Recycling Dreams

Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

Le temps n'a point de rives

(time has no shores)

I picked up the following question from a post about dreams over at Pan's Island:

"What are your thoughts on why we dream the things we do and why some dreams just stay with us?"

The way I see it, dreams are the poetry of our subconscious or semiconscious mind. The dreams that stay with us are the ones that really made a deep impression – just like with quotes and moods that sometimes remain with us long after we have read certain books. They may have been wonderful, or scary, or just thought-provoking or mysterious - but somehow they touched us and left a mark.

When I sort through my bookcase sometimes, or look at the reading list I've been keeping on my computer over the last few years, I usually discover some books that I can't remember at all from their titles, even though I know I read them. With others, I may have forgotten most of the details of the plot, but I can still recall the mood they put me in, or "pictures" they made me paint in my mind.

At other times, sorting through deskdrawers and notebooks, I have come across old notes that I made about dreams in the past. Sometimes the dream comes back to me quite vividly, just from a glance at these notes. Sometimes I keep staring at them and wonder: Whenever did I dream this?! I have no recollection of it at all…

With dreams, I suspect that the ones we have managed to work through and understand – to lift, so to say, from the subconscious to our conscious mind - are less likely to keep coming back to us in the night; unless our subconscious finds them worth recycling again to remind us of something. Dreams that keep recurring usually do so either because there is still something lacking in our understanding of them, or because we need the feeling of recognition they may be able to provide.

Pan's Island also mentions the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. These books are full of dreams – Harry has a lot of them, and I get the feeling that Rowling must have done some pondering about the nature of dreams, too.

In the first chapter of the first book (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), Hagrid comes riding on a flying motorbike, bringing baby Harry safely to the Dursley's house. Between the first and second chapter there is a time gap of nearly ten years; we then meet Harry as a boy of nearly eleven:

He rolled on to his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorbike in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.

If my memory serves me right, after Harry met and got to know Hagrid (the friendly giant comes again to his rescue, on his 11th birthday, to introduce him to the Wizarding World), this particular dream about the motorbike is not mentioned again. But other dreams, less pleasant, do keep haunting him – until Harry is "through" with whatever was or is behind them…

Quotation of the Week (14/09)

.

And after all, isn't that what life is all about, the ability to go around back and come up inside other people's heads to look out at the damned fool miracle and say: oh, so that's how you see it!? Well, now, I must remember that.

Ray Bradbury

These words of wisdom are from the 1974 introduction to Ray Bradbury's semi-autobiographical novel Dandelion Wine (originally published in 1957). This is one of my favourite books ever since I first read it back in my teens. My old Swedish copy printed in 1972 fell apart recently when I took it out to look something up. I sent for a new one in English now, and it turned out to include this introduction entitled "Just This Side of Byzantium", in which Bradbury looks back on the writing process behind the book. That made me look forward even more to rereading the whole novel now, in the original language!

Raven's Wordzzle Challenge # 57

I've been on a random blog-surfing expedition again, and this time I picked up a "wordzzle" challenge from the blog Views from Raven's Nest. (Really, the words one comes across on this voyage - "wordzzle"?!...) I have tried similar exercises before, in creative writing classes. The idea is to weave a number of randomly chosen words or expressions into a story. What method Raven uses to choose her ten words is not known to me, but these were the words for next week:

apoplexy, doctor, hummingbird, shallow end of the pool, brigadier general, mustard, greed, parallelogram, slumber party, casual


Below is my attempt to put the words above into a context.

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Sorry, I'm new at this game and it seems I rushed ahead a little. I probably shouldn't have posted my story until next Friday. *

Since I already did, though, I'll let it stand. But if you want to have a go yourself first, here is where you should stop reading, and come back later! :)
---
The Slumber Party Mystery

