blastedgoat

In Siddhartha dreams enlighten the dreamer to some greater truth, “when a man is asleep, he penetrates his innermost and dwells in Atman” (Hesse 1951 7). Siddhartha becomes restless when he realizes what he has become; his entire life sickens him. After a sleepless night Siddhartha falls asleep at daybreak and has a strange dream. Kamala’s songbird was quiet so Siddhartha approached the cage and found it had died. Siddhartha took the bird out of the cage and threw it on the road and “was horrified…as if he had thrown away with this dead bird all that was good and of value in himself… It seemed to him that he had spent his life in a worthless and senseless manner; he retained nothing vital, nothing in any way precious or worth while” (Hesse 1951 82). I identified with Siddhartha because as a child I had a similar dream. My bird was an egg and it told me to throw it on the ground. I was hesitant but the egg assured me it wouldn’t hurt. It would just help him wake up. I said goodbye and smashed the egg on concrete. I was devastated and felt as though I had lost a friend. The dream wasn’t over. I “woke up” to find my room slightly off, everything seemed hazy. I looked out the window and saw was a large area of grass surrounding a concrete slab where children played four-square with a white ball. When I tried to examine my surroundings further I was able to wake up. Siddhartha’s dream shook him from his temporary stupor and allowed him to move on. He replayed his life in his mind and discovered the world of the flesh had gotten him no further in finding himself. His dream served as a metaphorical death and rebirth into a new way of living. Siddhartha no longer belonged in the city so he walked away from the life he had created. The only person who understood him was his lover Kamala who had begun to show signs of her own mortality. Kamala understood his decision and did not try to find him. Things might have turned out very differently for Siddhartha if this dream had not occurred or if he had ignored it.