THE DREAM BIBLE

THE DREAM BIBLE MA AUDU/HANDS What is time when you live on Desire?

How do the hours pass and the seconds loom?

The days grow legs and walk into the night.1 In the year 9091 of our Desire, Hello.

I am writing to you from the continent Desire, the end of which is called Distaste. I am what you would call a ‘Dream’, a body made with skin fed by Ma Desire (formerly Earth), bones bound with wind, and hair watered by River Durera which runs across and within. I have no name - I chose no name and did not settle at my Shapening2. I am sometimes referred to as Calm Hands, Soft Palm, Shaved Sides, and so on.

You may call me Hands.

1 From “History of Desire: A Collection of Post-Disaster Poetry, from 4705”, located in the libraries at the House of History, Section Lavender (Formerly N. Africa) 2 The ‘Shapening’ is a coming-of-age ceremony where a young Dream is given the option of ‘settling’ on a body.

This process involves workshops/classes on the types of bodies and their uniqueness. Many Dreams do not settle, for that means choosing from two sets of organs, one for reproduction and one for pleasure. Those who do not settle retain this ability to swap out organs according to profession and situation. The swapping of non-settled organs as well as the settling process is a body modification requiring a 2 week ‘gestation’ period spent in round homes built in the middle of town. Here, the Dreams are monitored through their changes, and all are introduced to society as a new Dream, sometimes with a name change.

I am an apprentice at the House of Learning - there are 6 houses: House of Unlearning, House of History, House of High, House of Happiness, House of Home. My house focuses on researching all there is to learn - from how 2+2=4/1+1+1+1=4/3+1=4, to using a bucket vs animal shedding bag to fetch water, and so on. We are sometimes called the House of Miscellanies because we tend to jump from topic to topic, fuelled at the endless possibilities of being there are.

I am focusing on sleep, on the absence of what our people are called – ‘dreams’. We Dreams do not have need to sleep, and we are able to take naps. Deep sleep is irrelevant to us as doing so means closing your eyes and laying very still; I personally do not enjoy sleeping, but I do appreciate the weightlessness with which I always awake. As if I’d disappeared from existence only to be brought back with a snap. But I do not dream, and I wonder: what happened to rob us of the ability to sleep and be transported elsewhere? I hypothesise that there is nowhere left to go; the Old Ones dreamed because they were under a constant self-inflicted state of decline, something started by the ancestors of the Nightmen, the Ytmen.

We lost dreaming in the year of Disaster 20653, when Ma Desire purged her skin of us. In a blink, major cities began to crumble, the weight of buildings cracking the very earth they’d stood on for years and falling deep into it. Those of us who survived lived on the outskirts, on the coastal areas, and so when Ma Desire sent her waves4 next, we pleaded that she spare us the grief of hating our home; we could not bear the trauma of being afraid of the ocean. In time, the 3 Chavez, M., Pérez Gabaldón, M., Tunney, C., & Núñez García, S. (2017). Dilution of Accountability and Transparency in the Flint Water Crisis: A Case of Institutional Implosion. Norteamérica, Revista Académica del CISAN-UNAM, vol12(1), p11-52.

The beginning of the Disaster 2065 was first recorded during the Flint Water Crisis, which was taken official note of on April 25, 2014.

continents dotted with holes broke apart and scattered far and across. Many of my people were already on Desire, those with cities just small enough to be too light to sink. There was war, the longest war from Disaster 2065 to Post-Disaster 4000, and when the war was done and everybody was tired, then we began to rebuild.

My research follows original dreams and their possibilities; I want to know if our abilities speak to their nature, and if maybe they had also been as solid as we are. I am also researching the nature of nightmares, the anxieties that made their way into humans even when they were asleep, and their relation to the Nightmen. We know Nightmen are still able to have nightmares, and they have used them as training field for battles. Nightmen can die in these nightmares, they are not for the ‘weak’ (what Nightmen call those they do not understand).

