bhaskar saikia

I have been experiencing multiple recurring dreams all my life, but of late, I have been seeing something even stranger—dreams within dreams. Today’s blog is about the latest one, the third such dream within a dream I’ve had.

Last night, I found myself in what I believed to be the Brazilian Amazon. The air was dense, alive with the scent of earth and a thousand hidden creatures. The river glided past like a patient serpent, and the green canopy seemed to breathe.

Then I “woke up.”

But instead of returning to my room, I found myself in the same place, only slightly different. The river still flowed, yet the air felt drier. The architecture around me had changed—arches, stone pathways, whispers of history I could not place at first. That’s when I realized: I was not in Brazil. I was in Türkiye.

These two places are geographically and culturally far apart, yet both are known for their deep history and striking landscapes—one a raw, untamed rainforest, the other a crossroads of ancient civilizations. Seeing the same place shift location made me wonder:

• Am I processing how context changes perception? The same landscape can feel entirely different depending on where I believe I am or the meaning I attach to it.
• Is my subconscious blending exploration and identity? Perhaps I’m navigating something in my life that feels both “wild and new” like the Amazon and “ancient and familiar” like Türkiye.
• Why the subtle change between dream layers? The location looked slightly different, as if my mind was testing how I handle shifting perspectives—how memory, interpretation, and even reality itself can be flexible.

On an emotional level, it might be about a sense of being uprooted or a search for belonging. Maybe these dreams are my way of walking through inner maps—places where identity, memory, and desire overlap.

Waking from such dreams leaves me carrying two maps in my head, overlaying each other, their borders blurred. It makes me wonder—how often do we wake up thinking we know exactly where we are, when in truth, we’re still dreaming in some way?