My name is J.N, and I learn at GCE lab school. For a class, I take WAI(Who Am I), which teaches philosophy, philosophers, history, and much more. Wha we had to do for our action project is that we had to create a dream catcher, and symbolizes what the dreamcatcher represents. What I am mostly proud of is that I worked on creating the dreamcatcher in a different style than most dreamcatchers in my class. I hope you enjoy my explanation.
When think of a "great creator" or "a force of nature", one thing came to mind. I have always had the idea that life was not centered around ghost, spirits, or even god. But rather, it would mainly be between cause and effect that we presume is something spirital or magical. For example, if a very religion person was almost killed by a bullet out of nowhere, they would somewhat say that god wanted them alive. To myself, that is simply not the case. There were certain factors that lead that person being alive, without us recognising them. It could have been that the shooter was a lazy shoot, or that he had a second thought do to past experiences. Either way, it's more possible for someone to change their mind about shooting someone, rather than a spirits moving the bullet in an angle farther away while defining the laws of physics. Which is why my center of my dream catcher is a die. It represents cause and effect mistaken for unexplained forces at it's best. One could say that the die rolling on a retain number would be consider luck, but in reality, it would be how fast the person's arm movement is, how heavy the die is, and what is the distance the die was thrown, resulting in loss of energy. The die is supposed to represent math and science mistaken for magic or luck.
How my dreamcatcher is shaped also helps with my idea of math and science being the true force of nature. My dreamcatcher(unlike others) is shaped like a pentagon. It represents two things: separation of traits, quality of the dream.
"Separation of traits" is supposed to represent the relationship between the colors on my dreamcatcher. As you can already see, the main colors are red, yellow, orange, purple, and black. Each has a certain trait that I want my dreams to have. Each dream I want needs to have morals or lesson that my psyche is trying to tell me. This theme would have to be a trait from my personality. This allows the dream to be more familiar and easy to understand. For example, the color red represents determination or passion. If I dreamed about something or someone being determined, this trait would follow me until the end of my dream, trying to teaching me a lesson about being a better person. The same idea is with all the colors on the dreamcatcher. Yellow represents cheerfulness, orange represents enthusiasm, and purple with creativity. Each one represents a certain dream that must mainly have this trait in order for the lesson to work. The final one, black, would be my last resort to learning a lesson if I refuse to understand it. If a dream or multiple dreams couldn't teach me a lesson, then the black trait would need to come in. Black is supposed to symbolise depression, death, and darkness. Black would be the trait that wouldn't create a wonderful dream, but a dark nightmare. The reason black has to exists on my dream catcher is sometimes a person needs a bad experience in order to learn something. If I was stubborn to learn this lesson, or didn't gain the lesson at all, I would rather suffer multiple nightmares, then to not learn anything at all.
"Quality of the Dream" is another reason why the dreamcatcher is shaped the way it is. Between the colors or "traits" of the dream catcher, there are golden. Then, there also the spider net, which is also a golden color. Gold is supposed to represent quality within an item. So, when creating the dream catcher, I thought that in order for it to be successful, it needed to have some quality. This is why their are five points within my dreamcatcher. These gold points represents quality, but separates the other traits from mixing within each other, allowing focuses on each dream to have an individual trait. The dream catcher also has the sides each evenly measured, so that each trait could have an equal, but large amount of influence on the dream. Yet, depending on which part of the pentagon it's on, is used more and less. For example, red or yellow would be the traits in order to teach me a lesson the first since it is at the top, while black is the last to teach me since it is at the bottom.
When I was eleven, there was this dream that was the main inspiration with for the dream catcher to bring nightmares. It starts of with my friends in a circle, playing a sort of game. We were near a church site, and it was snowy. My sister was in the background, reading. Eventually, she walked out on us to a near by gate, and left without a trace. After an hour, my mother told me to find her. I was walking around, when I found red snow. I followed it, and as the more I followed, the more I saw of human remains. I eventually got to the edge of a dark ally way that didn't have much length to it. Right there, I saw my sister, and the remains off what she once was. Her face was torn, and you could see her flesh, as if she didn't have any skin on it at all. The dream then faded into a church room. Where my mother was wearing funeral clothes, and at the middle of the back of the church, stood a coffin resting on a marble table.
This dream is was so memorable. It felt so real, that after I woke up, it was hard to realise that it was fake. When I was eleven, my sister ignored me, and sometimes called me idiot. Not only that, but most of the time, she would admire my younger brother like he was a prince. She would always look at me as if I was some kid that ruined everything. I always wondered why couldn't she like me more. I always wondered if she hated me. I felt like this dream was trying to ask me this question in order to learn a lesson "Would you really be happy if she was gone?". I had always been questioning if I loved my sister, and I never got a true answer from myself.
My reaction to this dream proves that, no matter what, I will always love my sister. I wouldn't enjoy her being gone, I would be terrified. I don't remember having dreams like that anymore, but I wish I did, because it was not my ego controlling this, but a mixture between my id and my superego. The id being that I love my sister as family, and the superego telling me that I wouldn't enjoy her being gone. I feel like their was no ego, there was no comprise, only a trait a mystery and dread throughout my dream. I feel like this dream was, possibly, the most important dream of my childhood. This is why I want nightmares that teach in dreams. I want to have a nightmare to teach myself to become a better person. I would like to have more of these dreams. I would like to have more of these nightmares.
Citations
"Color Meaning" color-wheel-pro.com Feb 27, 2017
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html
J.N "Dream Catcher" Own Work Feb 27, 2017
J.N "Dream Catcher 2" Own Work Feb 27, 2017
