Section Thirteen

Night Writing: A Dream Journal

Once Chuang-Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly, fluttering around... Suddenly he woke up

... But he didn’t know if he was Chuang-Tzu who had just dreamt that he was a butterfly,

or a butterfly now dreaming that he was Chuang-Tzu.

— CHUANG-TZU

The image that comes to mind when [think of this girl [herself ] is the image of a fisherman

sunk in dreams on the verge of a deep lake with a rod held over the water. She was letting her

imagination sweep unchecked round every rock and cranny of the world that lies submerged

in the depth of our unconscious being.

— VIRGINIA WOOLF (oN hER EARLY WRITING)

Dreams and Reality

The Talmud tells us, ‘A dream that is not understood is a letter that is not opened.’

There is a well—known story about Rabbi Ben Isaac of Krakow. In a dream a

messenger told him, ‘If you go to the city of Prague and dig under a tree at the

emperor’s castle, you will find hidden treasure.’ So he went to Prague. But the

castle was heavily guarded and he couldn’t get in.

Every morning he walked around the castle. One day the captain of the guard

asked him what he wanted. Ben Isaac told him the story. The captain laughed,

shook his head and said, ‘Dreams are foolish things. I had a dream about a poor

rabbi who came from a village like yours. And if he dug up his own hearth lie

would find a treasure hidden there.’

The rabbi thanked the captain, went home and dug beneath his fireplace, where

he found the treasure.

Ancient cultures can enrich our understanding of dreams. And challenge our

notions of what we constitute as reality. The butterfly dream of Chuang—Tzu

who lived around 300 BC does this. ‘The Dinka of the Sudan have an animistic

understanding of dreams. ‘A Dinka believes his own memories and day dreams

to be external to himself, as external as the hills’ (Dillard 1989:88).

Many South Africans honour the importance of dreams. Vera Buhrmann has

written a book, Living in Two Worlds, drawing a parallel between Jungian analysis

which deals with dreams and Xhosa traditional healing (1984). Buhrmann writes,

‘The two worlds I am concerned with are the Western world which is primarily

scientific, rational, ego-oriented and the world of the Black healer... which is

primarily intuitive, non-rational or orientated towards the inner worlds of

symbolism and images of the collective unconscious’ (1984:15).