Addisu Hailegiorgis Desta

When I took this portrait picture, my only focus was about the angle and the shallow depth of my shot at the time. But when I looked at it after a while I started to wonder “What my baby might be dreaming about in the picture?”; and I said probably about his mother? The picture accidentally tells that; especially the blurry mother and white curtain at the back, right? He is with her most of the time breast feeding, burping, and watching her being silly and talking to him with something he may not understand. But I do really think that my four months old baby sometimes dreams. We often see him laughing or sobbing while he is in his deep sleep. That is really weird. All I can guess is that probably he is recalling times that we made him laugh and cry. He may be recalling our silly actions and stupid noises to make him laugh. The weirdest thing is though when I watched “Discovery Channel – In the mother’s womb” that even babies in their mother’s womb dream a lot. They haven’t seen anything yet but they dream. Don’t laugh but I feel like I remember a dream that when I was continuously falling in the infinite space where I just kept falling. But I don’t know if I was a kid or in my mother’s womb when I dreamt that.

I used to dream a lot when I was younger; but sometimes nightmares. Most of the dreams are a recall of the day activity. There are also nightmares when a dog or a cat or a big chicken chasing me. That could be a recall of “Jibu Meta – Teret”. The worst part is when I suffer with the so called “Dukak” when my neighbors do some kind of ritual activity when I was 14 years old. The city I grew up, Debre Zeit, is known for such kind of cult activities such as sacrificing animals and even children to the lakes. Even to this date there are still ritual activities every year and they call it “Erecha”. That was the age that I started to realize about the evil spirit, accepted Jesus and then started to read the bible. So before I went to bed, I used to pray a very short pray and if the “Dukak” comes during the night I call upon the name of Jesus Christ. It was amazing to the see the power of His name at that time.

But these days, I am not dreaming that much except too much daydreaming. My daydreams are about my poor country mostly. I couldn’t feel established here in Canada while thinking about my society and my people back home. But then I really feel depressed when I think my daydreams are not more than just a wish that are not going to happen. I have seen many people saying they have a dream about something. I refrain myself from using a Martine Luther King Jr. kind “I have a Dream …” speech. But at least I have witnessed his dream became true after four decades.

Speaking of King’s dream, was it a dream like Joseph and Nebuchadnezzar in the bible? His “I Have a Dream” speech of August 1963 represented a defiant political position embedded in religious expression. Probably, he just wanted to present his speech as a dream when he addressed for the people. But for sure it was gift of imagination from beyond. I said this because his dream is not like my daydream; a daydream that is just a wish or projection. However, his speech after his death reaches forward in sanity, continuing to generate a restless and uneasiness with the way things are until the dream comes to fruition and true. Even though this “dream” speech came to him in a moment during the night, it was definitely a product of his study of suffering in his black church.

Finally, there are funny kinds of dreams I hear from some Christians when it comes to relationship. They say they dream about her/him. I don’t know how that could be true but when I tried to review dreams in the bible, it is a way that God uses to communicate with people. Apparently, God also gave us the Holly Bible to tell us how to live. Anyway, Ecclesiastes 5:7 says “For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.” and I realized that there are many voices in the night and not all them noble.

Now, it’s your turn to share your dream experience…..