Psychosynthesis

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'He's dreaming now,' said Tweedledee: 'and what do you think he's
dreaming about?'

Alice said 'Nobody can guess that.'

'Why, about YOU!' Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly.
'And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?'

'Where I am now, of course,' said Alice.

'Not you!' Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. 'You'd be nowhere. Why,
you're only a sort of thing in his dream!'

'If that there King was to wake,' added Tweedledum, 'you'd go
out--bang!--just like a candle!'

'I shouldn't!' Alice exclaimed indignantly. 'Besides, if I'M only a sort
of thing in his dream, what are YOU, I should like to know?'

'Ditto' said Tweedledum.

'Ditto, ditto' cried Tweedledee.

He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn't help saying, 'Hush! You'll
be waking him, I'm afraid, if you make so much noise.'

'Well, it no use YOUR talking about waking him,' said Tweedledum, 'when
you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're
not real.'

'I AM real!' said Alice and began to cry.

'You won't make yourself a bit realler by crying,' Tweedledee remarked:
'there's nothing to cry about.'

'If I wasn't real,' Alice said--half-laughing through her tears, it all
seemed so ridiculous--'I shouldn't be able to cry.'

'I hope you don't suppose those are real tears?' Tweedledum interrupted
in a tone of great contempt.

 ....Alice Through the Looking Glass

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That I have a psyche, that too a highly skewed one, I knew from my age 3. I didn't need Freud to analyze it for me. You too would have a psyche if you were the sole brother of six sisters with a baton-wielding-HM-father. 

It all started when my didi refused to go to school when she attained the age of 5...unless I accompanied her to her Girls Elementary School. I was then a mere 3 and didn't know. So, I was first an accomplice to my didi and next an escort to my younger sister when she started making trouble at home early. All in all I was the only boy in a school with about 100 girls for a good 3 years. 

All I can say about my mind-wrenching childhood experience without being politically incorrect is that girls are different. And very curious.

My psyche developed angularities then on that persist till now.

I became moody and introverted and subject to a deep-seated persecution complex. 

And started dreaming day and night. That is not a good thing even for those who Dream of a Final Theory.

That dreams are a weird mix of the waking and the sleep states is obvious to everyone, I suppose...but I don't know. My wife claimed that she never had any dreams; none. At first I didn't believe her. But by and by I got convinced watching that she had no REM. She would be awake this moment and fall into deep sleep the next. And the reverse happened after precisely seven hours. And she would straight get up like a child and go to work in the kitchen. And she never had any of the dozen odd complexes I was always subject to. Perfectly sane, she was.

But I guess that is rare.

That what was happening in the waking world intruded itself into the dream world was repeatedly clear to me when I was living for seven years in the humid and hot seaside city of Vizagh during my university years. I had a folding cot which was a hyperbole for two hollow bamboo poles with a gunny sack cloth tied to them. And two sets of wooden crosses at each end.

Every night I used to carry the damn thing outside our home and onto the street and launch it on the kerb and tried to sleep despite mosquitoes and bed bugs. And as I fell asleep fitfully dreaming of movies and restaurants (deprivation complex), out of the blue, I dreamt that I was being dragged under a bathroom shower (mania). And suddenly I would wake up and discover that I am all wet since it had been drizzling for a good five minutes.

So, I had to haul the cot inside and try to go to sleep again. Failing which, I look out and find that the rain had ceased and so I carry the cot back on to the street. And just when I was beginning to enjoy the color movie Navrang, folks suddenly dragged me back under the bathroom shower (compulsion).

Anyway, this morning I accompanied my son to drop Ishani at her school...something that I thoroughly enjoy. And as we were turning back, we were greeted by the Principal of the school (who had given me that bouquet for the booklet):

http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/12/boquet-for-booklet.html

We exchanged smiles and my son and I returned home. 

And I went back to my fitful sleep.

And then we were visited at our home by the Principal and her husband who brought us a huge big cake as a gift and seated themselves on our sofas and demanded politely that they wanted a copy of one more of the Ishani booklets.

I was so pleased that I ran into my bedroom to bring down the bag of the booklets I had safe-kept for Ishani to show them off to her friends as mementos from her granpa when she grows up.

But couldn't find the bag. 

I searched the whole almirah turning it upside down and found every other knickknack except the bag of booklets. 

And I hailed my D-i-L in to help me with my search. And for the next half hour we both were upsetting everything in the room from top to bottom and found a long-lost copy of my Scarlet Pimpernel. 

But no bag.

And I started crying with tears in my eyes.

And suddenly I woke up to find that fumes were streaming into my bedroom from the kitchen.

D-i-L was busy frying red chillies...


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