant to have a different path from everybody including my closest friends.

             [M.A. went down to the streets on the day of the President's funeral, while I was forced to watch it from the balcony and on TV, for I had to cover the event for a foreign embassy. Could this have anything to do with understanding this dream? Be that as it may, two years later, M.A. and I parted ways].