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| “Iris,” by Auguste Rodin (detail) photo by the author, April 27 |
By Morris Dean
[Editor’s Note: The following account was dreamt early this morning, and we are pleased to assume that Bob Boldt’s post of yesterday (“Tony”) deserves some credit for it – at least for the fact that the dreamer wrote the account.]
It’s early morning as I start to write. Coming to my chair, I had the thought that I was dreaming even then, that “dreaming”as ordinarily understood – something we do in our sleep – extends, really, to our waking life as well. That is, our very life is a dream.
Anyway, in bed an hour ago I became aware as I was waking up that I had just been dreaming of driving down a dark, rainy road. Boulders were scattered in the road and it was only luck (or dream management) that I didn’t strike one with the car. Unidentified others seemed to be in the car. That is, I don’t think I had a sense that I knew them.
At a point where other cars were stopped, we got out and someone was directing onlookers to help. He wanted someone to cut down a birch tree (my wife and I had watched the final episode of The Night Manager the previous evening, in which pivotally figures a character going under cover by the name of “Andrew Birch”). Someone started to cut the birch tree down, but a young man in the crowd challenged the act, pointing out that the tree was not damaged; it was a good tree, it didn’t have offspring, which I thought was curious for him to say, seeming to be an indirect comment on over-productive human reproduction on a vastly overpopulated planet. Anyway, everyone agreed, and I felt relieved that the tree was spared.
I realized then, lying in bed, that earlier I had dreamed about another tree (the details have flown) and later someone was advised to write up the “case.” The tall man who was to write it up (somehow he reminded me of Ed Rogers) put enough sheets and carbon paper into a typewriter to produce I think seven copies of the report. (At least, lying in bed then, thinking about the dreams and thinking about writing about them, the number seven came to me – did it “suggest itself”?).
In the earlier dream, I remembered that I had advised the man typing up the “case” that he could get only maybe two carbon copies that would be legible, but he insisted on making seven copies. I couldn’t then – and can’t now – remember any more of that dream, but lying in bed I then remembered that yesterday I had advised a former colleague who wants me to help her identify a topic about which she might write a book to “auto-suggest” a revelatory dream, but she wrote back that she had already tried that several times, but no dream had “manifest.”
I told her I wondered what her “inner self” was trying to tell her by withholding a dream – stick to gardening?
And then, lying in bed thinking about all this, I remembered having a waking flash yesterday of a rule-bound woman of my acquaintance at the Buddhist retreat she will soon be attending with her husband. In the vision, she is focused more on making sure her husband is following the “rules of mindfulness” than she is on being open and mindful. It struck me, lying in bed, that this “flash” had itself been a sort of dream.
And then, walking to the chair I am sitting in now to write this, I had the thought that everything is a dream, the dreams we have when asleep, the conscious flashes of insight, this walking to a chair, this sitting down, this writing. And it feels now that I have come to the end of this account.
| Copyright © 2016 by Morris Dean |
Very interesting account and great re telling, Morris. I liked the "stick to gardening" statement as it seemed also to me that she is getting into "directing" herself as opposed to letting it happen, being open to self, or peacefully searching.
ReplyDeleteAlso, and you may or may not be interested in hearing this, is that the number seven is considered a Biblical reference of "completion".
The untouched tree for me signifies that, "don't fix something that isn't broken".
These are only MY views. Well done mate!
Thank you, Vic. I'm preparing to go to bed, perchance to dream. Writing this morning, very first thing, was most enjoyable. I can see doing that again....
DeleteOne thing that may help all is this. Jake and 'the dream establishment' says that WE are EVERYONE and EVERYTHING in our dreams. OUR dreams are born in our subconscious and 'may' be trying to help us in our conscious state. It can also be a house keeper - cleaning.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that too. I'm trying to comprehend how it could possibly be true of the numerous "characters" in Bob Boldt's "Tony" dream. Can Jake shed some more light on this? Thanks!
DeleteI was only using Jake as a reference to things she's mentioned in the past. She has not read any of this yet. I also have not finished reading all of Bob's. Going out for eggs florentine right now.
ReplyDeleteEach time I got up last night to pee I noticed that I had utterly no sense of having been dreaming. I wondered idly whether my "inner self" was signaling me she was going to hide them from me if I persisted in sharing them with the world.
