Aug. 16th, 2007 05:31 pm
What dreams may come
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muckefuckI'm rather surprised that I haven't dreamt in Chinese yet. Not in the sense of that being a sign of fluency--I don't remember dreaming in German even when I was speaking it every day. But my dreams are very driven by my daily anxieties--oversleeping, getting lost, being attacked by aliens before my mutant powers can develop, things like that. For at least the last year, I've frequently dreamt of trying to communicate with someone in a non-native language of mine. Earlier this week, for instance, it was Spanish and I was in a supermercado trying to buy a particular sort of pepper. (I did pretty well except for inexplicably calling them "pepitos" instead of "pimientos".)
Often, it's the last thing we were thinking about before nodding off that becomes the most prominent theme in our own midnight movies. These nights, the last thing in my hand before I turn off the light and take off my glasses is generally a Chinese book of some sort--a grammar, a dictionary, a volume of short stories. Granted, my anxiety over the China trip is low level, but it's always present; everytime I have some sort of minor complaint, the thought is I hope this clears up before China or I hope this doesn't happen to me during my vacation. You'd really expect that to translate into dreams where I'm arguing in Mandarin with a hotel clerk or desperately trying to negotiate the sale of a block of Chinese cheese without being able to remember the words for anything dairy, but it simply hasn't. Odd.
Often, it's the last thing we were thinking about before nodding off that becomes the most prominent theme in our own midnight movies. These nights, the last thing in my hand before I turn off the light and take off my glasses is generally a Chinese book of some sort--a grammar, a dictionary, a volume of short stories. Granted, my anxiety over the China trip is low level, but it's always present; everytime I have some sort of minor complaint, the thought is I hope this clears up before China or I hope this doesn't happen to me during my vacation. You'd really expect that to translate into dreams where I'm arguing in Mandarin with a hotel clerk or desperately trying to negotiate the sale of a block of Chinese cheese without being able to remember the words for anything dairy, but it simply hasn't. Odd.