my personal dream catcher.
Why “DreamCatcher”
By JJ Caruncho
“...I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” - Hamlet
Hamlet speaks true. And, when I was a little boy, not a single night went by when I didn’t have bad dreams. It’s not a great secret as to why that is. My imagination has always been in the drivers seat of my life. Hearing and telling stories have been my greatest joy for as long as I can remember. My days were (and still are) spent daydreaming of magic and quests and great adventures. You see, I’ve always had a sense of magic and wonder regarding the world. So, naturally, Night was automatically a scary place. It was the forest. The woods. A place of shadows and darkness. The realm of the unseen. Of red eyes peering at you through the dark. It was a place of mischief, where villainous things and boogeymen ruled supreme.
One day, my Mother brought home a gift that would forever change my life. My very first Dream Catcher. Now, having a great love for mythology, I automatically had to know everything about it; and, what I learned affected me on the deepest of levels.
A Dream Catcher is a circle with a web inside of it, below which dangle feathers. Simple. Now, here’s how a Dream Catcher works.
The Dream Catcher is hung over the bed of a child. As all of the Dreams for that night float through the window on their journey towards the children, they all must pass through the web. Now, the Good Dreams are given safe passage. They’re caught in the web and drip down the feathers, like the morning dew, into the minds of the sleeping children for them to enjoy the adventures of. But it’s what happened to the Bad Dreams that especially moved me. The Bad Dreams, as you might expect, are not given safe passage. They remain stuck in the Dream Catchers web like a bug in a spider’s. However, they are not destroyed, as the goal is not to keep the child from knowing that the bad dreams are there. The bad dream is kept there above the child’s head, so that the child can see it, face it, and see that, although bad dreams can be real and, quite possibly, terrifying, they are perhaps not quite as scary as they’d like you to think once the light has been shone on them. Once their hiding place of mystery and darkness is taken away, they’re seen for what they truly are. And then...with the light of day...the Bad Dream is destroyed and vanishes. The child awakens; hopefully taking the joy of the good dreams with them into their day, and having faced and understood the bad dreams, feeling braver and not having to carry the bad dreams with them as a fear which will come back to haunt them. Feeling brave enough to go catch those good dreams and make them come true, and, in the event that the bad dreams manifest themselves as a reality one day, with the courage to face them once more.
As my imagination and I grew up to be a professional storyteller, an Actor, it occurred to me that this is the most fitting description of the Theatre that I can possibly imagine. A place where everyone comes to go on an adventure of the imagination. An adventure, the outcome of which they are uncertain, but which they decide it’s time to go on. A living dream. Which, just as they always do, begins with darkness. Wherein the audience are presented with stories, both good and bad, in their purest and wildest forms. And where, at the end of the show, the lights rise on everyone like the morning sun, and, in turn, the people arise to return to their regular lives. Awoken to their reality. Hopefully carrying the good dreams with them in their hearts and souls. Inspired to go on an adventure and live those good dreams. Yet also having faced and understood the bad dreams, knowing that they can leave them behind in the theatre, but, with a new ability. That being, in the event that this nightmare were to manifest and rear its head in their real life, having the understanding and courage to face it once more. Feeling a bit more Brave.
At one point in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet gives advice to a group of roaming actors, saying:
"O’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.”
From Shakespeare to Stanislavski, this idea of “the theater as a mirror of society”, to show life her own face, has reigned supreme. And, while I understand the sentiment, and think there is great nobility and honor in such a purpose, it seems to me that if you were to judge a person by what a mirror could show them, you’d likely be forming a shallow impression. A truer testament to the character of a person or culture may be to ask them about their dreams. What do they hope for? What do they fear? Thus, if given the choice, I’d rather not be the mirror for life and society. I’d rather be its Dream Catcher. My Sister and I believe Theatre can do this. There is great power, nobility, and magic in the theatre; and people gathering around an arena of light to hear stories is as ancient and primal as humanity itself. We believe that this is our purpose as Storytellers.
As Dreamers.
As DreamCatchers.
If you’re interested...come Dream with us.
Co-Founder, Co-Artistic Director, and Co-Dreamer In Chief
DreamCatcher Theatre