ReplyDeleteAnd then, toward five o'clock, I had a dream of a man of about sixty – younger than the thirty-something man I was aware of having dreamed interacting with the older man in an earlier segment of the dream, which had almost vanished from my awareness except for the vague sense that the two were in conflict, or rivalry.
In this final segment, the younger man was absent (or was perhaps me – as I did seem to have had the feeling earlier that he had stood for me), but the older man was still defying him, puffing up his chest, flexing his muscles.
But then the older man doubled over, and when he stood up water was gushing from a hole in his abdomen, two or three inches above his belly button. Water, not blood.
I remembered wanting to remember all of this to comment on my "Sleeping and waking" post, but it is only now (two hours later) that I am able to do it.
Ha, was the water my impending cascade of remembered dreams, about to "expand exponentially," a là Bob Boldt?
DeleteInteresting to say the least. Meanings are personal and best interpreted by self, I feel. With honesty and intuition. Listening to others interpretations may bring confusion or inaccuracy into things. You are your best good-bad-and ugly in matters of the subconscious.
ReplyDeleteKnow also that as you develop your own "working" relationship with your dream state, (subconscious), that YOU can change the dream outcomes to YOUR desired, and positive results. I know folks who do that, 'they say'.
Thank you, Vic; this is encouraging.
DeleteI intended also to give you an affirmation that the insights and responsive thoughts you've already come up with re your dreams seem to me sound. And only YOU know that with self honesty. Keep it up, mate!
ReplyDeleteLast night, much like the night before, I didn't become aware of specific images I had been dreaming until after 4:30. And the image came with a sort of "movie review" synopsis of its significance. I was leaving written information in a "forensic drop," which I understood I was required to use rather than communicate it directly with the "principal" whom it concerned. And, without benefit of any outward sign I could describe, I was given to understand that the "drop" was Israeli (overtones of Israel's Mossad spy agency), and this suggests, I now realize, that the "forensic information" might be "intelligence" gleaned from spying on "the principal," who is Jewish. (The dropbox, whether forensic or clandestine, was guarded by a woman, who might – or might not – be the principal in question.)
ReplyDeleteAnd, it now occurs to me, forensic suggests a criminal investigation, although no crimes in that sense are involved – only the everyday foibles and deceits of human interaction, with oneself as well as with others. The principal is suspected of much such deceit.
While this short fragment was not the "gush" of dreams I thought might be heralded by the flow of water from the older man's abdomen in the previous morning's dream, I remain not only hopeful, but also expectant. (I note the word "expectant's" suggestion of being pregnant with dreams....)
You are certainly, with 'both feet' in cahoots with your subconscious right now! Explanation or meanings may not come at once, I've found. Sometimes days, even months later when you have a "Wo, I've been here before" moment.
ReplyDeleteGosh, this dream adventure is a thrilling ride! And sleep is shortly on today's agenda....
DeleteWow, last night was a breakthrough in catching dreams before standing up and losing the possibility of a handle to drag them up from the "inner below." At 12:01 this morning - time for my first pee of the night - I was still in the act of standing up when I realized I had just been dreaming. And then, five or six (or four or five?) more times during the morning, before starting to stand up, I caught another dream. All of them, at quick assessment, seemed independent of the others, although I suspect that deeper consideration would discover connections and mutually reinforcing interpretations.
ReplyDeleteThat alone would have been remarkable, but also remarkable was the fact that each dream seemed familiar in the sense of its having been dreamed about before, not necessarily recently. (Note that this might – or might not? – indicate that I had "caught" the earlier dream or dreams, but perhaps they only seemed familiar consciously because, to my "unconscious," they were familiar – and my conscious and my unconscious had now connected.
I did not write down anything of all these dream-catchings – that's why I can't say for sure how many dreams there were. Just somewhere between five and seven. I could describe only some of them now, three hours after getting up for the day.
Writing them down of course poses logistical problems. I can't turn on the light or speak into a recorder, because I would disturb my wife. I guess I need to steal softly from the bedroom to a far reach of our house to record. But, in any case, I do not relish disturbing my sleep.
Wow. Great blog and comments.
ReplyDeleteWe owe it to the column's originator, Contributing Editor Bob Boldt, whose long, precisely remembered dreams are awesome. He has to be awake FOR HOURS writing up or dictating his accounts!
