Visions: Dreams from Night and Day

Today ended with a vision and began with one. Wednesday morning was marked with the waking from a double dream (Inception anyone?), a vision that left me a little shaken up until I had finished breakfast. The condensed version involves a garage-door opener, a brawl with my friend’s father in the back of his car, and a tumble from the moving vehicle onto the pavement. This fall caused me to awake inside a larger dream of me laying on the floor at a summer camp after falling of my imaginary bunk bed, nose bleeding and body bruised. While the other campers offered looks of concern, my girlfriend appeared, greeting me with laughs and no offer for help; I woke up in reality feeling confused, relieved (my body was still in one piece), and a little sweaty.

On a very different note, the highlight of today’s exploration of Greece was our tour of the Acropolis Museum, a perfect way to cope with the bitterly cold and rain weather. It was here, looking into the glass-cased floor that framed an ancient Byzantine city (the museum was constructed in such a way that it did not damage with the ruins below), where I experienced a different kind of a vision.

These villages have not always existed in a glass case; people actually lived there. I was able to imagine people walking through the shallow alleys, traveling from house to house, greeting neighbors and friends. Museums have often proven tricky for me because I forget that all the pieces, exhibits, etc. haven’t always existed in such a vacuum, and thus this kind of experience came as a great surprise to me.

Moreover, this sort of “vision” brought me to another realization. American culture is tormented by what I would deem a “temporal ignorance”; we are obsessed with the immediate and present. The first example that comes to mind is the processing and end result of eating a meal at a fast food restaurant. In general, our minds seems to be so narrowly focused on one thing: this double-cheese burger and side of fries tastes good. I would be the first to admit that any pondering of where this hamburger came from, how it was cooked, how the packaging came to be, etc. is generally nonexistent. And thoughts about future implications of this purchase (health issues, economic concerns, and waste management) are similarly absent.

The tour of the Acropolis museum was something much different. I caught myself beaming with curiosity and questions, explaining to myself (I was a little too shy to ask questions) how the marble was transported from its quarry, how the marble was shaped into its present form, how the artist was compensated for his work, and many other thoughts.

All in all, I hope I can have more of these “visions” (and less of the Inception-like dreams) while exploring the ancient landscapes in and around Greece.