certain that I’ve woken up, or if I’m only dreaming the lake and the cabins and my dogs trotting beside me. And to tell you the whole truth, sometimes I’m not even certain it’s my own dream. No, you didn’t mishear. I’m not sure if it’s my dream, or if someone else is dreaming me. Who? I don’t know. If I did …
I remember my grandmother used to say that you don’t always dream your own dreams. For instance you can dream the dreams of the dead, that they didn’t manage to dream in their lifetime. Or the dreams of people who haven’t yet come into the world. Not to mention that according to my grandmother dreams can sometimes pass from person to person, house to house, village to village, town to town and so on. Sometimes they can even get lost. One person in some house was supposed to have a particular dream, but actually someone else had it. Someone in the village was supposed to have a dream, but it ended up being dreamed by someone in the town. Someone in this country, but it was dreamed by someone in a distant place. So it’s quite possible I’m having someone else’s lost dreams, and that’s why the dogs sense it right away and wake me up when I’m having that kind of dream.
I should tell you too that my grandmother was known to be an expert on dreams. There wasn’t a dream whose meaning she couldn’t explain. Not just in the family. Neighbors came from near and far, from both sides of the Rutka. They came from other villages. Old folks, young ones. Unmarried women, wives, Doubting Thomases. They’d seen the world, but they came when one of them had had a dream that was too much for them. And grandmother would explain everybody’s dreams. When she explained them, every dream became clear as waking life, as if it were simply something the person had lived through but overlooked. She’d have them provide some small detail, because people don’t pay enough attention to details. And that detail would sometimes alter the meaning of the dream from one thing to another, from good to better or from bad to not so bad at all. Or even that the dream was meant to have been dreamed by somebody else, because one detail was from someone else’s life.
Every day over breakfast we’d each have to tell her what we’d dreamed about. And it couldn’t be that no one had dreamed anything. To sleep through the night and not have any dreams? The only exception was grandfather, who never had any dreams. It’s hard to believe, right? Even us children, we always dreamed something. Though according to grandmother our dreams didn’t count yet,because we still got our dreams from our mother or father. She’d say that you only grow into your own dreams through suffering.
You can’t imagine how many dreams she knew. When we were shelling beans she’d tell one dream after another, as if she was pulling them out of the husks. Dreams that belonged to the living. Dreams dreamed by the dead. The dreams of kings, princes, bishops. I remember one time she told about a king who dreamed that a pearl fell out of his crown. No, she didn’t say if he’d actually come to her for an explanation of what the dream meant. But I believed he had, and that he’d brought her the pearl in the palm of his hand. Aside from me, I don’t know if anyone else believed it. Grandfather did for sure, because he believed every story grandmother told. Though it made no difference whether anyone believed it or not. When you’re listening, especially during bean-shelling, you don’t have to believe in what you’re listening to. It’s enough that you’re listening. For me in any case, my heart would stop when grandmother would begin, saying, one time a king had a dream, a prince had a dream, one night a bishop had a dream …
Everyone would be enthralled, whether or not they believed it all. It would go so quiet that if it hadn’t been fall or winter, you could have heard a fly buzzing. Mother and father, Jagoda, Leonka, even Uncle
I remember my grandmother used to say that you don’t always dream your own dreams. For instance you can dream the dreams of the dead, that they didn’t manage to dream in their lifetime. Or the dreams of people who haven’t yet come into the world. Not to mention that according to my grandmother dreams can sometimes pass from person to person, house to house, village to village, town to town and so on. Sometimes they can even get lost. One person in some house was supposed to have a particular dream, but actually someone else had it. Someone in the village was supposed to have a dream, but it ended up being dreamed by someone in the town. Someone in this country, but it was dreamed by someone in a distant place. So it’s quite possible I’m having someone else’s lost dreams, and that’s why the dogs sense it right away and wake me up when I’m having that kind of dream.
I should tell you too that my grandmother was known to be an expert on dreams. There wasn’t a dream whose meaning she couldn’t explain. Not just in the family. Neighbors came from near and far, from both sides of the Rutka. They came from other villages. Old folks, young ones. Unmarried women, wives, Doubting Thomases. They’d seen the world, but they came when one of them had had a dream that was too much for them. And grandmother would explain everybody’s dreams. When she explained them, every dream became clear as waking life, as if it were simply something the person had lived through but overlooked. She’d have them provide some small detail, because people don’t pay enough attention to details. And that detail would sometimes alter the meaning of the dream from one thing to another, from good to better or from bad to not so bad at all. Or even that the dream was meant to have been dreamed by somebody else, because one detail was from someone else’s life.
Every day over breakfast we’d each have to tell her what we’d dreamed about. And it couldn’t be that no one had dreamed anything. To sleep through the night and not have any dreams? The only exception was grandfather, who never had any dreams. It’s hard to believe, right? Even us children, we always dreamed something. Though according to grandmother our dreams didn’t count yet,because we still got our dreams from our mother or father. She’d say that you only grow into your own dreams through suffering.
You can’t imagine how many dreams she knew. When we were shelling beans she’d tell one dream after another, as if she was pulling them out of the husks. Dreams that belonged to the living. Dreams dreamed by the dead. The dreams of kings, princes, bishops. I remember one time she told about a king who dreamed that a pearl fell out of his crown. No, she didn’t say if he’d actually come to her for an explanation of what the dream meant. But I believed he had, and that he’d brought her the pearl in the palm of his hand. Aside from me, I don’t know if anyone else believed it. Grandfather did for sure, because he believed every story grandmother told. Though it made no difference whether anyone believed it or not. When you’re listening, especially during bean-shelling, you don’t have to believe in what you’re listening to. It’s enough that you’re listening. For me in any case, my heart would stop when grandmother would begin, saying, one time a king had a dream, a prince had a dream, one night a bishop had a dream …
Everyone would be enthralled, whether or not they believed it all. It would go so quiet that if it hadn’t been fall or winter, you could have heard a fly buzzing. Mother and father, Jagoda, Leonka, even Uncle
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