"yoo-meh-dyne"

Whenever someone asks me how to pronounce my name, “yumedyne”, I can’t help but feel a wave of embarrassment. Not just because the follow-up question will be “can you say that again?”, but because I fear being seen as a wannabe art snob with an upturned nose and unearned sense of self-importance. But these feelings come from a place of pessimism, and I’m hoping that by explaining here what this name means to me, it will become clear why I chose it.

"Yume" (夢) is a Japanese word that means "dream" or "future vision".

“Dyne” is a unit of force¹.

¹ “Force” is the influence that can cause an object to change its velocity and direction unless counterbalanced by other forces.

“yumedyne” is the invisible influence of the subconscious mind (i.e. dreams) on our shared reality. This influence can be felt in every form of art – film, music, poetry, novels, etc. – but on a long enough timeline it becomes apparent just how long these sentiments and messages have echoed across the avalanche of human history, dismissed as fiction yet persist, nonetheless. Dreams are truths about reality disguised as something else, susceptible to being ignored or taken to heart.

“Oneirodynia” means a disturbed or restless sleep that is characterized by sleepwalking and nightmares. It’s easy to dismiss truths until their influence can no longer be denied. If the shadow² remains repressed by the conscious self, the darker and denser it becomes. “yumedyne” is to accept these darker parts of ourselves and our culture at large to become our authentic selves.

² In Carl Gustav Jung's analytical psychology, the shadow as a concept comprises everything the conscious personality experiences as negative. 

I’m an aerospace engineer by trade, and living in Huntsville, AL, there are a lot of aerospace industry companies that have stuck the word “dyne” in their name (Dynetics, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Teledyne, etc.), not to mention the fictional company Yoyodyne³ from the novel ‘The Crying of Lot 49’ by Thomas Pynchon. It’s also a homophone for “you may die”, taken from a speech by Lord Farquaad in the film ‘Shrek’⁴.

³ According to Gyu Han Kang, it "symbolizes the destructive force of sameness and artificially structured order".

⁴ “Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.”