Corpus Animus

Last night was an odd one for me- once again plagued by weird dreams. In this case it was a dream of riding on a 5-ton truck- actually on the trailer hitch. But this wasn't in itself strange, I've stood on trailer hitches before, just never while the truck was moving. At any rate, this dream was strange because my right hand had been missing. Not really a problem, as I had learned a way to graft the body parts of the recently dead into and onto my own body. So the hand I had was not originally my own, more a kind of makeshift one- it was larger than my original hand, and evidently I had seen fit to replace the internal parts (bones, tendons and nerves) before putting skin over it. My hand was criss-crossed with stitches of a heavy black thread, holding a patchwork of skin onto the hand. It didn't quite fit right, and would occasionally shift around, producing a sensation I won't relate here, as it was far from pleasant. Discussing the hand with some of my fellow trailer hitch riders, I told them that swapping out organs was no more difficult than replacing a carburetor. In waking life, I've never had to replace a carburetor, either. But I remember saying that the one thing I wouldn't do was replace a brain- too complicated and too dangerous. Besides, there would be about a billion nerve connections that would need to be replaced. The brain and spinal cord can be seen as the seat of consciousness and will- motion in the body originates in one of these two places, either deliberate or reflex. (Reflexes are in the spinal cord- apparently a shorter distance for the nerve signals to travel). At any rate, the brain is also in many ways the seat of consciousness.
So now we get into the symbolism of the dream- the hand missing and replaced was the right hand- symbolic of the conscious mind and willpower. (the left hand is considered symbolic of intuition and the subconscious mind). The fact that it was replaced and grafted on tells me of a need for change in the way I relate to the world, or perhaps a new perspective on how I'm getting things done. It could be something as simple as changing a habit, or something along those lines. The fact that I could change out organs tells me of a pervasive change, one that goes "deep inside" me. The fact that I'm doing this, rather than having it done to me, tells me that I'm in charge of my own destiny, my own outcomes- else it would be someone else performing this radical and invasive surgery on me. Surgery carries a strong Freudian connotation of thanatos, destruction or death, so perhaps it's a message of either self-destruction or tearing down to build up again. I like the latter better. The fact that it was less than a pleasant experience points to the fact that change is not always pleasant, but when it comes, it's almost necessary, so we should learn to deal with them as best we can. Apart from that, it could be that I just have an overly morbid and gruesome imagination. Then again, dreams tend to be filtered through the imagination and symbolic lexicon of the dreamer, so perhaps both are true.