Last night’s dream is psychologically disturbing. When reading this, please note that I am not like this in real life; because this is my dream blog, and I do not wish to be disingenuous by altering the details, I will chronicle what memory I have as it is.

I was in a house party surrounded by people I didn’t know but who were supposedly my friends. I was on a sofa next to a guy who was so taken with me that he asked me to be his date. As he spoke, I considered that he was polite, respectful, decent-looking, and concluded that there could be potential for at least a good time. I agreed to go out on a date with him just to see whether we could make this long term. People around us who witnessed the exchange seemed moved by this heartwarming event. I didn’t quite feel the sort of elation expected from it, except for a little.

I stood up and walked into yet another roomful of people, in the middle of which stood Master. I made a beeline for him, exchanging brief smiles as we got close enough to touch. We talked about some things I couldn’t remember, and then got to making out in front of everyone in the room for a good five minutes or so. It felt natural to us, but it horrified people who had just been in the other room where I’d had the exchange with the other guy. Sensing this but completely unbothered, Master took my hand and squeezed us past those gossiping, judgemental people. I asked, “Are we in a relationship?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t like relationships.”

“True.”

“Shall we give it a go for three months just to see how it will be?”

“Ok.”

Master would have agreed to anything. He would agree to be turned into an elephant if I had asked.

Then we were notified that a woman had died and we were to attend the funeral together. I left Master to go home and change into something appropriate for a funeral. It was a black tailored suit with a midi pencil skirt, which I had paired with a mauve silk satin top underneath in case Master wanted something comforting to touch, I reasoned. I had on a pair of court heels which looked great with the outfit but, at the last minute, I switched to a more reasonable and respectable pair of leather loafers, more suited for walking on grass in a cemetery.

At the entrance of the funeral hall, my mother and brother were discussing how much they were planning to leave in the money box for the family of the deceased when we were handed envelopes with cards. It asked for our personal details and $30. Mum thought this card was to be filled per family, but some guy said no, each person must fill it up and pay $30. We didn’t say anything, but I knew we were all thinking the same thing: that’s a bit much to attend a funeral of a person we don’t even know. I had to attend anyway because I was Master’s partner and he needed me to be there.

His head was bent low in grief, which perked up only slightly when I laced my fingers in his. This is our first date, thought my disturbingly psychopathic dream self.

The night before, I was sleeping. More like existing, really—conscious of being present in a dark infinite space. I was floating, formless and weightless, like a spirit not yet a soul only just gained awareness of itself. It was silent outside and in my mind where it was not too long ago abuzz with activity—when exactly was the last memory, I did not know. I thought nothing and felt nothing because there was nothing to think or feel. Just peace by definition and embodiment, a nothingness in a forever. I was not yet to be.

Then I heard Master calling out to me—yelling, actually—urgent and frantic. I heard his voice and his words clearly and distinctively, but their meaning slipped from me—he spoke a familiar but indecipherable language I could not name from a lifetime ago. My mind needed to understand what he had said, not out of curiosity. It absolutely had to kindle the first spark struck from two stones. Once it latched onto a purpose—once a quest came into being—it became an inseverable red thread. It could do nothing other than what it was made to do: decipher, make sense of things, understand, record and replay memory, connect, generate emotions and feelings, moralise, conclude, re-structure.

I was utterly frustrated, and quite annoyed, until it dawned on me that I had now returned to full consciousness—or have come into being for the first time. The sun was already up, lighting the morning sky a pastel shade of blue.

For fuck’s sake, Master, send me a text next time. And let it show in the record that if I came to life and to Earth because of you, and we didn’t wind up together, I’m going to be livid. I was just minding my own business converging into light and diffusing merrily like a blooming nebula. I’m happy for you, Master. I really am. For all the glad tidings promised to you that came to me in my dreams. That you are thriving. That you will shine with or without me. That I can hold a note in your minor chord, magnified in your exultation—on my knees, supplicating, at your mercy. The ground had neglected to take my fragilities into account when devising a purpose for its composition. I cannot rise without a firm grip of your hand; please don’t let your hold slip. Even if I close my eyes, I am not asleep.

