Moving and Memories

Have you ever woken out of a dream in which you had been in a place where you previously lived?  Such dreams are not uncommon.  They were also the framework drawn upon by Marcel Proust to begin his masterwork novel Remembrance of Things Past.  The author tells of how, sometimes dozing in and out of sleep, he would awake disoriented, not sure at first where he was.  He easily imagined for a moment that he was in a childhood or other earlier bedroom. As Proust wrote, "When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years."

Such dreams fascinate me because they express so well how making sense of new experiences and challenges involves placing them within the context of something we already know.  New situations, particularly demanding ones, can be disorienting, just as Proust was momentarily disoriented.  Drawing upon abilities we already possess can help us orient ourselves in less familiar situations -- just as the dream of a familiar room and walls reveals our subconscious's drawing upon something deeply rooted within us.

Thinking back upon our lives, if we have lived in more then one location, we can recall times of transition that entailed moving.  Some moves can be exhilarating; others can be frightening. Leaving for college can be an exciting, hopeful time despite its uncertainties.  Being forced to move because of divorce is inevitably stressful, the atmosphere of a failed marriage suffocating for the time any joy that once was.

Reflecting upon this matter of moving leads me to thoughts of those non-human animals that must make frequent moves.  Twice a year, thousands of wildebeests make a mass migration covering many miles of East Africa.  Annual migrations by bird species, usually north and south, are an integral part of their lives.  Historians have sometimes employed the world "migration" to describe the movement of groups of people as they relocated, but those human "migrations" are in most cases once-in-a-lifetime, in contrast with the demand that instinct places upon such animal species every single year.  Nevertheless, in that instinct lies salvation, protecting the species against too severe weather, and offering the hope of food ahead.

I wonder if animals who migrate have dreams of previous homes.  I do know that researchers in laboratories have been able to detect through brain waves that rats dream about a new task they were challenged with the day before.  Birds are not as biologically close to us as such mammals, but might they also be dreaming of flying when their wings flutter while asleep?

Ecologists speak of "niches" in which species have evolved, finding their place in a life-giving way.  Human beings, try to find their place spiritually in relation to a Higher Truth or Power. Thousands of years ago, one ancient Hebrew, going to the temple for spiritual reorientation, looked up and was encouraged to see that the temple had also provided niches in its walls for nesting birds:

"How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD....

Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself,

 where she may lay her young."

~~~

Have you ever made a move that entailed not just relocation but also growth?

(The Proust quote is from the opening chapter, "Overture," of the first book, Swann's Way,

 in Marcel Proust's 1913-1927 opus, trans by C. K. Scott Moncrieff, © 1928.)

(The quotation about the temple niches is from the Hebrew Bible [Christian New Testament], Psalm 84:1, 3 [NRSV])
(Photo of wildebeests, by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.)