I know, it’s taken me a while to write this down. I told it to a coworker, though, so I would remember it enough to journal about it, though.
In this dream I had the very eerie experience in my dream of being both a character in a book and the reader of that book.
The dream starts when I’m talking to a group of Native American young adults. I’ve done some kind of service for their community and they’ve awarded me a certificate that says that if I learn Ojibwe, their tribe will basically adopt me.
I was very touched and kind of puddled up over it.
Later I was talking with one of them and he admitted that they made the offer because I wasn’t connected with Native American culture, and they saw my DNA results, which indicated that I’m 97% Native American.* I remembered that DNA test, in my dream, which said that I was in fact 0.97% Native American.
So I debated with myself over which would be worse, to own up to not being Native American or to go along with it and hope no one ever realized that I was a Czech-American lady.
I opted to own up to it and told him that there was, in fact, a decimal point before that 97. He was shocked but said that he’d talk to the others about it and they’d decide what to do about this situation.
Then I found myself looking down onto a table where two men were doing something — counting money? — and I noticed that my viewpoint should be a lot lower than it was. That’s when I realized that I was actually reading a book about what was going on in my life and whatever these men were doing was the “B” plot.
I didn’t have any interest in this part of the story, so I skipped ahead. When I found my storyline next, I’d taken the Native American guy’s words to heart and decided to get in touch with my actual ancestry, which is Czech.
I was at some kind of festival, where they were cooking, like daily foods for average historical Czech people. There was a lot of what my dad refers to as “ooky” food — weird cream cheese looking things and kind of disturbing looking sausages and things. Someone was giving a performance or a lecture or something, too.
I was glad that I was getting in touch with my actual ancestry, but I continued flipping ahead looking for the resolution to the Ojibwe storyline. I never found it, so I will never know how it worked out.
When I woke up, though, I realized that the best solution would be for me just not to learn Ojibwe because that would save face all around. I find it interesting that it never occurred to waking-hours me that they might decide to go ahead with adopting me.
*In real life, I’m 0% Native American. According to 23 and Me’s latest data, I’m 1.5% Ashkenazi Jewish, 0.5% Northern Western Asian, 0.2% Undetermined, 0.1%** Northern African, and the rest is basically Central European, Northern European, and from the British Isles.
**0.1% is effectively no ancestry, but they say that it’s more reliable if traces like this show up in other relatives’ ancestries. If it’s for real, it comes from my father’s mother’s side or my mother’s father’s side, because I don’t have any relatives on those sides on 23 and Me.