ReplyDeleteI suggest there is few-to no barriers between our conscious and subconscious in themselves. I think we tell our logical selves that they just met. However, I believe they have always transferred helpful information with each other and only when WE are ready to consider or make any changes spurred by our inner desire to grow or understand more, do they become more prevalent and metaphorically worthy of conscious discussion. May we always learn and improve ourselves to ourselves and to each other!
ReplyDeleteVic, I know that virtually ALL of my creative (non-habitual) ideas have ALWAYS come from my unconscious. That's what my "muse" talk is all about. That is, my unconscious and my conscious have always been connected. I am NOT just now "becoming interested" in my unconscious, but I haven't for a long time paid much attention to my DREAMS as a way to explore it. The "connection" referred to in my comment applied specifically to the previously unconscious content of dreams that, last night, became conscious as I was able to grab onto them before they slid back down. The wonderful thing that happened was that I ALSO became conscious that I'D HAD THE DREAMS BEFORE (because they seemed familiar), even though I don't think I had previously been aware of them. It was that "also" revelation that was referred to by my statement that "my unconscious had now connected with my unconscious."
DeleteNow the question is: will I "steal softly away to a far reach of our house" tonight to dictate dream notes?
The answer to the question is yes. Before turning off the light for the night, I opened a note on my iComputer (that's an iPhone that's only rarely used for voice calls) and titled it: "Dream notes night of May 30-31."
DeleteAnd then I turned on Robert Galbraith's second novel to listen myself to sleep.
The next thing I was conscious of was I was awake and poised to take notes – before going to pee. But what was this? There didn't seem to be a dream to record.
But I could at least go through the motions, test my tactics. I got hold of my iComputer, which lay beside my chest, where it had automatically shut off after reading me 15 minutes of The Silkworm, and threw a leg over the edge of the bed to stand up. In the TV room I accessed the ready note and dictated:
"1232 woke up and remembered to take notes first without moving but even though it was immediate or less and seem to be having any dreams so I paid that I came into the living room Texas notice to practice I said in the morning"
My verbal faculties were still asleep, it seemed, and it's obvious now. But the rough mechanics of my solution for recording dream notes without waking my wife seemed adequate. So, when a dream did strike, I'd be ready. Back to bed!
But the next time I awoke, again no dream seemed to have been interrupted. Or was my unconscious just trying harder to hide herself from me? Somehow I felt as though something had been going on, if only I could grab its tail. I didn't bother to practice dictating another note.
At last, near morning, I caught a mysterious dream fleeing me with such haste I can only think that something sensitive or too-revealing was afoot. In any case, something about a wood (or park), with two girls (young women) seeming to make camp out of direct sight of me and (seemingly) my entourage, although I couldn't tell who were in my entourage, or why we were there, except that I sensed the dream had been going on for some while and we and the girls were in league somehow. It all seemed too sketchy to trouble to dictate notes. I'm sure that what I remember now (a couple of hours after getting out of bed for the day) is as complete as any immediate notes would have been.
Anyway, readier now for bear tonight. Ever hopeful!
I do beg your pardon. I understand better your musings now, thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe part of dreaming that I myself cannot get a grip on how to do is 'controlling their outcomes'. I have a son that can, he says. Apparently that is possible and especially helpful in conscious re decision on matters where the dream takes one to an undesired or disturbing conclusion. Perhaps those kind of dreams have not hit a high enough crescendo with me yet. ? Naw...that's also perhaps a cop out. ha!
Where I am now in my own proficiency (or lack thereof), I think that dream-outcome control is several steps beyond me. For now, I just want to be able to remember a complete dream in fair detail.
DeleteIt's probably just as well that I didn't awaken last night to any dream tunes playing in my head. I was tired from staying up late finishing "Notes from Paris" & "Birds & Bees & Butterflies" and preparing Bob Boldt's 9/11 dream for publication tomorrow. And I hadn't set up a note in which to dictate anything either.
ReplyDeleteBut I HAVE set up a note for tonight: "Dream notes night of June 1-2."
The follow-up comment on my dream of "night June 1-2" has been posted as a comment on Bob Boldt's 9/11 dream.
DeleteNo dreams again, night of June 2-3. Nada. Am resetting header of note to "night of June 3-4."
