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| Meow. |
The Japanese have this old superstition concerning the first dream of the new year- they say that it is extremely good luck to dream of Mount Fuji, a hawk, and... an eggplant, for who knows what reason. Oh. Wiki says that there is a reason. I won't bother elaborating.
A more recent interpretation of the superstition is that, if memory serves me right, new year dreams- otherwise known as hatsuyume, will come true. Then again, that sounds a little risky for anyone to declare out loud- even superstitious folk probably wouldn't believe in it- so I guess it's that good, pleasant dreams will result in a relatively good year, and conversely, bad dreams will result in bad luck for the rest of the year. This is probably derived from the fact that a good dream would equal to a good start to the year...
On to my dream. I wouldn't call it good, but I wouldn't call it bad either. Weird would be a better word. So weird that I couldn't be bothered to make sense of it when I woke up. Does that mean that 2010 will be a confusing mess for me? Blast. Luckily, Wikipedia offered some help:
Hatsuyume is the Japanese word for the first dream had in the new year. Traditionally, the contents of the dream would foretell the luck of the dreamer in the ensuing year. In Japan, the night of December 31 was often passed without sleeping, thus the hatsuyume was often the dream seen the night of January 1. This explains why January 2 (the day after the night of the "first dream") is known as Hatsuyume in the traditional Japanese calendar.
Aha. That means that I still have a chance to try my hand at this game. Come on, give me a good dream tonight! Preferably one about a romantic encounter or a foreign escapade. Then again, I'll be staying up late to do an essay, as lectures resume on Sunday, and as Saturday will be the last day of my holiday, I'd like to sleep early for once- then again, the essay is only due on Tuesday. Yeah, I think I'll just do it on Monday, haha. I've procrastinated long enough, so what's the harm in further delays, eh?
I haven't spoken about a single dream so far, and this post has been categorized under Dreams. I'd better talk of a recent one, then. Here goes (it's pretty short)- in the first scene, I was at some mountain resort- the only one this country has (that I know of) is Genting Highlands, but it looked a little different. Now I haven't watched the movie 2012 yet- and don't really intend to watch it, actually- but the mountain got flooded. I climbed up a telecommunications tower and waited till the flood waters subsided. When I got down, no one seemed to care a jot about what had just happened...
The next scene had Barack Obama, along with his entourage of press officers and secret service agents , pitching up tent in front of my house. Air Force One was parked down the road. The whole place was a whirl of activity, with people buzzing around- and there I was, groggy and dazed, wondering what in blazes was happening. I wonder how they parked the plane, though- maybe they smashed a house or two.
Well, that's that. Happy new year to you, whoever you may be. And try and be nice to tigers this year. Perhaps you could leave them a bowl of milk or a certain someone who's been getting on your nerves (tied up, unconscious) on your doorstep so they don't massacre your livestock. That said, "rawr!"
Update: Ruined my chances at getting a decipherable hatsuyume. I slept late, after watching Mr. Bean's Holiday on TV- I couldn't resist, I just like Sabine (click here for a brief, brief review)- and then a short while watching Jackie Chan's 'Accidental Spy' (it was about to end). I didn't go to bed after that- visited some blogs, did some commenting, and after that, played some old-school Pokemon on my phone. I couldn't sleep. Not a single wink- probably because I'd slept earlier during the day, and the can of coffee I had while watching Bean. To make things worse, I developed a massive headache along the way. One Panadol pill helped to get rid of it, to a certain extent (the last one remaining- hallelujah). Sometime around 5am I heard rhythmic moaning from the loudspeakers of a distant mosque- my last chance of falling asleep. No luck. Around 6am the birds came out, chirping insanely. I finally gave up when some insomniac nutter started playing Kenny G music. Finally managed to get some sleep- around 8.45am till noon. No dream, though.
Obama was camping in front of your house? That's so out of nowhere.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have a dream last night. But I think it's kind of funny that they don't count it until the night of the first, since technically it's already the first after midnight. But I guess, if they don't sleep, they can't dream anyway. What day do the do shrine visits then? Is that also on the second? I know anime isn't a realistic interpretation, but I've seen shows where they go visit the shrine, and they're talking about their first dreams.
Thats quite an awesome dream!I never had a president pop up in oe of my dreams so far.I rarely do dream anyways or I rarely remember them however you wanna put this.
ReplyDeleteWhen I dream its usually a big mess XD
So the first dream of the year will come true?Im thrilled for my first dream :P
Lets combine your dream wof a romantic encounter and foreign escapade to a romantic encounter during an foreign escapade ^^
@Blow: Thanks! Just try, and I'm sure you'll remember some. Here's a tip: write it down the moment you wake up, even if you need to rush to the loo or have a sudden urge to surf danbooru for ecchi pics- it'll help a lot:D
ReplyDeleteBig messes can be fun! Most of my dreams are weird jumbles of nonsense, haha. Hopefully that doesn't mean that that's how our year will turn out to be, lol.
Combine both? That's what I thought... can't hurt to be greedy in situations like these, haha.
Aw man, that kinda sucks. :S Sleep is good!
