Ever been in another person's dream or find the resulting interpretation of someone else's dream?
I got into one today.
A Hmong guy in his fifties or so knocked on my door today and said he had been locked out of his house for over three hours today. Since we are the only two Hmong in this small suburb of St. Paul, he didn't know where else to go but to come to me. He said he had knocked on my door once already but there was no response. I wasn't home then. And when he saw me pull back into my driveway he knocked again.
I invited him in. After a brief conversation, he asked me to take him to another relative's house to use their phone to call his wife--who was out watching Batman vs. Superman somewhere.
On the way to east St. Paul, he said he had dreamed of possessing opium two nights before. "And the elders have said that if you dream of taking opium, it's trouble," he said.
"In the dream, I went to an aunt's house. I said I wanted something to do some business. She said, 'if you want to do business, why don't you take this opium and go sell it.'
"I took the opium but was afraid the cops might find out. So, I went to my car and looked for a place to hide it. But wherever I went, I was afraid the cops might see it. I couldn't find a good place for it," he said.
He said only the relatives would have phones to call his wife. I said he could borrow my phone. But he said he didn't remember his wife's number, since "nowadays, you just press a number for it to come out and I have not memorized it; they have it on their phones."
Knocking on the first house had no response. After a few minutes re-knocking, he gave up and came back into my car.
He didn't know the address to the second house but got a general idea of where it was. He knew which street, he said, but not which part of the street.
"We drive on it until you remember something," I said.
And we did.
By Earl and Third Street, he recalled that it was just down the valley and up east.
"He isn't home, either," he said. "That's my grandpa. When his van isn't here, he isn't here."
I encouraged knocking in case someone else might have borrowed the old man's van and he might be stuck at home. But he said he didn't need to, since "this man is wherever his van is; if his van isn't here, he isn't here for sure."
"You are welcome to go back with me," I told him.
"Let's go to another friend's house over the hill," he said.
On the way, he kept whining: "This is my dream exactly. I'm going places to hide the opium and can't find a good place for it."
"Let's see how your dream ends, since you woke up and didn't know how it ended," I said to him.
I got a bit frightened because I wasn't sure if things might go right for us. After all, how could a bad dream end well in reality?
Then he directed me to a road that lead to a blue house that he said was his friend's.
A Corolla was in the drive way.
"He's home for sure," the man said.
"Go ahead and knock. I'll wait 'til he opens the door for you," I said.
Knockings didn't get any response, either. So the man walked back to my car.
Just then the side door opened and a bald man reached his head out.
"Ah, that's him," said the man as he was closing my door. The man walked back to towards the driveway. They exchanged a few inaudible words. "Thank you!" the man turned to me.
I waived good-bye and drove off.