KWASIADA (Sunday, Day 12) EDWOADA (Monday, Day 13)

4 Freeman, H. Katherine, Ashley, M. Gail, Magill, R. Clayton. “Ecosystem variability and early human habitats in eastern Africa” vol10 (January 22, 2013) p1169/(Edited by John M. Hayes, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Berkeley, CA, and approved November 12, 2012 (received for review April 25, 2012)) “Marine sequences are often indirectly or too poorly constrained in time to infer relationships between key junctures in human evolution and terrestrial conditions or change (6). Lithostratigraphic patterns in lake margin sediments at Olduvai Gorge reveal five episodes of lake expansion between ca. 1.85 and 1.74 Ma, suggesting that lake level changes may have tracked orbital precession (43). Here, we use sedimentary organic matter signatures in high-resolution and temporally well constrained lake sediments to evaluate the magnitude and timing of ecosystem changes associated with lake level changes.”

6:00 (Index and middle finger, touch forehead-tongue-earth) Awake, my Desire, and my dreams within me.

Awake, my Desire, and my dreams within me.

Never shall I fear, for Desire lives within me.

It is harmattan5 season, a time in which the air grows cold and the dust flows across Desire.

Since Disaster, the dust has not come the same way; we hear stories of how the call of crickets signaled its coming, and how fireflies used to dance in the dewy morning grass. The crickets are no longer here, and the fireflies dance no more; now, a gentle grinding ripples under our feet, as if the desert is filling her lungs with dry heat.

12:00 (Index and middle finger, touch forehead-tongue-earth) Desire, help me find balance between the rising and the setting.

Desire, help me find balance between the rising and the setting.

Desire is my balance between the rising and the setting.

My skin cracks from dehydration. I can hear my Ma Dream scolding me for not having a water bottle. I make a note to use the next coconut root I see; my parents told me stories of coconuts that soft and white on the inside, while hard like a nut on the outside. They said there 5 Okeahialam, Basil N. “The Cold Dusty Harmattan: A Season of Anguish for Cardiologists and Patients.” Environmental health insights vol. 10 143-6. 29 Aug. 2016, pp1 “The Harmattan season usually occurs between the end of November and mid March. Over the period, dry dusty northeasterly trade winds blow from the Sahara desert over the West African subregion to the Atlantic Ocean.”

was a ‘milk’ you could drink from it, a milk that wasn’t creamy and always refreshing. The coconut roots, as we call them, that I have grown up with were round with stone-like shells and nothing in the center but coolness. I enjoyed harvesting these shells when they were the right size, because they are used to chill items for hours. The House of Home specialises in attaching braided metal on either side so that it may be swung across the shoulder and carried. My friend, Stolen Smile, had taught me how to make such a bottle, and the memory of them made me grin.

Drat, that’s another smile of mine they’ve taken. Damn you to Disaster, Stolé.

18:00 (Index and middle finger, touch forehead-tongue-earth) Rest, my Desire, and give me wings on which my dreams can fly.

Rest, my Desire, and give me wings on which my dreams can fly.

Rest, my Desire.

EBENADA (Tuesday, Day 14) WUKUADA (Wednesday, Day 15) YAWOADA (Thursday, Day 16)

6:00 Awake, my Desire, and my dreams within me.

Awake, my Desire, and my dreams within me.

Never shall I fear, for Desire lives within me.

I spread my blanket on the soft grass, my forehead dripping with sweat. Today, I was going to nap, and hopefully I would dream

There was once a people who lived where the Nightmen hide, on the Southern tip of Desire, separated from us. These people were known as ‘Xhosa6’, and they did a lot with dreams.

They believed that dreams were not only ways to receive messages from the unconscious, but also from the spiritual7 and the dead. They used various practices such as dancing, meditation, self-induced trances (day-dreams, perhaps?) and ingesting of substances with naturally occurring psychedelic elements. I think of my most recent ancestors, those who have passed on to become one with the trees and ash. I close my eyes and attempt to day-dream; my mind wanders just far enough before questioning itself.

