It’s about 4 AM and I’m awake for a number of reasons. First, simply because I’m sleeping on the two seat dusty crummy sofa, as my mother is visiting and has my bed. Second, the air is still and the room is too hot as the heating pipes in the ceiling of my basement apartment, are radiating with heat. Third, a deeply satiated but unhappy belly filled to bursting with a heavy Sichuan lunch and a vegan shwarma for dinner. So I’ve been up since about 1 AM, first attempting to watch Cyril Schäublin’s new film Unrest and then giving up to get a bit of sleep before waking up later in the night to find a novel piece in The Guardian about recent revelations on Peter Wright’s Spycatcher. This is an attempt to make a habit out of writing down thoughts on sleepless nights.
Dreams
I thought the piece on Peter Wright’s novel was well written and looked up the author of the piece, Caroline Davies, other pieces when I found her piece on Freud and Latin America exhibit at the Freud Museum in London. I would love to see how Latin America (and African Latin doctors) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries received Freud, particularly in regards to the study of dreams. It has been a long while since I read anything about the study of dreams. Early in my twenties, fresh on my spiritual journey in London, I had come across Gyrus’ Dreamflesh and read his posts on James Hillman which appealed to me considerably. I went through a phase of reading Hillman and even went to Gothenburg around 2009 for a dream conference. This was partly also inspired by looking into Jung after having read his forward to Wilhelm/Baynes’ I Ching.
Reading Davies piece on the Freud Museum exhibition, on a sleepless night seemed strangely fitting as I’ve only just returned to Boston from having visited both my and my partner’s family all over Virginia for the past two weeks with both of us having a string of peaceful nights of sleep filled to the brim with vivid and fantastical dreams. Failing to write any of them down, all of them have flowed out of our memories and forever lost!
It’s been a very long while since I’ve looked into the study of dreams. I dropped my interests almost as far back as 2010 when I first learned about Nisargadatta Maharaj from a comment in one of Phil Hine’s post. Where, immediately after I went to Watkins Bookstore, which had only recently reopened from going under for a few months, to get a copy of I Am That. I vividly remember the cashier saying to me, Oh, Nisargadatta, he’s like a machine gun….. I immediately sat down to read Nisargadatta in a trance like state, straight out the shop, on the bus ride home from Watkins where after I would embark on a decades long journey contemplating Advaita and Buddhism.
Unrest
Unrest (2023) trailer
In a bucolic Alpine setting, Cyril Schäublin’s new film finds a serene battleground emerging between socialism and industrial capitalism
Corey Atad
I’ve been meaning to watch Unrest for the past few weeks but had to wait untill I returned from holiday travels. I was thrilled to see that it’s available on Mubi, a subscription that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed for several months now and has distracted me to the point of uselessness from pouring on me, heaps and heaps of fascinating cinema. The quote above is taken from a review of Unrest published in Mubi’s Notebook, of which I received my first subscription (Issue 4) just yesterday. Having only watched the first 30-40 minutes, I can say that the film beautifully captures the intricacies of artisan labour set against breathtaking beautiful Jura mountains. Feeding my curiosity over the past year of learning instrument repair and construction.
That’s it for now but I will return to write a few reflections of thoughts that came to me during my travels. However, I cannot end this without also mentioning Princess, the white mule that lived on the farm next door to my partner’s parents in Victoria, Virginia. I had run over as soon as I spotted her and she responded to my call. I met her every morning during my stay and she greeted me with a powerful bray each time!
Laks
6 AM
Boston, MA
The Uncertain 
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