23 December 2014
Last night I had a dream. There were many people that I know. Everyone was talking to me in Russian and couldn’t answer. I almost opened my mouth and wanted to utter at least: khorosho, spasibo , ya p’yu. Nothing. Words were whirling in my head like a storm; I hallucinated through words only in my head and without any sound. It reminded me of a dream in which a man is chased by a monster and he feels like it will jump on him and eat him; nevertheless, he is not able to move from the spot even one inch. Kind of self-destructive feeling. I want to run, but I am not running, because I’m afraid of my own destruction, of the fact that I am not able to run, fly or speed up. I want to say something, but I’m not able to, I must say something, but I am not saying it.
Is it possible that I am so afraid to communicate with people that I am scared to open my mouth? There could be situations like that but this is certainly not one of them. Over the last twelve months I have studied in my own little peculiar manner – not comprehensive but rather passive. In some areas such as reading and listening to spoken language I have made great progress when I am able to read an article on a Russian news server without any assistance by Google translator. I read the books of Russian classics (for now Bulgakov, Pushkin) in dual-language Russian/Czech version with text in Russian on one page and text in Czech on the opposite page. First I read one passage in Russian and if I don’t understand, then I read the Czech version. I already found the English/Russian version of Master and Margarita in electronic pdf format, which is intended for Russians studying English. My passive knowledge of Russian, which I take in full doses, penetrated my dream and I was able to understand everything that people around me talked about, but, fully paralysed, I wasn’t able to reply anything. I was speechless. If needed a glass of water so as not to dry up and die, they would perhaps understand from the expression on my face 
On the other hand, when I came to study to the US in September 1996, was welcome by my host family in Dallas and began to attend 3rd grade of a grammar school there (in Slovak language literally called gymnasium, which was of course only of the many buildings at the school premises ), my dreams in English language began unwinding already after 2 weeks. It was also like a storm and with heavy hallucinating feelings. I was chased by various “demons”, but I could talk and communicated with them. The thing was that I came to the US from a bilingual high school, where we had English (American) speaking teachers; therefore, my conversation in English took place on daily basis. As a result I arrived in Texas fully equipped with language skills, but nevertheless the overwhelming dosage of English expressed itself in hallucinating dreams in English.
It would be nice to go to Russia for a couple of weeks for study or work to fill in my gaps in Russian language and get over them once and for all. We will see, maybe someday. Until then I will just watch and listen what Russians have to say to me and nod my head like I understand or reply to them in Slovak or rather English.