ReplyDeleteDream notes night of June 3-4:
ReplyDeleteWoke up at 06:10 in a dream following my little daughter along a very, very crowded sidewalk. In the street to our left, cars full of people were standing, waiting to pull forward. Only my daughter, who walked 20 or 30 feet ahead of me and appeared to be about two years old, she was so tiny, and I, walking a bicycle (the sidewalk was too crowded for me to ride it), seemed to be moving forward. I understood that we were going to a Shakespeare production (or something having to do with Shakespeare). A little way back, as we had entered the sidewalk, I had glanced left to the main entrance and come this way only on the hope that we could go around and be accommodated, although it really appeared that there would be thousands or tens of thousands of people who wouldn't be able to get in. Somehow, I seemed confident that my daughter and I would be all right. She seemed to be dressed in the same dress and bonnet she wore in Victoria, British Columbia on a hot day in 1971, when she was about 16 months old. In fact, the day now was sunny and warm.
Something woke me up. My left arm was still draped over Siegfried's neck. He had joined me on the bed an hour or so earlier. Carolyn was up early baking a pie.
I've found the photo of my daughter and her brother from Victoria, British Columbia. Here's a crop of the photo to show the outfit that the dream reminded me of.
DeleteDream notes night of June 4-5
ReplyDeleteDamn! but when I realized, after already having extricated myself from the bedcovers to go pee, that I had been having a rather gripping dream - seeming to have involved a homicide - it was already slithering away down the dreamhole, like mucus, and I had no more hope of pinching a corner and pulling it back than I had hope of restraining a green ball of sinus discharge. I did, though, catch another glimpse of apparently related images the next time I awoke, again already in physical motion, too late to secure a purchase on them. There's always tonight - if I survive the day.
I'm sure you know that symbolically a "death" in a dream more then likely has a meaning for a part of you. Is there a part of you that you don't care for? And in your subconscious you may be trying to rid yourself of? I doubt you need to constantly look over your shoulder to see who is sneaking up on you with an ax or a mucus mother load. ha!
ReplyDeleteVic, as a matter of fact, there ARE some attitudes that I am adjusting. Do you think that could be it? I'm about to retire for the night, determined to grab onto the first dream that strikes - HOWEVER bad I think I need to pee!
DeleteYes, it is highly likely it is as simple as that. Sickem! Growing differently is the pay off. I like "growing" and "different". I can tell you do too.
ReplyDeleteDream notes night of June 5-6
ReplyDeleteI was so torpid each time I woke up that, even though I was somnolently aware of having been dreaming, I couldn't marshal sufficient mental or physical powers to pursue them. It was sad, especially the second time, when the image of a fairly grotesque human face spoke directly to me. If I could have managed at the time, I think I could have quoted what was uttered. But it's 17 or more hours later at this point, bedtime again....
In reflecting on that "grotesque face," I wonder now whether the import of the dream was what incapacitated me and prevented me from remembering the dream or even taking notes on what little Ii might remember?
DeleteDream notes night of June 6-7
ReplyDeleteAgain, last night, I awoke, this time multiple times, with dreams in progress, but dreams this time of which I had more detailed memory. However, as I said, "again", I was not motivated to get up out of bed and record detailed notes.
While it is tempting to spend my words here now exploring "why," I am able to see that that would be a desertion from the point. So, what can I remember now?
In one dream I seemed to be back in my home of origin – well, not quite – it was a home, and I was younger, but it was no home I literally recognized. The main character, other than myself – and I am cautioned to consider that every character is myself – was a man, a friend of the family, a relative? He seemed intent on me, on acquainting himself with me better. And now, put like that, it is elementary to suppose that this was a dream about exploring myself, discovering something. About. Myself. Period.
In another dream, also in a house – it seemed to be my house more or less now – we had a leak. The main leak, and a subsidiary leak. And we were trying to stanch it, fix the leak and – oh my gosh, this seems to be the same subject....
A possibly – no, of course certainly– significant detail of this second dream was that to fix the leak – just the secondary leak – was going to be expensive. My wife, who was in on the project and called someone to inquire, reported that the device that would fix it would cost $7300. Perhaps someone reading this account will be able to suggest what that number might portend. At the moment I have no association that throws light on the subject.
Another dream seemed (vaguely now) to involve an insurance claim, and I immediately had a half-waking dream of a sort of "Thor's Day" quip. Suppose my house were destroyed in a storm and, when I filed a claim, the insurance company declined to pay because the storm was an "act of God." I wondered (again not sleep-dreaming, but half-awake dreaming) how that could be a just response, because "God" did not exist....