“What world is there to imagine,” I ask.

“If the purpose of dreaming is to escape, does it require having something to run from?”

“What is the purpose of dreaming?”

This cannot be going well; there is no way humans endured these many questions before drifting off. I slow my breathing and concentrate on my lungs – I just completed a gestation period specifically for the purpose of widening my lungs. I have travelled to the House of 6 Booi, Beauty N. and Edwards, David J.A. “Becoming a Xhosa healer: Nomzi’s Story.” Indo=Pacific Journal of Phenomenology vol14, (2014) pp1-12 7 Bogopa, David. “Health and Ancestors: The Case of South Africa and Beyond”. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology vol10, (May 2010), p4/47

History, located on the North-Western tip of Desire, and I have lost myself in their libraries.

There are writings from Pre-Disaster, where the Old Ones linked breathing to action and thought.

If I am able to control my breathing, I should be able to control how I slip in and out of consciousness, and perhaps how to dream as well. I close my eyes once more and allowed my breath to run through my body. I could feel it trickling out through my pores with each exhale, and the blades of grass brushing against me startled me. I immediately felt exposed, vulnerable; how was I to relax and escape if doing so meant danger? I began to think; maybe the Old Ones dreamed easily because they slept easily.

I opened my eyes and looked around me, around the House of Learning. The House of Learning is east of River Durera, tucked underneath the capital city of Durera. It is a large and marvelous place, with buildings of glass and metal blending with those of mud and grass. We live according to comfort, and we have placed large fields of grass all over the House of Learning so that any may stop to rest. It is a bustling town filled with the hum of the dam near one of the branches of River Durera. I can hear birds and I see the scurrying feet of furry creatures. I can also hear the Devotion Market, a sound that almost drowns out the dam.

Although I am quite aways from it, the atmosphere from the Market make their way over to me.

12:00 Desire, help me find balance between the rising and the setting.

Desire, help me find balance between the rising and the setting.

Desire is my balance between the rising and the setting.

I lift my index and my middle finger to my forehead, “Desire, help me find the balance…” Then to my tongue, “Desire…” Then, I touch them to the earth, “Desire is my balance…” After reciting my Salat, I close my eyes and lay back on the blanket. I go back to when my lungs felt full and my skin felt alive; I listen to the sounds of the Market, the dam, the tiny feet and the whistling breeze. I imagine that I am all these things – nothing but sound. I am in the Market and I am sniffing spices piled high in baskets, and tracing lines in textiles studded with precious stones. I am sinking my toes into the fine sand of the Market floor when I realise no, I am on my blanket, in the middle of a field.

I have day-dreamed!

Elated, I turn my head towards the sky and thank Desire.

“You are my balance!” I cry.

18:00 Rest, my Desire, and give me wings on which my dreams can fly.

Rest, my Desire, and give me wings on which my dreams can fly.

Rest, my Desire.

EFIADA (Friday, Day 17) MEMENADA (Saturday, Day 18)

INTERVIEWS

Stolen Smile, from the House of Home, located at the webbed edge of W. Desire Stolé, let’s make these as official as possible, okay? I want to give a good report back at the House.

Probably shouldn’t call me Stolé, eh? (groan) I’m starting over. (laughter) Hello, my name is Hands, and I am talking to Stolen Smile.

Hello, Hands.

I’m not doing too well, am I? Feels forced?

I’m your friend, Hands, just talk to me. You want to talk about dreams, no?

Yes! Dreams! Have you had any attempts at finding them?

When I was younger, yes. Definitely before I settled. I would lay on the ground and keep very still, till I remembered stillness cannot exist where there is life. I wondered if when the Old Ones dreamed they stopped ‘living’.

I have wondered that too. The mechanics of dreaming don’t seem realistic. Only recently was I able to complete a day-dream.

You day-dreamed?

Yes. Whoa. How was it?