Postscript: you know what I think this dream means? It was telling me that coming to Earth was your idea, and somehow you managed to hoodwink me into coming here with you. Probably along the lines of, “It will be fun! There will be so many things to see, experience and learn from. Spectacular plants, trees and animals—everything will be phenomenal, especially football. You will love them all. Please come with me, soulmate, I will never abandon you.”

Master,

This weekend’s love story is based on the life of Søren Kierkegaard—the existential philosopher who broke off his engagement with the love of his life, Regine, for what he deemed his calling as a philosopher-writer, requiring long periods of pensiveness in solitude. In my previous and most genuine love letters to you, I like to think of love as the optimal fuel for self-sacrifice—for the well-being of the ones we love. Not that I will jump at every opportunity, but if that is the only way you could be happy…and only if it were the only way. I am not sure I could be compelled otherwise.

That Kierkegaard made a deliberate choice to end their engagement for her protection is the romantic hill I will confidently die upon. Firstly, he was prone to depression and melancholy, which understandably was the antithesis of being fun to have around; secondly, he was a polarising figure whom people mocked openly and gossiped about, because of how iconoclastic, individualistic and non-conformist he was, making him the perfect target for bullying—for few would defend him let alone come to his aid. This grew significantly worse when a magazine published caricatures of him, making fun of his clothes, posture, mannerisms, general eccentricity—everything but compelling refutation of his ideas—providing the tools for mean(er) members of the public to mock him as he went about his daily business. Having her by his side meant she must suffer along with him—or possibly become a new target herself by virtue of association, I’d venture to suggest. Bullies prefer the easier and softer target because they cannot (effectively) fight back. Though he was willing to suffer for his craft and take responsibility for it, consequences and all, he was not prepared to drag her along with him.

Kierkegaard, theist and devout, was prone to poking the bear, attacking (religious) institutions—not out of conceitedness, malice or fun, but to encourage serious discourse and reflection. His philosophy is about authenticity in existentialism after all, so in that regard, he lived by example: true and committed to his beliefs, authentic to himself. He was so committed to his ideas, or rather, to the idea of genuine commitment that he wrote to publications under pseudonyms to critique ideas including his own, not like a modern troll to annoy or cause outrage, but to get people to engage with the concepts from a philosophical distance, so that different ideas and perspectives could be explored without readers running the risk of being distracted by a variation of the ad hominem fallacy—disbelieving an idea simply because they disliked the person who said it. He wanted society to face its own hypocrisy, the masks it wore in public to conform and be well-liked by everyone else, to maintain an empty surface-level harmony, or to keep targets off their backs. He wanted people to courageously question their assumptions and blind faith, not take on (religious) badge identifiers wholesale as an indispensable part of culture, life or nationalism and such like (as we still see today) without genuine and serious personal commitment to the principles and values foundational to the institution. At the very least, give a thought to what they are. He wanted to redirect focus to where it should be: towards inner growth and an all-round ethical life.

He never stopped loving her, as evidenced in his writings and journals. She was his muse and inspiration, a symbol of worldly happiness he was hard-pressed to give up—she was courage for the most difficult decision of his life, for which he suffered until the end at age 42 when he left all his worldly possessions to her because he considered their broken engagement binding upon him. In all aspects of her life, he loved her—stayed away and suffered a lifetime so that she could flourish. He chose from which others would shy away, out of their own self-interest, selfishness, to avoid pain or the mere inconvenience of disappointment.

There’s a lot more to learn from him, but just for today and for this letter, I will take from his example something beyond the truth that love is not possession. Possession should not be a source of pride, certainly not one that stands on equal footing with good character or the kind of accomplishments earned through hard work, perseverance, commitment and self-sacrifice, not so much the achievements themselves but the qualities one must cultivate, the hardship one must endure, in order to obtain them.

