One of my first memories as a child is still tossed around in my body trying to remember if it was a dream or an actual memory. I vaguely remember standing in my crib and staring at my long wide dresser next to my tall closet which both were silhouetted by the moon that would pour through the windows. At night, these two figures became black cloaked men who would intrude my room and laugh at me.
This same memory-dream has been consistent throughout my entire life. Invading my dreams through my teens and well into my current age. My therapist even recently asked me what it looks like when my negative self-talk creeps in in waking life (I have never told her about these dreams). I told her, it’s three tall silhouetted cloaked figures who are faceless who look down on me and mock my desires, question who I am, and laugh at my dreams.
It wasn’t until recently that I started looking more into what these “men” may represent and started learning more about dreams/nightmares.
Tori Sparks and Einy Åm Sparks in TEST FOOTAGE for Under Review: Conservation
I have always been one to believe that dreams are portals into our deepest desires and subconscious. It wasn’t until a few days ago that I learned that these men who break into my home, into my mind, are sadistically protecting me from my fear of failure. That I have a profound aspiration to create, yet these figures are lurking like jackals wanting to devour the stories I am bringing to life.
My whole life I have been haunted by these images. Waking up, panicked and crying, because suddenly, in my head, I was hiding in my closet after hearing people enter my house and then next thing I knew, the figure was whispering in my ear.
However, now there is a sense of freedom. A crack of relief and release from knowing this deep symbolism.
My whole life has been a battle of confidence, of a low opinion of myself - many people telling me ‘no’, telling me to pursue something else, putting me in the back of performances, always being pressured to “make sure you have a backup plan”, receiving rejections. This confidence battle however has stirred something rooted in me. And that’s that the world should have never doubted me. That now I am creating without apology. I am exposing the dark hooded figures. I am running for wild freedom.
TEST FOOTAGE for Under Review: Conservation. All footage from Cinematographer Tyler Sparks