‘Did Bonifacio dream in color?’

Among many questions Benedict Anderson has asked me in the course of a friendship that goes two decades back, one stands out: “Did Bonifacio dream in color?” It is a question that challenges the imagination, it is a question with no answer, a question whose value lies in the search for an answer. Since then I have asked the same question about the others who figured in the birth of the nation: Rizal, Aguinaldo, Jacinto, Mabini, the Luna brothers. It is unfortunate that we have no record of their dreams, these fleeting images that are lost to memory upon waking. We will never know if our heroes had dreams in color or in black and white or a combination. I dream in color. When I wake up with an unresolved dream, I go back to sleep and continue where I left off. One wonders if our heroes did the same.

Studying a hero through his dreams is only possible, and partially so, with Jose Rizal who left about a dozen dreams in his letters and diaries. As a college student, I collected these and sought out Fr. Jaime Bulatao, S.J. of the Ateneo Psychology Department to ask him for an interpretation. I did not tell him whose dreams they were, fearing it would color the interpretation. Father Bulatao then said he needed to talk to the “patient.” Thus, we were stumped. I would like to think that the dreams Rizal left, for us to read and study, are significant because they bothered him enough that he jotted them down. Some of the dreams are noted in passing, in a few sentences; others are more detailed. Take this journal entry written in May 1882 when Rizal was on a steamer from the Philippines to Europe. In between bouts of seasickness, homesickness and loneliness he had this nightmare:

“I had a sad dream. I imagined that I was traveling with my sister Neneng [Saturnina] and that we had reached a port. We disembarked, but as there were no boats, we had to wade to the shore. They said that there were many crocodiles and sharks there. When we reached land, the ground was sandy, but planted in some parts, and was full of vipers, snakes and serpents. And on the path leading to my house, there were many hanging boas; some were tied but were alive and menacing; the others were dead. My sister and I were walking, she ahead of me. We were following one another. Sometimes we came across the dead ones; the live ones tried to get us but could not. But at the end of that line, a real serpent, tied but menacing and angry, obstructed the road, leaving only a very small space to walk on. My sister succeeded to pass through, but I, despite my carefulness, was caught on the shirt and was pulled. Because of my weakness, I looked for some support to hold on but I found none. I felt I was coming close to it and its tail seemed about to coil around me. In the midst of my futile efforts, when I saw death in the form of loathsome rings, Pedro, the town carpenter, arrived (and) with one blow, separated it from me. I escaped the danger and we reached the house. I no longer recall whose it was.?”

There have been many interpretations of the above. One is that he was apprehensive about his first trip abroad. Another is that the snakes could be read as phallic symbols. Yet another says it was just an expression of Rizal’s fear of snakes. I guess one can see from the above what you want to see.

Now take this excerpt from a famous letter Rizal wrote to Marcelo H. del Pilar on June 11, 1890. During this time, Rizal and Del Pilar were undergoing a rough patch and Rizal expressed   his wish to stop writing for La Solidaridad so that others may shine. Then he mentioned this:

“I am assailed by gloomy presentiments, though I do not entirely believe them. In my childhood, it was my firm belief that I would not reach [the age of] 30 and I do not know why I felt like that. Almost every night, for two months now, I dream of nothing else but of dead friends and relatives.  One time I dreamed that I was going down a trail that led to the bottom of the earth and there I found myself with a multitude of persons who were seated, dressed in white, with  white faces, silent and surrounded with white lights. There I saw  two of my brothers, one already dead and the other still living. Though I do not believe in these things, though my body is very strong, and I have no ailment whatsoever, nevertheless, I am preparing myself for death, I put in order what I am going to leave behind, and I get ready for any eventuality.  Laong Laan is my true name. For this reason, I like to finish the second novel of the Noli at any cost and, if it is possible, I do not like to leave unfinished what I have begun, without anyone who could continue it.  That is why I like new writers to be known and to shine. Do not think that I feel sad or I am grieving.  Every other day I do gymnastic exercises and practice fencing and shooting; but who can foresee the mishaps that may befall us?”

Laong Laan (Ever prepared) sounds like the Boy Scout motto. Rizal was a man with a mission, he knew what he wanted, he planned and he executed those plans. Whether his dreams and nightmares concern the future of  the Philippines or his own troubles, we will never know—but again the quest for an answer to a question can sometimes be more important than the answer.

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