Okay, I’m the one asking the questions, but I’ll tell you that it was extremely frightening. I couldn’t see or focus my hearing, and my skin was sensitive to everything.

Seems…not…ideal.

Hardly. Would you give it a try?

Right now?

In general, I meant. But I’m open to keeping watch if you were willing to be vulnerable in my presence. (pause) (mumbling to self) I’m sorry, Hands. I wouldn’t try it. As safe as you make me feel, I don’t know where I’ll end up.

I understand. I ended up in the Market, only because its noise filled my brain.

I may end up on the Fragments8, I just returned from there and it’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about. Maybe if I visited somewhere worth escaping to, then I would let my mind leave without my body. That’s what is terrifying, isn’t it? The thought of going places but you’re still here.

It doesn’t scare me as much, to be honest, now that I have day-dreamed.

(It’s now 18:00, and the young Dreams make their final Salat of the day.)

Woven, Like Dry Grass, from the House of Unlearning, west of River Durera

8 The Fragments are located at the Northern tip of Desire, where former Morocco used to be. They are called “Fragments” because of how the earth is shattered, and most of it submerged underwater.

I’m surprised you came all this way to see me, Calm Hands.

It’s just Hands, and crossing the river is no big deal for an old friend.

Ah, you mock me. “Old”, you say? I’m just entering into being an Elder Dream; you should come to the ceremony9.

I will. Have you ever dreamed, Woven Like Dry Grass?

I will first say that these are not new questions to me. Many like you have inquired about the nature of dreams. You are the first to succeed at day-dreaming; don’t look so surprised, Desire sends news to me on her winged winds. I will then say yes, I have dreamed. I have never been able to day-dream, but in my youth as a fresh Dream, I once indulged in certain substances that quite literally knocked my lights out. Close your mouth, young Hands. You see, I was sitting with my friends in a circle, sharing from a pipe. One moment I was there, the next moment I was travelling through Desire before she was Desire; I saw huge mountains, Hands, mountains that spewed fire and ash. I saw animals with long necks and longer mouths, and fish with rows of teeth so sharp you could cut yourself on the memory. I couldn’t feel myself, and that’s when I knew I was dreaming.

This is…incredible. I don’t, I don’t know what to say anymore. You’ve never told me about this.

You’ve only just asked, Hands.

Do you have any more of this substance?

9 Some Elder Dreams celebrate their official coming-of-age as an Elder. This could be in the form of a new name, settling a single body part, or a taking a gestation period without making changes. Elders are from 30 to 60 years of age.

(deep laughter) If you’re really interested, you will have to travel to No One’s, the land formerly known as Madagascar. There, they grow all types of things – bitter, salty, sweet, sour – that you can test out for yourself.

(I think of the travel to No One’s. I think of my commitment to finding more ways to dream. I may be addicted, but this is an experience I want to chase down.)

I can’t go alone; will you come with me? It would be an honour to dream with you. (pause) Very well.

ABOUT DESIRE and MA DESIRE

MA’S PRAYER Muradinmu 10wanda ke chikkin Samma, A tsarkake sunanka, Mulkinka shi zo, 10 The original word here is ‘Ubanmu’ which means ‘Our Father’, however it has been revised to ‘Our Desire’ which is the word seen here Wohlers, C. (1908). Addu’a ta Safiya: The Book of Common Prayer in Hausa. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Nigeria/hausa1908.htm

Abin da ka ke so a-yi shi Chikkin duniya kamma yada a-ke yinsa chikkin samma Ku ba mu rananga abinchin yini.

Ku gafarta mana laifinmu, Kammar yada muna gafarta ma wandanda su ke yi mamu laifi.

Kadda ka kai mu wurin jaraba, Amma ka cheche mu dagga Shaitan Gamma mulki, da iko da girmo naka ne, har abada, Amin.

