Dream Remix: The Dive

Nasruddin-Dream

Week before last I had a marvelous dream. It was the first dream about my being in the Community of Practice of Experiential Learning practitioners. In the dream, several colleagues were personified as dream characters. The dream seemed to wrestle on my behalf with some fairly charged psychological aspects of my involvement over the past year and a half.

Because of the concrete personifications, I can’t offer as I usually do the unfettered dream. I have come up with an alternative that doesn’t replay the dream as much as recontextualize and remix it while versioning it as a tale about the wise fool of Middle Eastern folklore, Nasruddin. There was no donkey in the actual dream.

***

The Dive

Nasruddin had been asked to present his “Theory of Yin & Yang” to a group of eager students.

Nasruddin, standing in front of the group, waits for the cue to begin his presentation. But, something is wrong. His donkey has not arrived with important books and materials.

A student raises her hand, and interrupts to tell Nasruddin:

“Sir, we’ve already been talking about this because your donkey was last seen walking around the reflective pool by the museum.”

Nasruddin asks her, “Did the donkey have the books?”

“Yes, the donkey had the books. But, I know the donkey will be late too because she got half way around the pond, stopped, and dove right in and made a bee line toward pure experience.

NAsruddin is taken back and starts to feel confused. But, at that moment, the donkey walks in, dry, and happy to see Nasruddin.

The donkey walks up to Nasruddin.

He leans over and whispers to the donkey “Did you really dive in?”

The donkey shakes her head, “No.”

Nasruddin asks her, “Do you have the books?”

The donkey whispers back, “What books?”

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