DeleteDream notes night of June 7-8
ReplyDeleteBefore I went to bed last night, I received an email from a friend: "I gotta wonder if pushing yourself to 'up and record' is really worth it. Especially as you don't really want to. Don't make yourself more 'nuts' then you are, I say. Sleep is important and good. Knowing will come if it's important enough."
l replied: "THAT may be just the rationalization I was looking for! Now I'll just wait to see what I feel like doing...."
Okay. When I came awake for the first time last night with a clearer impression than usual of a lengthy dream I had been having, I was actually half-inclined (or maybe a quarter-inclined) to go dictate it. But, as I rationalized the inclination away, I rested somewhat assured that I probably really DID want to record notes – just not tonight.
The dream had the feel of a slow, English detective story – a small group of adults, of which I was one (if not all of them), were settling into a visit to a rural enclave (it could have been an island, but no shore was evident). A man not in "our group" had appeared and given no sign of being anything but another normal adult (like all of "us" were).
And then he reappeared and announced that an investigation had just been opened, which was the point at which I awoke and realized that the dream had been an "English detective story."
Having written that, I can easily understand (or conjecture) that these dreams I have been sampling have indeed been "investigations" or portents of revelations about myself.
And the fact that "an investigation had just been opened" (but not really gotten into yet) seemed to confirm that it was just as well I hadn't made the effort last night to go into a far room and dictate notes.
But tonight might be another story, as the investigation proceeds....
Isn't it interesting how things sometimes "come to us" when we don't struggle or push (control?) to seek them out?
ReplyDeleteRight on! Don't struggle or push, but do show with some passion and intensity that we are vitally interested and open. Sort of "ask and receive."
DeleteYou're absolutely right! Internal change is always effective when we're ready and willing. Joyous, interesting and surprisingly fast too, in most cases! The result at times brings tribute to the saying, "What a difference a day makes."
ReplyDeleteDream notes night of June 8-9
ReplyDeleteA very quiet night, dream-wise. Somebody seemed to be taking the night off.
But I did have a productive half-waking dream about an x-point scale for rating or describing the intensity or memorability of dreams. But rather than share that dream here, please let me devote a column to it, as soon as I can manage.
About to go to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream....
ReplyDeleteDream notes night of June 9-10
ReplyDeleteI was cold when I awoke at I think a little after midnight. I hadn't worn a shirt because warm was forecast.
Some sort of competitive presentation had been going on in Dreamland. It seemed to have been collegial, even moderated. A conversation had just been going on in which I had struggled to speak – not to speak so much as to remember the names I was trying to remember to say what I wanted to say. The struggle had been frustrating, even painful, "psychically."
And now, semi-awake, too cold to go dictate, I really, really wanted to remember what the presentations had been about.
But the struggle to remember was just as fierce, just as painful, and no more successful – I have nothing to report.
However, I do have surmises. As much as is remembered of this dream and its immediate aftermath suggests to me that I fear memory loss and that the loss is real and happening and probably worsening.
Coincidentally (?), a little while ago (as I finish this note after breakfasting and cleaning up the kitchen), I saw a Facebook notification of conversation about an old photograph of a former colleague and friend who was a founding editor of Moristotle & Co. He had, many years ago, predicted that my body would remain sound, beyond the unraveling of my mental faculties. "Colleague"..."collegial."
Night of June 10-11
ReplyDeleteIf my recent correspondent who suggested (tongue in cheek, I hope) that "if [dreams, like sperm] are wasted through masturbation...it is somehow sinful to not make an effort to remember your dreams and consider what they might be trying to tell you," then I was too lax last night in not making more of an effort to catch my dreams, which seemed numerous and somehow connected, like a TV serial. Like Homeland, in fact, for at least one image of former CIA Director Saul Berenson, wizened as he was in Season 4, appeared. (In the first segment, just before 1:22 a.m., an image of an elephant also appeared, but it looked like a single photograph, not a moving dream image – curious.)
Anyway, at about 4:45 a.m., "I woke up in that little trailer house with the tar flaming on the stove top" – as I emailed my niece this morning who really was in that trailer sixty-five-some-odd years ago and ended up with burns over much of her body.
My wife and I had "watched four episodes today - our personal record for Homeland," I had told my niece last night, establishing a link between her and last night's dream?
I am still thinking about Homeland's bearing on my niece (or on me, in regard to her) – or waiting for my muse to tell me what I think.
