Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

When I was little, I used to have the same recurring dream…I was Indian Jones, whip and all. I, as Indy, just stole the treasure, replacing the weight with a bag of sand. Though I thought I succeeded, that great big ball started to chase after me. Shocker. Each time I would wake up right before the ball almost squashed me. I never made it to see the Lost Ark of the Covenant; I don’t even know if I made it out of the cave.

This dream isn’t random like most dreams. I watched Indiana Jones a lot as a kid, mainly because we had all three movies on the classiest form of technology ever invented, VHS—plus, my mom has a thing for Harrison Ford (whom I like to refer to as Hans). Indian Jones infiltrated my life. I had to suffer through my brothers continually telling me to “cover my heart,” while one of them would yell “Kali ma, shakthi deh,” and try to rip the organ out of my chest cavity, which always ended up as a failed effort. I say that I had this dream because I have seen the greatest cinematic achievement known to man quite a bit, when in reality I just watched Full House one too many times. The same thing that happens to me in the dream happens to Steve (whom I like to refer to as Aladdin) on stage when the family travels to Universal Studios. But that’s neither here, nor there. Moral of the story Indy has affected my dream world, and I don’t know if I like it.

I refuse to believe that we dream every night. I know that any Psychologist/person interested in science, blah, blah, blah, would want to slap me in my face. And you know what, I’d slap them right back. I can never remember my dreams; therefore, I refuse to believe that I am actually dreaming every night because I like to believe that I have the memory of an elephant. So for me to have a recurring dream of being Dr. Jones is extremely unusual. It isn’t the being Indy that is unusual, it is the recurring aspect.

Every time I would be carrying the whip, escaping skeletons popping out of the cave walls, I would always experience an enormous amount of panic because I woke up too soon. I never knew what my fate was. What if I never made it to the Temple of Doom…

This fear of not knowing affects me in my conscious state as well as unconscious. I am controlled by the anxiety of not knowing what is in store. I don’t appreciate change. I like having everything planned out. I don’t like when giant obstacles come from nowhere and start chasing me. That’s not fun.

But it’s a part of life.

Indy embraces the unknown. So at the end of the day, even though I embody Indy physically in my dreams, I need to learn how to embody Dr. Jones mentally in real life. Which isn’t a bad thing, maybe there will be some interesting adventures along the way.