"We are not terrified because some sphinx is threatening us but rather dream of a sphinx in order to explain the terror we are feeling. If this is the case, how can a simple account of such imaginings communicate the dread and the thrills, the adventure, anxieties, and joys conjured by last night's dream? I am going to attempt to do this all the same.... It took place in the Humanities Building, at dusk.... We were electing people to committees... Suddenly we were assaulted by the racket of a street band or a demonstration.... A voice cried: 'Here they come!' then: 'It's the Gods!'..."
Wrote Jorge Luis Borges, in "Ragnarok."
I'm reading that this morning because it's in an Ask Metafilter discussion about something that happened to me last night: dreaming that you are very sleepy, struggling with sleepiness within the story that is the dream.
I'm blogging it because I find it very cool when a subject recurs within a blogging session, and I had already blogged about Coleridge this morning.
Posts
20 comments:
For some reason I can’t remember lyrics I’ve sung for decades some nights yet the first stanza of Coleridge’s Xanadu are permanently and indelibly accessible to my brain.
I woke up again this morning thinking that I had an exam to go to, not having studied and not even knowing where the exam was or what the class was.
Chuck Klosterman made a point (pretty irrelevant to the rest of his book) of telling us that modern psychologists don't put much stock in dreams.
It was better when we thought dreams were a message from some other world, or even a whole other world in themselves.
I was dreaming I was awake laying in bed thinking about what I was going to do today, then the alarm went off.
Synchronicity: it's the law.
I have reoccurring dreams of being lost, not remembering how to get to my destination. And sometimes during these dreams I’ve lost my pants and can’t find them either.
"Philosophy," says Hegel, "is utterly useless and fruitless, and, for this very reason, is the sublimest of all pursuits, the most deserving of our attention, and the most worthy of our seal"—a somewhat Coleridegy assertion, with a rivulet of deep meaning in a meadow of words.. - Edgar Allen Poe
I just thought it was funny that Poe used the word "Coleridgy."
If someone is confusing the Humanities faculty with the Gods, it seems more in line with a hallucination than a dream.
Dreams are a message from the other self who lives in your brain with you, who is mute, but can express himself or herself... or themself, in other ways. Not all of these messages seem important to us, but some of them certainly are. Sometimes, they are just about fears the "other" has, for instance, if you are driving your car and you realize you have no memory of what happened in the last fifteen minutes, your subconscious was driving while you were daydreaming, or thinking, or whatever. If you sometimes have dreams of traffic accidents where your foot just can't find the brake, well, that's him expressing the fear that he might fuck up this job.
I would find it very cool when anything reminded me of Borges.
"We are not terrified because some sphinx is threatening us but rather dream of a sphinx in order to explain the terror we are feeling."
Truth.
Dreams are spooky. Freud invented his entire psychological theory to justify saying was he could interpret women’s bad dreams. Their rich husbands paid top dollar for that exculpatory theory. Thus was created a new medical industrial complex the world governments granted total authority over upset wives, children, and shell shocked soldiers to meet a common need of the rich husbands and upper level Army officers.
Ann leaves out the end of the dream, where the Gods have arrived and turn out to be somewhat sleazy characters, louche and apparently armed. "Then we took out our revolvers (suddenly there were revolvers in the dream), and joyfully killed the Gods." Hence, "Ragnorak." You knew something like that was coming, right?
Borges had many nightmares, and recounts some of them in different places. But re: the sphinx, he recounts one nightmare where the terrible thing seems to have in some sense preceded the terror rather than precipitating it. Borges is on a street corner in (I think) Buenos Aires; it looked nothing like the actual place, but he knew he was there. He runs into an old friend, whose face looks terribly changed. He isn't sure how, but he knows his face can't look like that. He exclaims, "Poor _____, you look much changed." "Yes, I am much changed," the friend replies, and then removes his hand from his coat. It is the claw of a bird.
The peculiar thing, Borges says, is that his friend had his hand hidden from the first. So the terror was there -- that his friend was transforming into a bird -- before the dream gave him any reason to expect this.
He lists literary dreams -- Coleridge's, sure, but also one by Wordsworth that deserves a post to itself.
Mike (MJB Wolf), I'll give it a go (no cheating, I swear):
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
then I miss a few lines; then:
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunlit dome with caves of ice.
Lurker21
Same here. With the added fun of recalling I'd never even attended a class.
However, I had something real. Missed the last day of class due to an emergency. Got to the exam as scheduled and noticed nobody there. The TA told me if I'd been at the last class, I'd have known the exam was cancelled. Sometimes I am not worthy.
Also. Was at Ft. Bragg when we were getting spun up for the Jordan Alert--see Dawson's Field.
Didn't come off, actually, passengers too spread out.
But I have dreams of walking through the assembly area not able to find my unit, my rifle or my parachutes. People are giving me dirty looks.
It's worse, because in my dream, I'm in a command slot instead of the reality of being supernumerary who just had to find a line to get in back of.
Ended up writing a paper. That was real world.
Also. Was at Ft. Bragg when we were getting spun up for the Jordan Alert--see Dawson's Field.
Didn't come off, actually, passengers too spread out.
But I have dreams of walking through the assembly area not able to find my unit, my rifle or my parachutes. People are giving me dirty looks.
It's worse, because in my dream, I'm in a command slot instead of the reality of being supernumerary who just had to find a line to get in back of.
Ended up writing a paper. That was real world.
I got one better, Tim. Way back in '85 I was living in Cobb and working as a mudlogger drilling for geothermal blowouts on morning tour. Because I was low man on the totem pole, the location was on the Cloverdale side of the Geysers. It was about a 2-hour drive each way plus working a 12-hour tour. One night driving to the site about halfway between Alexander Valley and Big Sulfur Creek, I pulled over to take a nap because I kept nodding off. While sleeping, I had a vivid dream I was driving to the location which was a winding mountain road. In my dream, I realized I was sleeping, so I immediately woke up , grabbed the wheel and slammed on the breaks: total silence and darkness. For a split second, I thought I was dead. Wide awake, I finished driving to the location.
Lot of sexual imagery in that poem, leaving aside the "caverns measureless to man."
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
Even the earth is panting... My goodness.
When I was working, and barely managing, I had recurring dreams of failures to dial or punch the proper numbers for access to the important knowledge. Endless misdials and spazzes--like being drunk without the jollity.
Those just echoed my waking-life problems; I can't recall the last time I dreamed of waking.
Or sleeping.
In dreams, I walk... with you.
When I was diagnosed as having mono many years ago, I frequently dreamed that I was falling asleep. Some of the most terrifying dreams I've ever had were dreams within dreams (pre- and post-mono). Waking up from one only to discover you're starring in another that is "in progress." Perhaps a result of watching too much TV.
Yes, I did a "Control F' for both "orbison" and "roy" before posting.
"Even the earth is panting... My goodness."
Yes, Opium abuse is great.
I sometimes have night terrors where I am paralyzed and some figment is approaching me. It is scary but it is documented that many have it, so it's ok. If someone is sneaking up on me at night they are not leaving any evidence. And, unlike the CDC I am evidence based.
Post a Comment