5 Pillars a) Shahada (profession of faith) – ‘There is no Dream without Desire’ b) Salat (prayer) – in Durera, prayers are made thrice a day, with index and middle finger from either hand (touch forehead, touch tongue, touch earth) 

6:00 – ‘Awake, my Desire, and my dreams within me’



12:00 – ‘Desire, help me find balance between the rising and the setting’



18:00 – ‘Rest, my Desire, and give me wings on which my dreams can fly’

c) Zakat (alms) – giving to one another, emotionally/physically d) Sawm (fasting) – only the House of Happiness fasts thrice every seven days, from the first ‘Salat’ and second e) Hajj (pilgrimage) – Dreams make ‘hajj’ to Durera when they are still a ‘fresh’ 

Birth-11 years – fresh Dream



12-30 – young Dream



30-60+ - elder to ageing/aged Dream

Desire is the former continent of Africa: 1. Former Northern Africa or ‘Lavender’ -

House of History - literally looking at the history of Desire, history of Dreams

-

House of Happiness - looking at how Happiness is defined and maintained

-

House of High - looking at how to see with more than eyes

2. Former Eastern Africa, split into ‘Rose’ and ‘Caster’ -

‘Rose’: House of Unlearning - how can Dreams move forward/where to move towards

-

House of Home - a rest house; you do not need to perform/do anything

-

‘Caster’: House of Learning - anything and everything, from the important to irrelevant

-

Capital City of Durera

3. Former Southern Africa, or Disdain, which is where the Nightmen live 4. Former Madagascar which is unnamed yet habited

10 Commandments of Desire 1. There is no Dream without Desire 2. Desire is for all to have, except the Nightmen, who have rejected truth and live in shadow 3. Everyday is a day of Desire, Yawoada11 is the day Desire gives to you 11 Boamah, Asante Daniel. Akan Indegenous Religio-Cultrual Beliefs and Environmental Preservation: The Role of Taboos. MA, School of Religion at Queen’s University, 08/2015 from Boamah (42): “…because Thursday is set aside as Asaase Yaa’s day, it is seen as a sacred day; Akan/Twi names of days: Edwoada, Ebenada, Wukuada, Yawoada, Efiada, Memeneda, Kwasiada

4. Honour those who are your Elders; they have seen many Suns and will show you to many more Moons than they’ve seen 5. All Dreams are one Dream; do not take life which is yours 6. All Dreams are one Dream, and some Dreams have chosen to be with others 7. Ask, and Desire shall give 8. Speak, and Desire shall listen 9. Desire, but without pain 10. Desire, but without malice

BIBLIOGRAPHY Chavez, M., Pérez Gabaldón, M., Tunney, C., & Núñez García, S. (2017). Dilution of Accountability and Transparency in the Flint Water Crisis: A Case of Institutional Implosion. Norteamérica, Revista Académica del CISAN-UNAM, vol12(1), p11-52.

Freeman, H. Katherine, Ashley, M. Gail, Magill, R. Clayton. “Ecosystem variability and early human habitats in eastern Africa” vol10 (January 22, 2013) p1169/(Edited by John M. Hayes, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Berkeley, CA, and approved November 12, 2012 (received for review April 25, 2012))

Okeahialam, Basil N. “The Cold Dusty Harmattan: A Season of Anguish for Cardiologists and Patients.” Environmental health insights vol. 10 143-6. 29 Aug. 2016, pp1

Boamah, Asante Daniel. Akan Indegenous Religio-Cultrual Beliefs and Environmental Preservation: The Role of Taboos. MA, School of Religion at Queen’s University, 08/2015 Wohlers, C. (1908). Addu’a ta Safiya: The Book of Common Prayer in Hausa. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Nigeria/hausa1908.htm

Wohlers, C. (1908). Addu’a ta Safiya: The Book of Common Prayer in Hausa. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/Nigeria/hausa1908.htm

Canby, S. (n.d.). The Five Pillars of Islam. https://www.metmuseum.org/learn/educators/curriculumresources/art-of-the-islamic-world/unit-one/the-five-pillars-of-islam