Some mornings right before I open my eyes, when the sun is just peeking through my almost transparent curtains, I dream. I dream vivid dreams of people and places, of songs and words, of colors and smells that I have seen or smelled once upon a time. Some mornings I dream of monsters and princesses, some mornings I dream of houses and trees in the middle of the endless ocean.
Some mornings I dream of dancing. Those mornings are spectacular. Slowly, in my dream, a note or music starts seeping in and immediately I see an image of my dancing body. Usually, these are sounds of songs that I have been listening to night and day before a performance. The body has its own spectacular memory, tucked away somewhere far away from our conscious brain. Our ears hear the sound and 5-6-7-8, the body moves. Years after learning a choreography, a random memory awakens and we can reproduce the sequence almost perfectly. It is a funny feeling to experience body memory because it is an unconscious process – one can feel their body moving without giving out any command. It is even weirder that a dancer can connect a piece of music with its dance so deeply that they feel the need to do the same choreography when hearing the song, and often they cannot envision other dance moves to the same music.
It is a spectacular and funny feeling to have, especially in the middle of a dream. Normally, dancers have a very fast memory regarding body motion and sequences of movement, but this is something trained over time. Especially after numerous grueling repetitions and rehearsals, the body learns to move by itself, a little preprogrammed automaton, leaving space in the mind for thoughts and feelings. This is the time when emotion can really be something that a dancer experiences while dancing, and not something they act out or attempt to portray. But this is also the exact some emotion that will later trigger your body memory, and someday when the same feeling pierces your heart, you will have a flash in your mind of the exact scene you were dancing, your costume, or a small gesture. Your arm will move involuntarily and when people ask you what’s wrong, you will just gently place your hand on your chest or on your hip, you will shrug your shoulders or look away and say: ’Oh, nothing, I just get a nervous tic sometimes.’, because otherwise, it would take too long to explain.
Some evenings right before I go to bed, when I am still sitting on the edge of the bed, taking off my house shoes and putting on my pajamas, I get a feeling. I get the feeling of a sudden burst of energy, coming from the depths of my belly, a sudden burning wish to move and jump, and dance. I do not know where this energy comes from or how it is possible to have extra energy at the end of each day, but I get it anyway. When this feeling comes, I look around and think – go to bed, prepare for the coming day, rest, and be fresh tomorrow, but by the time my brain formulates those commands, my body is already standing up in the middle of the room. My fingers are typing up the name of my favorite song in the search bar and my legs are stretching. By the time I tell myself to get some rest, I am up and dancing until 3 a.m., feeling free.
The other day in the morning right before I opened my eyes, when the sun was just peeking through my almost transparent curtains, I dreamt that I wrote this story up for you and I hoped in my dream that someone else would read it and perfectly understand all those feelings.