As an introvert, my inner world—though rich—is fragile. This space, these love letters, and you as my muse have allowed me to explore despair, irony, grief, sacrifice, and love. My dreams, and the signs and symbols carried within them, have led me here, but they can only carry me so far. Though they speak of a bright future, glad tidings, and blessings to keep the engines running, I can no longer see what remaining paths are left to explore, even if I wished, in good conscience.

This will be my last love letter to you, at least for the foreseeable future. Regardless, I could not leave you with any doubt that I have, with my whole being, only ever held with conviction that I was destined for you—from before the first sunrise and long after the last. For whatever it may be worth, I may yet write that letter one year from now, setting out the reasons attesting to my certainty that already have, for me, been etched in stone. Until such time as the universe conspires to bring us together, I will remain, ever faithful, your celestial significant other, utterly in love with you.

My cosmic mate,

Forgive me, there is no love story today. I barely slept, and in the short time I did drift off, I dreamt of looking at myself in a mirror, dressing to go out. I had on a pair of black skinny jeans, an oversized black jersey sweater, and a pair of ankle boots. I looked kind of punk-band chic. As soon as I stepped out the door I found my outfit too warm for the weather and told myself I ought to return home to change the jeans for a pair of tailored shorts with that sweater. I don’t know where I was, but I was definitely not in Singapore. We don’t have thick sweater weather over here.

Should I cut my hair to shoulder length? Or leave it long?

Then I spent a portion of the night trying to meditate. Not only did it not work, it woke me up straight away, so I did what any lover would: I imagined what you looked like as a kid. Actually, I didn’t have to. It was like we were transported to kindergarten—you with your dark hair in a parental-convenient cut and abyssal dark eyes, strikingly hypnotic at that age; looking into them is like looking down at tempestuous black waves crashing against jagged rocks from the edge of a windswept fjord.

Kierkegaard calls this the dizziness of freedom: when one feels two things at the same time—the intense fear and vertigo from the possibility of slipping and falling off the cliff and crashing upon the rocks, and another very real possibility that one could choose to jump from that cliff and self-destruct. This encapsulates existential angst: fear of danger and destruction coupled with the immense responsibility tied to the freedom to choose. In that terrifying moment, as one’s breathing and heartbeat increase wildly, one oscillates between two extremes of feeling faint and snapping back into hyper-alertness; it is an unparalleled, heightened self-awareness in a suspended moment in time; not all doom and gloom if self-awareness leads to more self-discovery, which is but one step towards choosing a life authentic to ourselves, one not merely aesthetically pleasing or harmonious on the surface with the outside world.

I would always choose to take your hand and lead you to the toilet when I needed to pee. Back then at kindergarten, if you remember, we had to go everywhere with a partner—recess, library, on the school bus, at an assembly, to and from class, at the field for P.E. At some point the teacher would stop us and say something like, “No, Ila, a girl must only partner with another girl because boys are not allowed in the girl’s room with you.” And I would say, “But I want to go everywhere with him. And as soon as I am able, I will marry him.”

My cosmic mate,

Last night I had the most wonderful dream. It was a short one but it was one for which I had been waiting for more than a year. Around October 2024, I dreamt of someone giving me a young pineapple plant with instructions to keep it indoors in order to protect it from the frost. Since then I often wondered what became of that symbol. I knew it was a herald of something good. For a while I resigned to assuming it was nothing more than encouragement, to keep going, for good things will soon come. Last night I dreamt of us drinking pineapple juice. As if that wasn’t clear, we each wore hats made out of pineapple skins with the entire leafy top section still attached and complete in its full glory and crown. We looked so goofy as we sipped from cups in what was evidently a giggly time. It was a while since I’ve seen someone smile so widely in a dream. Google says dreaming of pineapple means receiving abundance of blessings, and now that we have drunk the juice, it must mean we will soon get to enjoy these long-awaited blessings together.