Chapter 1 - Dr Challenge

Doctor Challenge parked his car in front of the big house, got out and looked around him. It was a drowsy sort of afternoon, hot and still. The only thing moving was a few busy hummingbirds hovering above the flowering bushes close to the entrance. Challenge put his hand in his pocket and took out the card again. He knew his host had a very special sense of humour, but it was still an odd invitation. "Welcome to be my guest at a slumber party this Friday evening", it said. He was a little early, so he decided to go for a walk around the house before he knocked on the door. At the back, there was a large swimmingpool in the unusual shape of a parallelogram. His host was known for his greed, but at the same time always willing to pay extra for odd details that made his house and garden stand out from everyone else's. At the shallow end of the pool, there were half a dozen deck chairs spread over the lawn. Some sausages were sizzling on the grill, and on a table nearby stood a single jar of mustard. There was no person to be seen, and the whole scene looked oddly deserted. What was going on here? "Good thing I dressed casual," Challenge thought, "if sausages is all we are going to be served." Then he noticed that there was someone sitting, or rather lying, in one of the deck chairs, facing the pool. Whoever it was, he was wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, and he was lying very still. Getting closer, Challenge saw to his surprise that it was the brigadier general himself - the host of the party, and also his patient since many years. No wonder then that he was lying so still – Challenge knew the brigadier was suffering from paralysis caused by apoplexy a few years ago. But how come he was lying out here in the garden, in the hot sun, all by himself? Challenge coughed discreetly, and said "Good afternoon!" But the brigadier did not even wink. Apparently he was fast asleep…

---

* FRIDAY, 3 APRIL 2009

Since I discovered I had more time before I was supposed to post my contribution, I decided to add a "second chapter" , based on Raven's Mini Challenge for the same week, consisting of 5 words:

Mount Olympus, arsonist, portraits, birch trees, "that car needs a new muffler"

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Chapter 2 - That car needs a new muffler

Challenge approached the deck chair where the brigadier lay with his eyes closed and one corner of his mouth pointing upwards as in a mocking smile. One could still see that he had once been a very handsome man. Challenge thought of the portraits in the gallery, which he often used to stop and look at when he came on his regular visits. These portraits were as extraordinary as the owner himself. They were all of different gods on Mount Olympus, but they all had the brigadier's face. Challenge lifted one of the man's limp arms and felt for the pulse. He couldn't find any. A sudden bang behind his back made him start. When he turned round, he saw that one of the sausages on the grill had exploded and burst into flame. Part of it had fallen down onto the grass, which was very dry. A fire immediately started spreading, and in just a few seconds reached the birch trees nearby. Challenge at first found himself unable move, but then suddenly let go of the brigadier's arm . "Not another fire!" he said to himself. "Why does this always happen to me? People will suspect I'm an arsonist! I have to get out of here, quick!" He started running back to the front of the house. To his relief, his car was still the only one parked there, and the road was empty. He jumped into the car and drove away, without looking back. Behind him, the butler peered out through the kitchen window and thought to himself: "That car needs a new muffler."

Click on the image to fly over to Raven's Nest,
"Saturday Wordzzle Challenge: Week 57"
and see her own and other people's contributions!

Time Travel

Illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

(Inspired by: The One-Minute Writer: Friday Fiction: Time)


This Sunday morning, at two o'clock, we are supposed to time travel again, by setting our clocks forward one hour. The only effect this will have on me (as every year) is to throw me out of rhythm once more, just as I was beginning to find it again after the winter darkness. "Summer time", they insist on calling it in this country – even though I woke up this morning and found the world outside all white again!

No, pretending to travel just one hour forward in time is really not enough to make the experience exciting in my mind…

Real time travelling has little to do with pushing the hands of a clock backwards or forwards, or turning an hour-glass upside down. That doesn't get you anywhere! You cannot pass through into a different time dimension as long as you are still aware of how time runs in this one. If you try, this will only result in serious stress syndrome, which might take you years to recover from.

What you have to do is stop time by forgetting it altogheter. Pull out the plugs, remove the batteries, or put your clocks in another room so you can't see or hear them. You should also shut out all other kinds of noise that remind you of the time of day, or year. Then go to your bookcase, pull out a book that takes place in the time you want to visit. Make yourself comfortable, and open the book...

Don't expect the transfer to take place immediately; at first you will probably still be too much aware of your own familiar surroundings. Sometimes it doesn't take place at all; you might have to try again another day. But remember, the key to time-travelling is not (as you might think) trying to push time forwards or backwards, but rather sideways. And the opening to the other dimension is different in each book. It might actually sometimes be a glance at a clock (in the book, mind, not in the room where you started reading!); but it could just as well be a hole in the ground, a wardrobe door, or the turning of a page in a book within the book…

… but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet… and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit hole under the hedge.

