October 31, 2009
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I dreamed last night
I dreamed I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant with my father, watching a really old fashioned/homemade lotto machine flip the numbers. He smiled at me and told me to chant.
4! 4! 4! the numbers flipped. Everyone in the room seemed to get excited. I was excited. He was excited.
The numbers flipped and eventually, they were all down, most of them 4′s, and we’d won.
Apparently no one else in the room had any 4′s, so no one won but us. I didn’t understand why they’d been so excited, then; I looked around, confused. Everyone had fallen deadly silent. My attention was drawn back to my father, who was clutching his ticket (I guess) and waving it excitedly. I asked,
“What did you win?”
and he told me 15.
15 thousand dollars?!
No, 15 dollars.
Now I was even more confused. All this for 15 dollars?
…
I woke up.
After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve attributed some meaning to certain events in the dream. 4 is a homonym of sorts in Cantonese to the word for ‘death’ – my father died this morning, 9 years ago, at about 4 am. I’m still confused where the 15 comes in. What did he win? 15 more minutes with us? 15 more minutes with me?
I don’t know.
There was another part to my dream that I’ve forgotten. Maybe I’ll remember later.
Love you, Dad.
Comments (1)
When you said that they were chanting four, I immediately thought of how it sounds like death in Cantonese (and I recall you mentioning your father’s passing). That’s interesting that your mind incorporated that into a dream by having you dream about playing a lottery game.