Berodnid (be-rod’nid [noun])

I’ve had unusual dreams in the past, but this one is among the most unusual. I remember very little visually about the dream[1] except for one pertinent detail which I’ll mention in a moment.

The core of the dream was that I was participating in a discussion with several people, some of whom I appeared to know in the context of the dream, on the topic of identity.

Not identity in the trivial sense of a name tag or a driver’s license or a birth certificate but rather the core essence of who we are.

During the discussion, someone used the term “berodnid” and I, being unfamiliar with it, asked what it meant.

They referred me to a Google definition (and here’s the one part of the dream I actually do remember with clarity:  An actual Google screen defining the word and showing how it was pronounced).[2]

Don't bother looking for it; it isn't there.

In my dream, “berodnid” is synonymous with “being” but not in the casual, ill-defined manner we typically use the verb / gerund.

Rather berodnid means the actual / true / objective being, i.e., the real identity of every person / creature / object / thing in existence.

Not what we present as our identity, and most certainly not the identity we slip on like a mask when we look at ourselves in a mirror, but the real actual identity.

I woke up around that point, and while most of the dream faded the idea, the concept, indeed the very berodnid of “berodnid” hung with me.

I presume there is objective truth in this universe.  I do not presume that anyone, neither the most rational materialist or the most spiritual theorist, has a lock on any aspect of that reality.

There are parts we can agree upon because they remain consistent to one another and to us, not because we are 100% certain we see their true nature and essence.

If we wore rose tinted glasses, we would see blues as shades of purple and yellow as shades of orange; those shades would remain internally consistent with one another and follow certain rules of light and color, but they would not be the true colors.[3]

We can never know our own berodnid; no eye can see itself, only an image of itself, just as no set of numbers can describe itself.

We are in eternal pursuit of a very real spirit that flits and flies just out of reach, darting around corners and into dark crevices before we can catch a good glimpse of it.

So what actually is berodnid? Something I invented? Or something very real?

Or a decoy left in my path to distract me?

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[1]  Moss green was the predominant color scheme, but what was moss green I can’t recall.

[2]  The prefix “be” from “being”, the suffix “nid” related to the suffix as found in “hominid”.  What the root “rod” derives from I cannot guess.

[3]  Even here I indulge in hominid-centric perceptions to discuss the truth of “blue”.  We see “blue” only because the rods and cones in our eyes are capable of interpreting that frequency of light as that color; we have no way of knowing if our “blue” is the same as another person’s “blue", only that it remains consistent with other colors in the schemata.  What color would the sky be if we were blind?