Night of June 11-12
ReplyDeleteIt was a pleasant, undisturbing night. Upon waking and rising to pee at 1:20, 3:10, and 4:45, I had only the slightest sense that I had been dreaming, with no sense of specific images or sensations. Ditto upon rising at 5:42 for the day. Only a hint now of regret.
At least I've developed the routine of always writing up SOMETHING regarding the previous night's "dream project." It truly felt good this morning, to have nothing to report. I maybe just needed the rest. I continue to feel open (TOTALLY open) to having a vivid, memorable, detailed dream. One could strike any time, even tonight!
DeleteYes, you have. Well done!
ReplyDeleteNight of June 12-13 (Part 1)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was awakened at 4:45 this morning – by my wife's alarm telling her to go walk while it was still cool enough – I was aware of having had a fairly long dream, maybe two dreams. In the immediate one, I was outside, with another person, who seemed to be assisting me, or supervising. I was cleaning an area of several discrete piles of human feces. And when I attempted to simply sweep them off, my "assistant" warned me that I needed to keep them separate for analysis.
Now, that actually reminds me of the possibly other dream I had been having, although it also suggests that they were not completely separate, but perhaps different aspects, or sides, of the same significant narrative.
In the "other" dream, I was seeming to investigate some mysterious goings-on having to do with boxing and possibly brain-surgery experiments. Individual men – big, burly men, some with shaved heads – maybe all with shaved heads? – were moving about, as in a gym. I saw one bruiser, for example, with a large slice from his skull and brain. He was walking, seemingly with no difficulty, out of the area, and someone said to the others not to go with him, he wanted to go alone (wanted to die alone, I understood this to mean).
But in another sequence within this narrative – and I suppose this sequence could actually be a third dream sequence, although it really does seem to be related in its significance somehow, even though I do not understand at this point what that narrative is...Anyway in this sequence, an individual is about to box someone, or is in the ring in the act of boxing. And he is looking at his "trainer." I get my eyes between his and the trainer's so that their eyes cannot meet. I am looking Intently into his eyes to try to keen what is going on. But I cannot tell anything. And when I look around at the eyes of the trainer, he continues to try to make eye contact with the boxer, and I still cannot make out what might be going on. Somehow, now, the feces seems to relate to this, as though it indicates something about his meds. And there is more about this that I cannot recall from earlier dream images.
Goodness, Morris. You seem to have covered several aspects of possible things going on with you. It's great! Getting detail interest in feces analysis, for instance. That would probably just be out of interest for your inquisitive mind, but in "our" day if you recall, doctors used feces to determine what was going on inside us. Your subconscious may be wondering if the meds you're on are correct for you. ?
DeleteThe boxers again, I (only) think is your desire to look at and question yourself. Important? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Only you will know.
Thank you, Vic! Your focus on fecal analysis could be right on. As a matter of fact, my motility had been a concern, and I recently eliminated a food that a doctor had warned might be aggravating my diverticulosis, with the encouraging result that my motility has returned to consistently normal. I really don't think I'm questioning my meds, about which I have always been cautious in the first place. Thanks again.
DeleteNight of June 12-13 (Part 2)
ReplyDeleteWell, interestingly, again last night my wife and I watched four episodes of Homeland Season Five. And, I remember now, earlier in the night – I think around 2:30, when I first woke up to pee, I was vaguely aware of having dreamed images of Claire Dane, who plays Carrie Mathison of the CIA – or or in previous seasons of the CIA, she has now left and is working in the private sector in Berlin – dreamed mages of her talking – about what, I do not know, but the association with having watched Homeland is pretty obvious. Is it simply a case of dreaming about something that one has just intensely experienced, like dreaming provoked by over-eating?
The scenes in the hospital, or whatever, could also have been provoked by images in one of the episodes of Homeland. Peter Quinn, a CIA assassin, has been shot by a Russian agent, also a professional assassin, and he has been taken and cared for by a former doctor from Syria, who can no longer practice there. The care is delivered in the apartment building the former doctor manages, a job to which he has been relegated since he can't officially practice medicine in Germany either. And in one of his apartments is staying someone who lets other refugees from Syria meet who have jihadist, or terrorist, sympathies. One of these has just been released – a large, burly man, whose head is shaved. In the course of the action he and Quinn fight, Quinn killing him even though Quinn is weak and bleeding from the gun shop for which he is being treated.
