Dreamways

“Kentucky pastor charged in poisonous snake trade.” This intriguing headline appeared in The Denver Post (12 Jul 08). The article it led to once again illustrates that waking life can be every bit as strange as any sleep dream. “The pastor of a Kentucky church that handles snakes in religious rites was among 10 people arrested by wildlife officers in a crackdown on the venomous snake trade. More than 100 snakes were confiscated in the undercover sting after Thursday’s arrests, said Col.  read more »

EMPIRE OF DREAMS

On the first page of my dreambook
It’s always evening
In an occupied country.
Hour before the curfew.
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The storefronts gutted.

I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn’t be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of Halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on.

- Charles Simic

 read more »

“She has chronicled the 20th century’s utopian search for defining ideas — be they communism, feminism or psychology — and the fallout that such ideas have had on the lives of women trying to find an identity of their own.” So begins a tribute to Doris Lessing the day after she was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. (“Tracing the Internal Tug of War at the Heart of Human Life” by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, October 12, 2007). This summarization of Ms Lessing’s works is very much the realm of dreams, dreams as ideals, dreams as goals and aspirations.  read more »

In an essay entitled "Blows Against the Empire“ (The New Yorker, 20 Aug 07), Adam Gopnik explores the life and writings of American science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982) who is perhaps best known for having provided the adaptation source for Ridley Scott’s classic movie of dystopia, Blade Runner. While this movie can be seen as a dark and disturbing visionary dream, and as such, an influential cultural voice, the essay looks, among other things, at how Dick’s life was impacted by a moment of vision.

 read more »

The Sandman: Dream Country (vol. 3) (1995). New York: DC Comics. This book is stitched together of loosely-connected chapters. Loosely connected, like dreams in the course of a deep-sleep night. The first dream has Richard Madoc, a writer suffering from writer’s block, taking captive Calliope, the Greek goddess, raping and abusing her to arouse his artistic inspiration. He bashes her and attains the creativity that he had been lacking. When Morpheus, the god of sleep and dreams, rescues her, he condemns Madoc: "You want ideas? You want dreams? You want stories?  read more »

The dream world journey presented in the second volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series (The Sandman: The Doll’s House, 1995. New York: DC Comics) opens with an African male initiation ceremony. At the close of the ceremony a warning is issued: „Love is no part of the dream-world. Love belongs to desire, and desire is always cruel.“ This seems a bit melodramatic, but these assertions are good food for thought. Perhaps the key question is: what is love?  read more »

The Life and Times of Captain N. by Douglas Glover (1993. New York: Alfred A. Knopf) is an hallucinogenic novel of dreams.  "As it happens, I have dreamed a dream. It comes often, whenever I have a headache. When the pain fades, I fall asleep, or doze, and go into a gray world. I am building a house. I am up on the roof, tacking hand-split shingles. Margrethe and the children stand at the foot of the ladder, watching. No one lends a hand or says a word. My boy Oskar points and draws their attention to some aspect of my work. But I cannot hear his words.  read more »

In her essay “Ghost in the Dream” which appears in The New York Times Magazine (18 Feb 07, pg. 62) Dinah Lenney shares with readers disturbing aspects of the world of dreams. “The night after I learned my father was missing, my 4-year-old son, Jake had a nightmare. I didn’t know yet that my father had been robbed and stabbed, left to die on the banks of the Hudson by a couple of teenagers. It would be almost three days before his body was found in the rain, curled onto its side, covered in dirt and blood.”

 read more »

In an article about singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell's work as a dance choreographer, the following appears: "She [Ms Mitchell] was spurred on by something her grandson had said while listening to family fighting: 'Bad dreams are good – in the great plan.  Ms. Mitchell was stunned. 'How did he know that?‘ she wondered. 'That’s an amazing thing for anyone to know at any age. The line just stuck.‘ When the war in Iraq began, her grandson’s words resonated in her mind, and she 'gave birth,‘ as she described it, to four new pieces.“  read more »