A friend and I are navigating a large Chinese city on bicycles. After riding a while we stop for a rest, and I turn back to a small hole-in-the-wall shop (a combination convenience store and apothecary), where I meet one of the owners: a man perhaps my age (but unnervingly, with the aura of someone much older), tanned skin and thinning shoulder-length black hair.
The city. Upon reflection, I understand that it is an amalgamation of a few different cities that have been meaningful for me: one in which I experienced what I would now call my first a panic attack, one to which I fled after a particularly painful unraveling of a relationship, a couple of which were dotted with just this kind of apothecary, none of which I used a bicycle to traverse. It was a familiar city, the friend at my side one with whom I am especially close—it was this friend who had been comforting me that night, and his voice was one of the last things I heard before I went to bed.
The apothecary and ageless man. As a general rule, every element of a dream represents an aspect of the dreamer; and so, within me is a sprawling Chinese city, and within that city, a combination convenience store and apothecary with a strangely ageless owner (who is also me). I do not know why I turned back to enter this hole-in-the-wall shop, but in the dream I am not surprised at all by what (and who) greets me when I cross the threshold. There is something here I need, and a part of me that is able to provide it.
He brings me to a back room and gives me four objects that I sense are laden with traditional meaning, only one of which I remember: a large, coarse brush, like one used to groom horses or dogs. I sit down, and he stuffs my ears and mouth with whole leaf tobacco, and places the mouth of a long plastic tube between my lips. My eyes are closed, but I do not know if I am blindfolded or not. I inhale the smoke, and begin to feel its effects.
The back room. Within that hole-in-the-wall shop, a back room. This is a process of gradual exclusion from the hustle and bustle of the modern world. First, the city with its constant traffic noises, then the shop, great glass jars of ingredients of traditional medicine side-by-side on the shelves with glossy magazines and bags of potato chips, and finally, the secluded room in the back reserved for mysterious objects and obscure rites. Could this represent an invitation to silence and solitude?
The four objects. These objects are also parts of me—important memories perhaps, connections to history, internal resources. The man brings out these four objects and gives them to me without demanding payment, as if they belong to me already. The coarse brush is, it seems, a symbol of maintaining health, cleaning, bringing order, and connection to nature. A friend suggested that having these objects placed before me is reminiscent of the practice in some cultures of placing various objects in front of a child, believing that the object the child chooses indicates the kind of life they will live. Have I chosen the coarse brush in this way, or has it been chosen for me?
The tobacco. It strikes me that in stuffing my ears and mouth with tobacco and placing the mouth of the plastic tube between my lips, I have become like a human hookah. I remembered that I smoked hookah with a few friends for the first time a few days before this dream; is this an attempt to direct my attention to these friendships? If tobacco symbolizes cleansing and spiritual connection, it is interesting that both my ears and mouth are stuffed with it; perhaps it is an indication of the need to purify and recenter my speech and hearing. Perhaps I have been a bit too focused on sight, and have lost focus in the process.
He puts his mouth on the other end of the long tube, and when he blows forcefully into it I have the sensation (not unpleasant) of being tossed into the air and falling back to the ground. He blows into it a second time, and this time I feel nothing. I then remove the tube and the tobacco, thank him, gather up the four objects into a small knapsack, and walk out.
The sensation. The sensation I experienced after breathing in the smoke and having the ageless man blow into my mouth through the tube is both a kind of chemical high and a more physical thrill. It is pleasant enough that I want to do it again, that I wait for the man to blow into the tube a second time.
Feeling nothing. But the second time brings no sensation at all; the effects of the tobacco have completely faded. Rather than waiting for the man to blow through the tube a third time, I immediately remove the tobacco and plastic tube. I waste no time, but move on as soon as I notice the high and thrill is gone. I gather up the four objects, thank the ageless man, and leave.