Iranian students pictured in the Seventies

Iranian basket ball athlets in the mid 60s. The regime of Shah Reza Pahlevi promoted a modern, western living style of woman.

But this period of personal freedom came to a immediate end: On march 7th Ayatollah Chomeini announced, that all woman have to cover their head in public. This old wannabe despote argued that woman should not be encouraged to go out and show up naked on the streets. This new law caused an uproar among the Iranian woman, mainly those of the urban society. On the following day, March 8th or the International day of Woman, tens of thousands from all political factions were out on the streets. Carried out by mothers, daughter and their grandmas, religious and non-religious people, this was the first stand up against the islamic regime.

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Rebellion against the new islamic variant of indoctrination: The Iranian woman were the first who went out and demonstrated for freedom and civil rights after the new Chomeini regime tried to silence all political opponents in 1979. Foto: Bettmann/Getty Image

40 years later, all the dreams have gone in vain. The pursue for freedom is kept hidden under the omnipresent Tschador.

Spending most of their lifes under the chador. The daily problems of financial and material decline left no space for dreams of freedom and self determination.

And the woman of the younger generation can rarely imagine what their grand-mothers were demonstrating for on the roads and squares of Tehran some 40 years ago. For the students who grew up only under the mullahs-regime, freedom of expression and the pursue of self-determination bears the flavour of heresy.

The young generation of woman dream of a little bid of “normal life”, i.e. less economic problems, but more financial security. Political or intellectual freedom has to come secondary.

But fear is by definition something specific, related to a particular object. In my case this object is the base for all life: WATER. And there comes the wet dreams into play, which I will describe shortly. But to write in a chronological order, I have to start with something that struck me half an hour ago.

Sitting in my office and doing some correction work on a students thesis I suddenly felt an unpleasant sensation. Goose bumps, muscle stiffness, cold sweat, and a feeling of unsafety amidst my most common work environment (and despite a supermodern electronic entrance security system which our research centers management has recently installed). So where came this irrational feeling of discomfort from ?  Outside the office there was apparently just the usual noise of people talking about institutes issues, roaring coffee machines, slapping doors, high heeled technicians strutting along the hallway. Nothing special. Except there was occasionally a silent splatter sound. This was new, and perhaps it would have got completely unrecognized, unless one has a particular high sensitivity for it. It appeared that the cleaning personal used a new kind of wet cloth today to wipe the floor. And when they rinsed this wet cloth in a water bucket, it made this typical splattering noise, as if you pure water from a cup into a filled bathtube.  I can not blame the poor cleaning guy for intentionally causing unpleasant sensations on me. Of course his biggest concern was to keep the institute in a tidy condition, which most people consider of uttermost importance for their personal well being.

But in this particular case I seem to be the collateral victim of his cleaning work. Don’t get me wrong, I usually like splattering water. I like to take a shower, watch water fountains, jump from the highest diving tower into unknown waters or irrigate the garden and careless dogs or people with a water hose. But I hate water that is floating around, uncontrolled and occupying areas that should be dry.

Therefore, the worst pictures that I saw in the news recently were the flooded streets, houses and basements in Huston/Tx. The number of casualities after the hurrican Harvey was not very high, but the pictures made it deep into the very ancient areas of my mind (brainstem and amygdala). Simply the imagination of water that rises more and more, that can not be stopped worries me much more than the imagination of a fire, an earthquake or an avelanche, all of which are usually more life threatening than a flooding (unless you go to the extremes of a tsunami).

I discovered a long time ago that there must be an archetypical fear deeply written in my inconscious memory, a fear of rising and floating water. This is when I have “Wet Dreams”, which I should better call “Wet Nightmares” (but “Wet Dreams” definitely attract much more traffic to my blog). Dreams in which I wade through some centimeters of water in our house or appartment, where the water comes from some cracked pipes or a defunct washing machine, when the “basis of all living matter” simply follows the laws of gravity and quickly soaks all floors and walls down to the basement, eager to find a tiny gap through which it can leak further down into the unknown, such visions make me sweating cold and can temporarily undermine my universal convidence in the general harmony of the universe.

And of course, in the long term, I will be right. The Texas flooding after hurrican Harvey will dry again, and even from the mythological flood described in the Epic of Gilgamesh (and later transcribe into the old testament) little is to be seen nowadays except of beautiful beaches and peaceful orchestrated waves. According to archaeologists Ryan and Pitman the great deluge happened at around 5600 AD in the Black Sea basin.  And I can not imagine a time that gives me more “peace of mind” than sitting there on the beach, observing how well behaving the water is that splatters around my feet, reading a book and thinking 7617 years back in time, when the torrents broke through the bosphorus and turned a former sweet water epicontinental lake into what is today the Black Sea.

   

  At the Black Sea coast, near Varna/Bulgaria. 7617 years ago the great deluge happened right here.

Of course my peace of mind can only be spoiled if somewhere behind me an unlocalized sound of splatter happens. But this in fact might come from some other tourists, who can not sit there quietly, watch the sea, read a book, drink a cocktail, but who have to start some water construction work.

Macho man on the beach can not stop to reshape the landscape. Or are they also afraid of flooding water ?