Michael Jackson, 12 years following your voice #7
"You can always dream, and your dreams will come true. But you HAVE TO make them come true"Michael Jackson
Have you ever dreamed of Michael Jackson? Whoever you are, I'm sure you have... Some people will immediately think, smiling from the corner of their lips, with a touch of mockery or, conversely, of naughtiness, that when we talk about dreams, we are talking about romance. Not necessarily. And probably not even in most cases.
The first time I dreamed about Michael was in the summer of 2009. I was reading, or had just finished, "The Plot" by Aphrodite Jones, I'm not sure anymore. I had savored this book page after page. In addition to the fundamental insights it provided into the trial and its catastrophic media treatment, it gave me, through its descriptions, the impression of being close to it, every day. So when I reached the last page, I remember not being able to close the book right away... sitting there, clutching it in my lap, deeply upset and afraid to leave it. Rare are the books about Michael that gave me this feeling of seeing him evolve as if I were at his side, as if I were a direct witness. As an aside, a book like Taraborrelli's had exactly the opposite effect on me: the author's rendition of conversations that were supposed to have taken place behind closed doors, or the ultra-precise description of scenes that he never witnessed, neither from close nor from afar, among many other examples, always seemed to me more than doubtful... And many books are full of them...
Still, in my first dream, Michael was at his trial. Dressed in white, he was standing between two guards while the accusations were raining down and the courtroom audience was shouting. I watched helplessly as he stood there, frail, supported on both sides, motionless and silent, as if resigned. Suddenly, a verdict fell: "Put him to death!" (There would be, again, comments to make...) I was paralyzed with terror. At that very moment, I saw him, and I still see him in my mind, turn to me with a look that said, "Tell them, you... tell them..." I wondered why, in that great crowd, it was to me that he had turned fixedly and precisely. His gaze was devastatingly painful, helpless, pleading... His eyes really spoke. A short time later, I saw his coffin pass by and I thought it was really over. I woke up all upset. I still am when I think about it...
But at that time (July 2009), I had no idea that I was going to do something about him. It's crazy when you think about it and I'll never know how much that dream did or did not play a role in my unconscious choices or need to do something. Was it an echo of a deep and still buried will? An impulse that then influenced my choices? Or a combination of circumstances, a superposition between what we call the will of the universe and my own destiny, karma, as it were? Who knows...
I then dreamed of him very often during these 12 years. Handshakes in the crowd, that you can still feel when you wake up, looks that stare at you and scrutinize you from the inside, as if he was reading me, appointments to which he came, or not, to talk music... But the most recurrent scenarios are those in which he would pick me up under his arm to carry me, whether I was a child or an adult, and carry me across a swamp or across a river full of crocodiles. It's funny... And this figure of savior, of benefactor, many of the people I met who spontaneously told me about their connection with Michael, told me about it too...
I remember a lady who did paintings. She had a hard life. A friend of mine, who had seen a rare portrait of Michael Jackson in her home (see illustration), asked me to visit her. She confided in me and told me that she had never painted Michael before his death, but that since then, he had been bothering her. She had dreamed one night that she was on a plane, panicking, either that the plane was crazy or that she was terrified of the plane, and that suddenly everything had calmed down. In her dream, she had gotten up to look into the pilot's cabin, and in that moment, she saw that it was Michael who had taken the controls... A metaphor for a life in search of guidance? A figure of trust that inspires letting go? I believe that Michael himself believed so much in the power of dreams that he can only inhabit ours and give us comfort and strength. He probably comes to meet the part of ourselves that is able to calm down, to go further, to surpass ourselves, to succeed.
All this is part of an alchemy that we, men of science of the 21st century, are very poor at explaining. And yet... Thanks to dreams, I know that Michael has saved lives, that he has supported difficult daily lives, that he has opened windows on possibilities, on a presence, even, beyond sensible reality. I know that Michael has dreamed, that he has made wishes (as a child, jumping into the pool, remember?), that he has written his dreams on post-it notes, on pieces of paper. He dreamed as one should pray. With the feeling that he was already fulfilled, that he had already reached his goal. Also, I think that having Michael Jackson in one of his dreams is not insignificant. It is a sign. A track to be dug. Sending a message. Anything but a frivolity to be laughed at or mocked...
Comments