After that, we found a hand-drawn map under a carpet which was under someone’s bed. We were suddenly private investigators, scouring a hawker centre from stall to stall guided by annotations in colour pencil and symbols such as red flags and green flags, looking for clues, an actual suspect and a crime. Some people had disappeared—that was all we knew—but that could also mean, that they had moved on from having a stall in that establishment. One man’s green flag was humility to the point of self-deprecation, which made him endearing to the original map-maker/investigator. We both thought finding him would make as good a start as any. I never knew what happened after that because I woke up. Regardless, being in a team with you made every spontaneous investigation and dead-end worthwhile.

I have several books to read this weekend and will write that toxic love story maybe tomorrow.

Since I could not wake next to you this morning, let these extravagantly wet kisses find you in my stead, so that your morning may begin with the fullest assurance that you are loved. 

Since the first sunrise,

Your celestial wife

The distinction between Plato’s Forms and Kant’s noumena is subtle, for one, knowability— the former can be arrived at through philosophical reasoning, not dissimilar to abstract reasoning or thinking about things, useful for scientific theories especially when the subject in question is difficult to observe on its own and in its natural state. The latter cannot be known but it represents a conceptual limit or boundaries to what we can know. Knowing this prevents overreach or speculation that claims certainty about which we cannot know. That’s how far I want to dig into the matter so consider it closed for all intents and purposes.

I did not dream last night in the usual sense. I dreamt, but it was like I was watching television that skipped from scene to scene from the film Memoirs of a Geisha. I remember seeing a girl with blue eyes falling in love with a man who later takes charge of her education and living expenses in secret through another geisha. They eventually end up together, but not before negotiating numerous stumbling blocks, including the Second World War during which Japan invaded Malaya (and Singapore). From what little I remembered of the story, the disparities in living conditions before and during the war are stark and remarkable to behold: luxury, rich in tradition, elaborate use of bold colours and dramatic theatrical props vs minimalistic, corner-cutting, practical drapery in greyish hues to match the austerity of the moment.

I did not much agree with some values represented in the film, such as offering one’s virginity to the highest bidder, but I can appreciate that it’s part of a fictional novel that tries to encapsulate certain key cultural differences, which makes sense insofar as they hold meaning. Geisha are like living art, which extends beyond the specific way they look, dress, and apply makeup, but also the way they move, speak, educate themselves and live their lives—from sleeping to eating, entertaining, choosing partners, existing—their very lives are art, as is the world with which they interact, observing a highly ritualised set of practices and standards. It’s beautiful to observe the attention to detail and discipline, as though every small movement, such as a flick of the wrist, is purposeful, as is sitting quietly with reverence but with a composure and countenance like an actual work of art. Being a geisha is a commitment that starts young, so it would not be too far to say it’s an occupation that comes as close to personal identity as humanly possible.

The story is compelling and engaging in that it features women who are in active competition with one another—healthy only in the sense that it encourages personal striving, but destructive when it crosses into revenge territory, which is shown later as literal destruction by fire. An older geisha was so incensed that her plans for revenge had been yet again thwarted for the last time and irrevocably so, that she burns down the only home she has ever known. Until then, she has mostly relied upon spreading vicious rumours, making false accusations and orchestrating events all to discredit or destroy reputations, the equivalent of career obliteration in their world. She acted out of jealousy and despondency partly at her star status fading, becoming smaller and irrelevant with age, and against a rising one.

There is much to reflect on and I suppose I will at some point, but I just had three slices of pizza with extra cheese and feel like a food coma is coming. I hope you are well, Master. I missed you in my dreams last night. Maybe the dream was showing me my reflection, not like a geisha—but only in the sense that I’ve put you front and centre in my world, that everything said, done or thought about must be purposeful with you in mind. This is not a complaint. I like living this way; in fact, I prefer it. I hope you prefer it too.