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland


… in the hall below, there was a clock, and through the night he would hear it strike the hours. It was a grandfather clock and very old. Mr Frith of Leighton Buzzard came each month to wind it, as his father had come before him and his great-grandfather before that. For eighty years, they said (and to Mr Frith's certain knowledge), it had not stopped and, as far as anyone could tell, for as many years before that. The great thing was – that it must never be moved. It stood against the wainscot, and the stone flags around it had been washed so often that a little platform, my brother said, rose up inside. And, under this clock, below the wainscot, there was a hole…

Mary Norton, The Borrowers


Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excited as well. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark tree-trunks, she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch a glimpse of the empty room from which she had set out. (She had, of course, left the door open, for she knew that it is a very silly thing to do to shut oneself into a wardrobe.)

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe


He made himself comfortable, picked up the book, turned to the first page and began to read The Neverending Story...

Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

(the sentence translated by me from the German original)

Multiple Me

Some time ago, on one of my random blog-surfing expeditions, I came across one page that afterwards got me thinking about how we choose and express our internet identities. I never bookmarked the page, and don't remember its name, or which way I got there. (Which I'm sort of glad of right now, because otherwise I would probably feel obligated to look it up again before writing about it, to make sure I didn't misinterpret it! But since my impressions remain vague and anonymous, I feel free to use them as such…)

It was a sort of index page with links to a whole set of other blogs, all by the same author. What gave me a sort of creepy feeling was that the index page described and named the different blogs as independent personalities rather than forums for writing about different subjects; and summed it all up by saying: "but they are all ME"…

I have no idea whether the author was just enjoying playing around with fictional characters, or if this was really an expression of a sort of multiple personality disorder.

It just set me thinking how complex "identity" has become, in this cyberspace, where on the one hand it is so easy to hide behind a signature, or pretend to be someone different than who you really are; and on the other hand we are leaving digital footprints most of us never think of but which others might find it easier to track than we can imagine.

I also started thinking, how many different names have I got myself on the internet? User names, login names, signatures, passwords, avatar pictures… How do I choose them, and why? What do they say about me? When I have time, I love figuring out good names and headlines. When I'm in a hurry, I hate those little pop-up questionnaires that demand that I either tell my complete life story, or invent an alternative personality on the spot, to be able to proceed...

Not telling the truth about one's age, for example, can sometimes have unforeseen consequences. At some point in history I probably filled in "00" instead of the actual year of my birth when creating an email account, because I really couldn't see why they needed to know my age. As a result, when I later wanted to fill in my profile, I got the reply: "You are too young to have a profile!" I wonder if in that domain, I will remain forever a child, or if I will eventually be considered mature enough to be allowed a profile? Say, in the year 2018…?

Out of the Labyrinth of Perplexities (Udolpho V)

On page 648 out of 672 in The Mysteries of Udolpho,

"Emily was still lost in a labyrinth of perplexities"

– and so is the reader; even if some connections are by then slowly beginning to dawn upon us.

The whole book finished, just 24 pages later, I have to humbly revise my earlier impression that the author didn't quite know herself where she was going with the story. The slow beginning is deceptive; it really contains several details that turn out to be quite important later on. All the twists and turns and dead ends along the way - represented by the dark corridors and dusty chambers of the castles, as well as all the travelling abroad - are also an illustration of the winding path of the story itself, leading us round and back and forth like a labyrinth, luring us to false conclusions; sometimes false hope, and sometimes despair of ever getting out and reaching an explanation of the mysteries.

As you could see in my previous Udolpho post (The Mysterious Herione), 115 pages from the end, I still didn't feel at all sure what would prove to be important or not when we came to the conclusion of the story. I only mentioned one, but Emily really brought two major unsolved mysteries with her (in her mind) from Udolpho. Both of these were explained before the end; but one turned out to be of greater importance than the other.

Moral: Sometimes, the things we do not see can haunt us just as much as those we believe we have seen. Come to think of it, this applies to relationships as well: what we don't know can prove as important as that which we think we know…

All in all, I don't regret the journey!

PS. One complaint from my second Udolpho post still stands, although it may seem rather pettish: I still think it was a mistake by the author to suddenly introduce Emily's father's dog, "the faithful Manchon", into one single event at the Castle of Udolopho – the dog never mentioned before that, and never again afterwards! ;-)

Links to previous Udolpho posts:
Reading The Mysteries of Udolpho
The Castle, At Last! (Mysteries of Udolpho II)
Multiple Choice (Mysteries of Udolpho III)
The Mysterious Heroine (Udolpho IV)

Quotation of the Week (13/09)

"We are still more interested in crimes than in virtues."
John Steinbeck

(From excerpt of a letter in an appendix to Steinbeck's version of
The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights.)