A world of dreams
This world is full of interesting people, as well as not so interesting people. Some of us meet in the diffuse community of writers, genuine or pretended. Such encounters tend to be random, but may be caused by some form of common interest, or ideas. So I cannot recall if, at first, you noticed something I wrote, or the other way round. The spark of interest was that other world, of imagination, chance or fate, that of dreams, as it appears much in your and my work.
Literature is seeded with dreams. Consider for example the life and work of the American writer Lovecraft. Lovecraft is credited for the invention of the cult of Cthulhu, but this was founded on his dreams. Not only did he discover an entire population of creatures, places, objects, through his nightly wandering, but there he met people, travel with them, knew of them, as he would have in the physical world.
In this case Lovecraft never much left his native New England, and yet he travelled, in his dreams, far and wide. The physical world inspired him in some ways, often by opening some vistas on a different one. The fear of the sea, the reflection of the evening sun on the roofs of his town…
your power dreams
Our “random” encounter has driven me to want to know more. Generously you were requesting readers, which made me smile. How lucky I was. Now, I could go a bit further, through those corridors of memories, reflections, those journals of your power dreams. Am I a voyeur, or am I merely inspired, curious, puzzled and keen to learn more? For me, you the writer, are the subject, so much so that it would not surprise me if we were to meet again in one of your dreams. As teenager I met Poe in one of my then very frequent dreams inspired by his work. Ha! The house of Usher!
Neither of us are into interpretation. I cannot agree more. The world, on both sides of that illusive border, between “reality”, in whatever form, fiction or not, and dreams, has to be lived, not translated. This is why I have this oneiric unarmed on-going fight with my neighbours, the foxes. I could not harm them, but I am trying to deter them, from fouling my garden, the terrace, the flower beds.
Their own sense of humour is unreal, literally. For I am protective of the garden. A place for dreaming. They are intruders, although if they don’t make an appearance for some days, I start worrying about what may have happened. I took a photo of them one year, playing in the snow. Not quite real.
withdraw symptoms
But I digress. Where am I in my reading? I have forty pages. Enough to build up some withdraw symptoms, should they be taken away. I should try and discover a little about Oregon. My own “patch” is the South West, Arizona, the canyons, the cacti. I am deep in Hopi lore. The painted desert. The mesas. We physically visited these lands, twice, and I miss that country more than I wish to admit. The mesas are much in my dreams. Have you been there? Northern Arizona is a dream land. I am unsure about reincarnation. I don’t know. I should look into it. I will run out of time. Cthulhu’s calling. Or is it Camilla?
So, the plan is to reflect, and re-read what I have, and give you some decent feedback. The geography of dreams interests me too. The underground river, the lake. I must find that painting I saw in one of the Berlin museums. One of the questions that keep reappearing, poor soul, is “what is fiction?”. Do we draw from our physical world experience, or is it in fact all inspired by where we go when we left the physical behind?
Well, this is for me a positive encounter, and to this point a positive reading experience. I am a lucky dreamer.
Picture: Carl Friedrich Seiffert, The Blue Grotto in Capri, 1860, Alte National Gallerie, Berlin
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