That is all I can remember of the dream images. But it is instructive, perhaps, to note that my memory of dreaming, of dream images, seems to have been facilitated by my having been wakened by an alarm, rather than wakened naturally, to pee.
Another thing I wish to record is that – well, first, that I am dictating this, and, second, when I wake up later in the night – that is, after lying in bed for some hours – my right sacroiliac is often hurting so bad, it is quite painful to get out of bed and walk. I record this because it is another factor, besides stupor, that compromises my ability to go to another room to dictate. In fact, this morning I did my stretches, which I learned from a physical therapist, before I got up to dictate these notes. (My wife and Siegfried are out now for their walk.)
Wow, I just scrolled up to see how long these notes are, and they are quite long. I guess a probably good thing about dictating dream notes – possibly about dictating my "writing" in general – is that more gets written??? I take it that this is simply because when I am literally writing, I am also usually engaged in editing as I go. This is not so natural – and not so easy – in dictating.
It is now almost 10 at night. I just finished reading this morning's dictation and cleaning it up. Putting down more words has its disadvantages.
But it's good that I recorded what I could remember this morning, for I so little remember it now I have to take my record's word for it.
You have probably heard the sayings - "If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas". Or, "You become like the people you spend time with". I don't know if there is, but there should also be a saying - "You absorb TV and movies you watch into your being sometimes like they're real". I don't think our subconscious can 'always' separate that fantasy from our life living realities. It therefore has to try and make sense of the 'unusual' or abnormal happenings it experiences us having. "Actually having" or TV fantasy. You gotta wonder how well it can tell these apart?
ReplyDeleteYou have become really good at recall and reporting your dream memories and that surely has simply come from practice and being interested in the process. Sickem big fella!
Vic, again, I am sure you are right about TV invading our dreams. The intensity of stories, especially when conveyed dramatically through video, is probably more powerful than "real life," with its meandering lack of clear plot. And Homeland is so realistic (of human ambivalence, the ruthlessness of spy agencies, surveillance of civilian populations, radical Islam, friendship), it connects inexorably with my core. If it didn't inform my dreams, I would probably already be dead.
DeleteFortunately, last night, the dreaming I did evaporated quickly in my half-waking indifference to remembering them. My wife and I had set a new record yesterday and last evening for number of episodes watched, as we plunged all the way to the end of Season Five, and I was too tired to try to mine any dream ore.
[Note: The following two-part account is in the original, unedited dictated version.]
ReplyDeleteNight of June 14-15 (Part 1)
Last night I seemed to have a flood of rich rich dream. There was none of the TV inspired grotesquerie of previous nights. I had gone to bed at about 8 PM. I think my first dream awakening was around midnight.
At The time I remembered what it was and thought I would continue remembering. But now Dash it's nearly 430 and I am getting up – I cannot remember it.
The second dream, I was, as I have been in numerous previous dreams, though not recently, in a house. My grown daughter was in a room down the hall and someone else in the family, I think, was in another room, although I wasn't as aware of her – I think it was a woman. The project of the dream segment was that I needed to prepare for bed, and it was important not to disturb my daughter or the other person with light or noise. So the project was to close the doors appropriately to do that.
in the next dream I was in a professional setting, let's say, and someone in the organization had discovered that I had a trove of books – some of which there were many copies – about creativity and effective thinking or problem-solving, And the person who discovered this wanted me to make them available for distribution to help other people. I was fine with that and encouraged it to proceed.(Note: for the record I no longer have many of the books that I once owned, and at no point did I own as many books on creativity and problem-solving as I was represented to have in the dream.)
in the next segment – again in a professional setting – I was.... I can't say what I was, and no I think that actually the scene which was a laboratory or simply a generously proportioned office had lots of evidence of a previous amount of works having been done. In this dream retrospectively we wondered whether there was some excess of product who's significance we had not previously recognized. And, actually, there was someone in the office – a young woman! – Who was quite aware of the value of the "excess " in fact, she seemed delighted that someone else had guest at the underlying value. In the dream, however, I do not think the actual thing or its actual value were revealed to me, or, that is, they were not evident in the dream.
