This is an evolving collection of dreams. I'm not yet sure how much weight to lend to dreams. Are they just the brain's attempt to make sense of random neural static? Are they jets of unconscious desire and fear, spouting from the fissure of sleep? Or is a dream a contact with a territory, lost and unfamiliar, but nonetheless real? Biological necessity, or emergent fluff?
My assessment is that dreams are a significant piece of life's mystery, and I think Science took a bold step forward when psychotherapy tackled dreams. But I'm wary of, say, locating every feature of a dream in the private neuroses of the dreamer. I think that the dream world is a region of profound commonality between humans, by virtue of which we can understand our connection to one another. If in sleep we enter into the same mystery, then how alien can you be from me?
There are different kinds of dreams. Some are brief, powerful, laden with significance. Others are absurdly mundane. Most swing between the two extremes. But they always have an essence, an Otherness, which (in retrospect) seems to set them apart from our waking experiences. In a society which fetishizes the Cartesian grid, which funnels the Ecstatic into DEA-approved experiences like football and Sunday mass, I would argue this: The dream is the last stronghold of the transcendant. As such, it points to something intrinsically human. The dream is dismissed by reductionist science; attempts to invoke the dreamstate without sleep are punished ferociously by the power elite -- and yet we all dream. This other world is part of our birthright, and I encourage everyone to explore it.
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I am visiting Chicago. The plan is to rendezvous with my sister (who lives there) at a museum or restaurant or some other attraction.
At first I am driving a car: cramped, one-lane, one-way city streets. I am crossing an intersection, and just as I reach the far side traffic is stopped up ahead. After some […]
In a resort — possibly in Europe — with my family and some friends we often travelled with when I was young. Beautiful grounds, a small valley, with water at the bottom, winding paths and patios for dining.
We are seated indoors at the restaurant. The atmosphere is nice, almost fancy, but on one wall there […]
Touring Japan in a bus, 2 buses altogether. Man falls from a great height, with no buildings nearby and no planes overhead. He’s a dumpy white guy, somewhat like Chris Farley, and he hits the ground with a splat of blood. Opens his eyes and talks. A woman from the bus rushes out to help […]
I’m near the intersection of Houston and Broadway, in New York City, busy mid day. People everywhere. In the road I notice a strange little woman, naked, with bluish skin. She is maybe 4 feet tall but muscular. I may have noticed some tattoos on her upper body, some sort of tribal mark. Her head […]
Space 1: I am walking down an alley reminiscent of certain streets in Soho: cobblestones, dirty sidewalks, tall, heavy warehouses. It seems I am here to meet up with someone for the purpose of exchanging goods or information; I can’t recall. The deal apparently done, I am walking, with no particular agenda. A large, open […]
I am in a crowded train station somewhere in India. A little girl wearing a lime green T-shirt wants to trade her shirt for my red one. She likes red better, I like green better. She says that I should take mine off, and she will go to the bathroom to change. Seconds later, I […]
I went to see a movie with some friends. There were friends from Louisville as well as some folks I knew from the Net. Arriving at the theater, we found ourselves at the back of the building, and thinking we were late, entered through a service door. This put us in the ‘backstage’ area, which […]
The dream began as I was driving on an access road near the interstate, listening to the radio. I was listening to my favorite morning show, and they were telling of an airplane disaster at the local airstrip — apparently there was an explosion that began with a spark of static electricity, and LOTS of […]
There is a cabal of young men, adolescent, calling themselves “The Brotherhood of the Dark Revolution.” Their hair is cut short, their faces are smooth; their robes are white, and tinted rose. It seems they have come together in anticipation of what they call the Dark Revolution. This is an event of apocalyptic proportions, in […]
Tonight I dreamt in European cathedral, WWII darkness against old-world immensity. Not much left of it now. A few crumbling buildings, last night’s rain on cobblestone streets. What I do remember is finding a brass key in the gutter outside the chruch, dropped, maybe, by one of the sisters who had just shuffled out for […]