2007年11月10日土曜日

Killing a Giant White Ant

I saw a very spooky dream last night. don't know what it means but I feel my unconscious mind wants to suggest something to me and it is important. If not, I would not bother to write it down, anyway...

I was in a bathtub. As I was fully clothed, I guess I was cleaning the bathroom. When I rose my eyes , I found a big white ant (not a termite) of the size of a big cockroach climbing on the outer wall of bathtub. It was coming to me. I felt a big fear that was irrational but familiar. I don't like any insect with large eyes.

So I decided to kill it with insecticide. My wife, who was crouching on the floor of that bathroom fully clothed, also noticed the unusually big white ant and told me to kill it. But she also told me to use the insecticide that was harmless to vertebrates. Maybe it was because we had a cat.

But I could not find a bottle of the right insecticide spray. So I told my seven-year-old son, who was in the living room, to bring me that bottle. However, as he was so slow and the gigantic ant was coming toward me, I grabbed a bottle of multi-purpose cleaner and sprayed it on the ant. I thought it contains surfactant and would choke the ant. Anyway, I was scared and wanted to get rid of that insect right away.

Sprayed the chemical, the ant caused an enormous amount of bubbles and grew bigger and bigger. It was so frightening but I could not do anything but watch.

Finally, the ant turned into a man, lying on the bathroom floor. He looked like somewhere in his mid-30s but I did not know who he was. When he regained (gained for the first time?) consciousness, I sprayed the cleaning fluid on his face. He protested but could not make himself understood. Anyway, I wanted to kill him.

I don't exactly know why I wanted to kill him even after he became a human. Perhaps I was not sure whether he really became a human. I would not feel not much guilt if I was killing a giant ant of the size of a human. But I did feel guilt of killing. Yet I continued spraying the chemical cleaner on his face. I also felt that the cleaner would kill an ant but not a human.

When he fell unconscious again, I stopped spraying on him. I covered his body though I was not sure whether he was dead or alive, then I left the bathroom. I had to go somewhere and was in a hurry. I worried that it would be troublesome if the police found the ant-man's corpse but I had to leave home, anyway....

Then the dream ended.

After waking up, I pondered about this dream. I am still pondering while I write this. Some words have popped up in my mind so far. The word list includes "collective", "unconscious", "mindless", "automaton" and so on. Was my killing of the ant was some kind of egocide (killing of the false part of my self)? I don't know. But I am sure that this dream at least solved one of my lingering problems; now I can add something to this blog. (I simply could not write anything even though I had a very strong desire to write something...)