I think, previous to that one, I had parked my car in a position in the lot so that it was in the shade. And now, after the dream sequence or topic summarized above, I went out to the parking lot and found that my car had been moved off a lot under the verge in fact partly up on a divider or something at the edge. It seemed clear to me that someone some group of people had simply left of the car and carried it off, because of its position. And my first thought was oh I will just lifted up and put back over or pulled her over a enough to be able to drive it away.
oh, and now I remember thinking – I guess I was now awake and musing about the dreams I had been having – I remembered the scientist (was a tesla) who dreamed of the benzene rings or something in chemistry. That is, it was seeming to me that much of the dream material last night, or the ones about the books on creativity thinking and problem-solving, and the one on the laboratory our office in which some work proctor product had an excess of value, Had to do with dreams as vehicles or channels or agencies of creativity and invention. And, of course, I was feeling buoyant and somehow "delivered."
Night of June 14-15 (Part 2)
ReplyDeleteA related, but somehow converse, feeling had accompanied the dream in the house where I was preparing for bed. In that dream, even though my daughter and another person were in the house, I felt very alone and a bit sad, or lonely.
also – kind of by the way – the dream sequence of preparing for bed, set in a house, reminded me of numerous other dreams and houses. One house, in particular – and this was months or years ago – seemed to be that of Carolyn's brother Richard's family. It seems relative to yesterday's events, because Richard has remarried, and yesterday was his second wife's birthday. And I had been in communication with Richard, Including to convey happy birthday wishes to her. And in the same time. – That is years ago – I had numerous dreams in a two-story home of quite a few rooms which seemed to be based on the house we lived in for 25 years in Chapel Hill. Those dreams are always seemed comfortable or comforting, reminders of secure life and routine.
OK, I will stop to stop dictating here, except to note also that getting up in the morning to dictate – rather than getting up during the night to do so – seems to be a good procedure. It seems to be working. I am only sorry that I cannot know remember the first sequence, which seemed of the same order, but perhaps less significant. That is maybe it doesn't matter so much whether I remember it or not. I can think of that simply as a warm-up for what came after.
One further note, in dictation: just now I was doing my morning stretches, and I remembered a person, perhaps a physical therapist, who didn't seem to be doing her own exercises as long as she had told me to do them. And I asked her whether she were counting the time or not. (I am sure now that she was not a physical therapist but simply another person in the group who was learning the exercise routine.) anyway she had said something very memorable to me. She had said she would rather concentrate on her breathing. I think I have learned from my dreams last night that I have no sufficiently developed the mechanics of remembering and recording my dreams so that I no longer need to think about the mechanics and can get on with the dreaming – with the creativity itself, so to speak. Or, alternatively, I can leave the books (the mechanics) to others; I no longer need them myself. Wow!
Night of June 14-15 (Part 2)
ReplyDeleteA related, but somehow converse, feeling had accompanied the dream in the house where I was preparing for bed. In that dream, even though my daughter and another person were in the house, I felt very alone and a bit sad, or lonely.
also – kind of by the way – the dream sequence of preparing for bed, set in a house, reminded me of numerous other dreams and houses. One house, in particular – and this was months or years ago – seemed to be that of Carolyn's brother Richard's family. It seems relative to yesterday's events, because Richard has remarried, and yesterday was his second wife's birthday. And I had been in communication with Richard, Including to convey happy birthday wishes to her. And in the same time. – That is years ago – I had numerous dreams in a two-story home of quite a few rooms which seemed to be based on the house we lived in for 25 years in Chapel Hill. Those dreams are always seemed comfortable or comforting, reminders of secure life and routine.
OK, I will stop to stop dictating here, except to note also that getting up in the morning to dictate – rather than getting up during the night to do so – seems to be a good procedure. It seems to be working. I am only sorry that I cannot know remember the first sequence, which seemed of the same order, but perhaps less significant. That is maybe it doesn't matter so much whether I remember it or not. I can think of that simply as a warm-up for what came after.
One further note, in dictation: just now I was doing my morning stretches, and I remembered a person, perhaps a physical therapist, who didn't seem to be doing her own exercises as long as she had told me to do them. And I asked her whether she were counting the time or not. (I am sure now that she was not a physical therapist but simply another person in the group who was learning the exercise routine.) anyway she had said something very memorable to me. She had said she would rather concentrate on her breathing. I think I have learned from my dreams last night that I have no sufficiently developed the mechanics of remembering and recording my dreams so that I no longer need to think about the mechanics and can get on with the dreaming – with the creativity itself, so to speak. Or, alternatively, I can leave the books (the mechanics) to others; I no longer need them myself. Wow!