ReplyDelete"The Japanese have this old superstition concerning the first dream of the new year- they say that it is extremely good luck to dream of Mount Fuji, a hawk, and… an eggplant, for who knows what reason." --> The bizarre thing is I know this from Haruhi-chan. Sigh. Yuki is cute as an eggplant tho. XD
I couldn't sleep on the 1st either -- and I had work early in the morning on the 2nd, too. No dreams this time. My last dream of last year was bizarre and rather disturbing, but what else is new..sigh.
@Jenn: I knoww~ that's why my 'resolution' (never adhered to previous ones) is to sleep early more often than late.
ReplyDeleteEh, you know that from Haruhi? Strange, I don't remember it. Guess it must have been from season one. Did a Danbooru search but only found one pic, but she does look cute^o^;
Acht, that's too bad. Hope you didn't fall asleep during work, heh. Bizarre and disturbing, eh. There, there. I'm sure the bizarre-yet-entertaining ones are just around the corner:D
Well, I didn't have any dreams on the 1st, but I've been having all kind of weird dreams since. I had two last night. Well, one last night, and another this morning after I woke up early and went back to sleep. In the first one, my parents were having some kind of argument. And for some reason I was sneaking around to wash my hair or something...like I wasn't allowed to be in the shower? I don't know, it was odd.
ReplyDeleteIn the other, I was some sort of secret agent, and I was in love with the guy who was leading our group. But he was kind of cold, aloof and distant (classic lead shojo male, lol), and I felt like he was ignoring my existence. There were two other girls with us, girls I went to HS with, and I remember one specifically, but I can't recall the other anymore. We were supposed to make contact with some group, but had to go shopping first because the guy needed more plain clothes. Then they find us first, and basically capture us. They take the guy off for questioning, and I think he was being tortured in weird, not very effective ways, but he was totally toughing it out without any expression. I think his name was Jacobin. And the natives made me their god or something, and put me in charge of a field day event. The winner got to do something good, so I tried to get them to let me put Jacobin in there, to free him, but he was "busy." So I put together some basketball team, with a bunch of people I figured would suck at basketball. And put this little runt of a girl in charge of one of the teams, so she could build a good team and win.
Then I woke up. I have NO idea what that was all about, but I do think the guy liked me too, because we were walking through some field after shopping, before capture, and he put his arm around me. But I was totally weirded out and thought he was just screwing with me anyway.
One of my more bizarre dreams....
@Kris: Ah, high drama revolving around a frivolous theme for the first half, and a romantic spy thriller for the second? Sounds like fun, hehe.
ReplyDeleteYou can always over-analyze your dreams. For the first half, maybe it's your subconscious telling you to cut down on washing your hair- high utility rates, maybe? Haha.
Hey, I had a dream which was almost identical to your second half a few years ago! Well, a little different- I was some military officer or something, working on a large aircraft, in love with this guy (yeah, I was the girl), who barely knew I existed, and was surrounded by hordes of admirers. Or the feelings were mutual, but he was a incorrigible flirt. I don't remember:3
Jacobin- such a... cute name, haha. Oh my. I wonder what 'being busy' meant. Was he with the other two girls? It sounds like dream-you knew that, got irritated, and started the baseball team to distract yourself, but just couldn't forget about Jacobin, and made a crap team, haha- a logical enough interpretation of a bizarre dream, I suppose;)
Lol, no, I should probably wash my hair more often actually. Sometimes I get lazy, or it's really cold, and I skip a day. I usually wash it at night, so if it's really cold, I don't want to go to bed with wet hair. Similarly, if I saved it to wash it later, but had to go outside and do laundry, I don't want to go outside in the cold with wet hair.
ReplyDeleteI really have NO idea why I wasn't either allowed into the bathroom, or to wash my hair, or whatever. I can't even remember what they were arguing about anymore either.
I think the name Jacobin came from...a Casanova movie. But I think he ended up with that name because I'm playing Assassin's Creed 2, and it's a distinctly Italian name.
Oh, no no. The two girls, my friends, were with me the whole time. He was "busy" being tortured, or whatever they were doing. I can't remember if it was just really absurd and pointless torture, or if he was just totally unfazed. Because it didn't seem to bother him a whole lot. It was totally out in the open too. We were in a gym I think, and he was just kind of off to the side behind everything, with some kind of enormous device that did different tortures.
@Kris: Haha, same here. It's the rainy season now- it shouldn't be, I think, but world weather is out of thwack anyway- so it's usually too cold to wash.
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Try and google Jacobin- you'll get some interesting results. There's the Jacobin Club, birds, the Jacobean era... the first looks like the most logical choice. So it seems that you were in love with a political radical:D
Heh, the poor guy. Or not, since he doesn't seem to mind. Out in the open? It sounds like he was being tortured (albeit ineffectively) for the entertainment of gym-goers- maybe the 'tension' it generates helps them to lose weight more easily, haha.
Well, we WERE spies. So political radical isn't much of a stretch. I'm not sure who we were working for though.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was out in the open, as in not behind a wall or closed doors. But I don't think anyone except the people operating the machine and asking him questions were even paying attention. Like it was this totally normal occurrence and no one cared.
@Jenn: I thought that most spies would be apolitical, but perhaps somewhat patriotic. I guess there can be radical spies, though their agencies probably consider them to be live-grenades:D
ReplyDelete@TJ: What? It's been one week already? Well whaddayou know;) Haha, hopefully your dream doesn't come true. Oh, and nice LJ theme you have there, by the way;)