My mind has been into a constant ride of turmoil and confusion these days.

“U told me u coming la, lupa ke?” Kak Lun texted me when I wondered how she had known that I would be coming to Singapore.

Hmm.

I forgot to take my Maybank card from the auto teller machine. Not once, but twice in a month.

Hmm. Hmm.

I forgot to collect a student’s exam answer script in the examination venue. That’s Cekmi who was once a meticulous manager for examination department.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

This unforgiving absent-mindedness makes me doubt of my own judgment. But this self-doubt nevertheless has benefited others who are wicked enough to play around with my messed-up brain. My students, for example, like to take advantage of my fragile mind by not returning their homework since they know perfectly that I would totally forget about their homework the minute I come to the following class, chitchatting happily with them like a stupid clown until I feel that something is holding back inside my tired mind, that there are some vague clouds and shadows at the back of my fatigue mind, until a good student would spoil the class’ happy hours by pitying my poor condition and telling the truth, and I would say, “You naughty kids! Why didn’t you tell me you have homework to submit?” But it has always been too late. Who wants to submit an incomplete homework to an old forgetful lecturer? Maybe they are not at fault since I apparently have lost my wits to deal with their rather heartwarming cruelty.

With my housemate, Aye, I have to be extra careful when breaking some shocking news or telling him some hot stories I encounter in the college or while driving back home, because I am afraid that I have already broken the news few days before or that I have already narrated the details of the hot stories few hours earlier. Likewise, I am too afraid to ask him about his recent trip to Ipoh, because he might say it again: “I told you lah before!” And this would put me in a perplexing wonder of self-pity, deep embarrassment and severe helplessness which make me pray hard that I wouldn’t end up acting like a lunatic Dato’ Rahim Razali in Cinta, or a romantic empty-headed Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates.

What really happened to me? There must some feasible explanations for this detrimental state of my mental health. Looking at the gigantic waterfall streaming down to nowhere in Hulu Yam last Sunday has inspired me with a lot of wild guesses and theories about my dangerous mind falling down to obscurity.

Let’s start with seven.

One. Have I overloaded my mind with unnecessary stuff lately? I don’t think I have watched too much pornography that spins my mind with all the erotic XXX scenes and all that.

Two. Thesis? Could it be that my acute obsession with thesis writing has possibly erased the good part of my short-term memory?

Three. Is it due to my decision to quit smoking? Does it have to do with the resistance against nicotine that my mental system has secretly declared war with me, the pathetic decision-maker who is weak enough to remember where he parks his car in KLCC?

Four. Could it be due to my dietary system? Maybe I have not been eating well for the past few months that my mind started to retaliate. I was reading the Star last Sunday and was shocked to learn from a research finding that eating disorder could cause unusual moodiness, depression, confusion and forgetfulness. Well, these symptoms could almost define my psychological and physiological beings these days. But I refuse to admit this theory since I am sure I have eaten well despite my intense precaution with the amount of food intake. Or maybe I should eat more fats to fatten the mental capacity and space. Yes, maybe I need more space. Maybe another 200 gigabyte.

Five. Am I just too old to remember and relocate things at its right place? Everything seems to slip away. I am scared of thinking of the possibilities of mental diseases or something. But I am pretty sure that I am not as elderly and nyanyuk as my auntie in Kelantan who always forgets where she puts her money while it is always right there inside her classic bra and she also always gives duit raya to the same boy again and again until the boy is able to buy a real gun on his own that he will probably use later to threaten my auntie in case she gains back her memory and asks him back all the money she has lost.

Six. Has someone put me into a psychoanalytic treatment like what happened to Jim Carey and Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind? I don’t know.

Seven. Jimi has a theory. He said that I hardly listen to people and I am not that caring about what people say and feel. Maybe this mental delusion is the price that I have to pay for being negligent and insensitive towards other people’s life affairs.

But all these hypotheses fail to convince me with enough conviction. I hope my meeting with Kak Lun this weekend will inspire me one or two reasonable answers for Cekmi’s chronic and deadly condition of an important part of sanity called mind.

What’s eating my mind?

Time:
5.20 a.m.

Subject of the Dream:
Rushing To Schools

Details:
I was in the old wooden house in Binjal, before it was torn apart for a new single-storey bungalow. I was maybe 15 years old, judging from the scenarios in the house, which details I could recall so vividly. Everyone in the family was rushing in the morning, all woke up at the same time. Everybody tooked turns, waiting patiently for their turns for the old, dark, half-equipped, non-flushed, manual, third-world toilet. Everybody shared the same bathroom; father was there, my cousin (out of nowhere) was there, and my mother, not so surprisingly, was there too. I was the last one. So, I was late school.

It made no sense to me. This dream, and the other dreams I have continuously had in the middle of the night, has driven me crazy. They made me sad, scared, confused and tired. Usually, I don’t remember the dreams when I wake up in the mornings, and maybe I will recall later in a particular situation as a kind of dejavu. Or maybe I remember a little the moment I open my eyes from sleep, and later forget the whole thing after I get into my busy life.

But lately, these dreams keep disturbing my emotions; I could recall them so clearly. I don’t understand them. I wish someone with good dream interpretation could tell me what those dreams are for – what signs, what suggestions, what intentions - that could be of any use to me. I met Budiman, my colleague, and asked for his opinions.

“Did someone in your dream talk to you?” said he.
“Mm… I am not sure,” I answered, “may be they were talking or may be they weren’t. Why? Does it matter?”
“Oh yes, hell they do.”
He gave me that intelligent look.
I was impatient and said, “So what if they really talk?”
“Then, then they were Satans”
I was taken aback by his revelation.
“And if they don’t talk, they were Angels?” I said.
“Depends.”
“Depends? Come on. Can you tell me what it is? Here is another one. I was on top of the building. Suddenly I saw, far from the distance, a giant ice broke into pieces, turned into great flood, and all of the sudden, there were great tidal waves, splashing the whole buidings, taking all people’s lives, except me. I could see the devastation all around me. And I was on top there, scared and alone. So, what is this? Tsunami the second? And I am sure nobody talked.”
Budiman was silent. He said:

“May be you should see a psychiatrist.”

Having had various preplexing dreams almost every night, I always make sure that I take all the precautions not to get into one of those nighmares. And I make sure that I am sleeping with air sembahyang taken, feet washed, du’a said, and mind cleared. But those wild images keep coming.

Maybe they are just dreams. Or maybe they are not. Depends.