DREAM
I'm in Korea with my mom and dad, and my dad is completely falling apart in a severe psychosis in the hotel room. I tell him he needs to take some of my medication. I don't expect him to accept, but he does, so I give him two of my pills for a double dose.
I hope I can get away with sharing my medication. Can I just get a refill whenever I want, or are they going to restrict the number of pills I can get?
To my surprise, he clears up right away, and we can move on with our vacation.
I meet a pretty young girl and I make some kind of small talk. I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying, because I'm not saying anything profound or relevant. I'm just talking to fill the silence. Shooting the breeze. Making conversation. Being friendly.
We walk around and look at the neighborhood. It looks like a lot of young people are going to a rave in a nearby building.
My parents and I stop and have a seat for a while at a table in a mall with outdoor seating. We share the table with some young Korean men. When they get up and leave, and I see a brand new cell phone in some plastic wrap. I don't know if it's ours or not. I think it's a complimentary cell phone that the mall leaves all vacationing people. So I take it.
We leave, and I open up the cell phone and turn it on. Right away, I see that it's an activated cell phone. I get a text from someone who is resentfully complaining about a foreigner. They are clearly quoting me. It's the pretty young girl from earlier! She's talking about how outrageous and rude and insulting the things I said were, and how I should never have said them.
I'm distracted by things we have to do in person, but I keep thinking of texting back and either apologizing or giving this girl a piece of my mind--I haven't decided which.*
*(I just wanted to add a little afterthought here. Although in the dream my feelings were divided between speaking gently or harshly to this girl, I think the right thing to do in a situation like this is to take the softer-hearted choice. Generally-speaking, I think that taking the softer path leads to a happier life. I first heard that idea from Dr. Kirk Honda on YouTube, and when I look back on my life, I believe he's right about that.)
INTERPRETATION
I think this dream is running me through a topic that has been on my mind a lot for the past year. And that is: you never know how the things you put out into the world will be received, whether that's the things you say, or the things you do.
That's because people have the freedom to think whatever they would like, which is a small miracle. It might be the biggest blessing in any person's life. It's amazing that you can think whatever you want and no one can stop you. But the price to pay for that is that you will be judged, because the people around you also have the freedom to think what they will about you.
I think it's worth it.
And I think it's important not to take thoughts--any thoughts, but especially thoughts like judgments, too seriously. Think of all the ridiculous things that go through your head in any given day. There's no good reason for a lot of those thoughts, if not most of them. And other people have silly thoughts all day like that just like you. We're all just hallucinating this reality through the 3 lbs of jelly in our skulls.
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