The River Way Home (Dream Journal)
14 July 2025 | Early Morning
Just before waking, I found myself on a familiar-yet-unfamiliar journey — a return home, but not by the usual road. This time, I was led through rivers, banks, bridges, and a shifting maze of scenes soaked in dream logic and memory.
I remember following a group of Indian schoolboys across a shallow stream. We climbed the opposite bank toward a ridge that overlooked a wider, deeper river. One of them turned and asked me, “Where are you headed?”
“Perak Road,” I replied. “Near the junction at Sungai Pinang.”
They nodded as if they understood, though I wasn’t even sure I did. Somehow, it felt symbolic — a destination from my past, now wrapped in mist and longing.
We came upon a building, like a shophouse, with zigzagging staircases that descended past small, humble eateries. The kind that smells of fried shallots and soy, of memories folded into morning noodles. Each step downward felt like moving backward in time, toward something old and forgotten.
Then I reached a narrow wooden bridge, aged and creaking. There was an opening in the roof beside it — revealing a classroom floating on the water. Inside, a foreign teacher was laughing and playing with the children. The room was alive with joy, but just as I tried to look closer, the roof slid shut.
“He always does that when people start watching,” someone said beside me.
So I moved on, accompanied now by a few Indian children who had joined me, chattering along the way. Their presence felt innocent, guiding. Protective even.
We came to the edge of a cliff. Below, the river flowed wide and slow, like the end of something. A cow was standing there, and an Indian woman clinging to it, holding on tight. But as the cow turned, its head transformed into a large, human hand. That hand reached for me — almost pushed me off the ledge.
Just then, an Indian man appeared. He shoved the cow aside, saving me. I thanked him.
He smiled faintly, then stretched out his palm — not in greeting, but in the universal sign of a beggar asking for money. I had a few coins in my pocket, which suddenly felt like too few. I added a dollar note to it and placed it in his hand.
Somewhere in that moment, I might have seen my daughter, her back to me, sitting quietly, also facing the river. She turned just slightly, a soft recognition, or maybe just my longing playing tricks. I felt myself fading. Dying, perhaps. I made the little heart gesture with my fingers, like people do on Facebook.
A quiet goodbye. A last expression of love. Simple. Wordless. Profound.
Intuitive Reflections
This dream felt drenched in archetypes. Rivers, children, bridges, teachers, hands — all pointing inward rather than outward. It wasn’t just about going home — it was about being tested, saved, observed, and ultimately stripped down to a simple act of love before the cliff's edge.
Perhaps the river is memory. Perhaps the cliff is ego. Perhaps the child in the classroom is who I once was — joyful, playful, hidden behind a shutter that closes when watched too long.
And maybe the cow, the hand, the push — all of it — was part of the strange grace that wakes us just before we fall.
#DreamJournal #SpiritualJourney #RiverSymbolism #ReturningHome #PerakRoad #SungaiPinang #InnerChild #MysticalDream #CliffEdge #LifeAndDeath #HeartGesture #SymbolicDream #MalaysianDreamscape #LucidAwareness #IndianArchetypes
Postscript
Not long after writing this down, I turned to Facebook — and there it was: a friend request from a fellow artist who passed away last month. Ha! If that was meant to rattle me, it didn’t. I just smiled. Maybe it was his way of saying,
“See you on the other side — but not just yet.”
Soo Kau did have a weird sense of humor about him.
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