The other day, I slept in my friend's house. I had a horrible dream that night, and ended up waking up with palpitations (which may have had more to do with the drink, but anyway). It was only the second time that month that I'd had a bad dream, the time before that being when I stayed in another friend's house. When my friend woke up, she said that she often had odd dreams when she was away from home as well.My theory on why this always happens to me when I stay out is because I don't have my trusty dreamcatcher. It's kind of a cream suede circle supported by a thread web, with a bead in the middle. Underneath the circle, a few feathers hang down on suede strings. The legend that surrounds the dreamcatcher states that all the nightmares entering your room are caught by the web in the middle and stored in the bead, and all the nice dreams of bunnies and clouds are passed through by the feathers, so every night you're guaranteed visions of sugarplums.
Generally speaking, I would be the type of person to think "you're relying on a piece of string and some feathers for a peaceful sleep... get help". Believing in the power of inanimate objects, or weird rituals, to influence the course of your life has always seemed a bit far-fetched to me. Will crossing your fingers really help you win the lottery? Is seven years of peril really guaranteed after you've clumsily knocked your make-up mirror off your dressing table? The answer, I would generally say, is no.
Last night, when I was thinking about my dreamcatcher's role in warding off bad dreams when I'm at home, I realised that even the most cynical person probably has some little superstitious thing they always do. Think dreamcatchers are a load of crap? Chances are you knock on wood, afraid of jinxing your luck. I know I still try to avoid the little lines between the slabs in the footpath.
It's weird though, isn't it? Who decided that knocking on wood would save them from whatever devastating circumstance they were talking about? And since when has breaking mirrors brought seven years bad luck? Okay, I can see how it could be unlucky in the short term, it's highly probable that you're about to get a shard of glass to the foot, but isn't seven years a bit much? Do very superstitious people live in fear for the rest of the time? If you break another mirror during your seven year sentence, will the universe implode?
I remember hearing somewhere that superstition lies in the space between what we can control and what we can't. When I think about it, I'm pretty sure that it was good old Meredith Grey waxing lyrical over the opening credits of Grey's Anatomy. I'm also pretty sure that the great Philosopher Grey was right again. I suppose no one really has that much control over what course their life takes. No matter how well you plan out every detail, there's always an unforeseen spanner waiting to be thrown into the works. With a lifetime's worth of cock-ups under our belts and burned into memory, we kind of accept that we always have to play it by ear, and fate seems to be in the driving seat. That's where superstition comes in. We can control our own behaviour, so we do, and hope that fate takes heed. My own opinion is that no matter what we do, some things just happen. Control over our lives is always that little bit out of reach.
Still, I like pretending I have a hand in it. And my dreamcatcher hasn't failed me yet.
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