Babble

 In reading R.F. Kuang's novel BABEL today, I noted the mention of dreaming in more than one language. I found this interesting because I have been aware for some time now that I often dream in Indonesian, or rather that I am often speaking Indonesian in my dreams rather than English. Why, I wonder, do I choose Indonesian rather than English? Is it merely because I am using Indonesian about half of the time in my daily life, or is there something about expressions in the language being more suitable to specific dreams? I don't know. I suppose that I am addressing in the dreams, or in a particular dream, Indonesian people. And so it makes perfect sense that I would be using the Indonesian language. I have the feeling that it deepens the dream life in that it is calling upon the dynamics of language as well as the dynamics of symbols. Although English is a particularly rich and robust language, there are nonetheless certain things in certain situations that are better expressed in Indonesian, especially if we are talking about a dream subject that is focused on life and experience here. Anyway I had noticed this in my dreams, but I hadn't really thought about it before.