Virtual Light

I tried to make this sound less like an artificial narrative... I kept alot of the gaps as gaps. The feeling this dream gave me was one of confusion more than anything else (not fear or excitement or even "boy that was strange"... just confusion)

I find myself in a large non-descript place. I’m with an acquaintance named
Ali and a number of people I either don’t know or that don’t really exist (it’s hard to tell the difference because I feel like I recognize some of the people). The song “Twist” by Phish is playing, only I can’t really hear it- I just know that it’s playing.

I think this dream is important

I’m in school, at my job as a tutor, dressed in all black with flowers in my hair. My boss comes up to me and tells me that a new student has come so that even though I’m supposed to go home, I must stay because he is very special and needs my help. I tell him it’s going to be difficult because I need to go home and feed my animals [I have no idea what I meant by this, I have a dog but that’s all]. He says it’s ok and someone will bring them over.

I sit down at my desk awaiting this new arrival. Enter a man whom I don’t recognize but feel as if I’ve known for a long time. He sits down and takes out his work- it’s a large picture of a tree, but instead of leaves, the branches are covered with little round balls in different colors- he tells me he needs help making it look “more believable”. [note: art is not the subject that I tutor] I start telling him that he needs to let go of the past and that he can’t bring anything back to life. He tells me “well you should know” and I get very offended and leave the room.

I walk out and the sky is purple, a very warm wind blows past me and this scares me for some reason so I go back inside. My boss tells me that my animals are here but that my student is allergic to them so he (the student) had to kill them. I go up to my student and tell him “that’s not fair”. He hands me his painting that is now much bigger and in a frame and says “thank you”.

JUNG V FREUD

I think that if Freud turned to Acid instead of Cocaine, he might have produced something similar to Kafka's work.)

This dream feels like something straight out of a two-bit teen horror movie... maybe its the Halloween season.

I think I enjoyed reading Hobson more than I did Hartman... maybe even more than most of the readings we've had thus far. I liked his approach and I liked his style. However, his work left me feeling a bit empty, like I now knew so much about how we dream but still don't have insight into the actual nature of dreams as meaningful phenomenon- probably because, according to Hobson, ultimately they are not (meaningful) in themselves. I think his rendering is incomplete rather than wrong- he beautifully articulates one side of a vast puzzle- a side that can be integrated into a larger understanding of dreams on a meta-level.

Hartman's work is somewhat more enticing, but ultimately it leaves me feeling like I've gained very little in the way of understanding. I simply don't "buy it", and not because what he claims is so absurd or out there- he just didn't convince me... making me think that someone else could.

I really enjoyed reading Scarry, mostly for her style and general way with words.... I also liked the connections she attempted to establish between the cognitive patterns of a writer, a reader, and a dreamer. But, personally, I disagreed with a lot of what she wrote. Her exercises did not work for me at all, not even in class. I have a very hard time picturing things when they are not in front of me- yet it doesn’t hinder my ability to grasp abstract concepts... and I don’t think it makes me any less of a "successful" writer... I also simply didn’t "buy" her reading of Jane Eyre- it's not that it did not make sense; it's that I left it without feeling anything more for the text, and without really agreeing with her general hypothesis.
I still really enjoyed the reading for what she proposed... and trying to figure out why. I liked the unique feel to her theory and i loved her rhetorical method. I could follow it and I could enjoy it... inspite of being skeptical of it. I think a theorist whos work I would deffinately like to read more of.

As for those the victorican dream theorists, they were nice in their own way, felt suprisingly straightforward and accesable- yet still didnt move me in any real way. I don't really care for the victorian style of prose. I found myself comparing thier theories to freud constantly....

I think it's interesting how many images of jacob's dream there are in this period.. I think I will post a couple

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing circa 1786

The Dream of Joachim, circa 1305
by Giotto di Bondone

for the biblical dream pics see the Renaissance entry... it contains a number of depictions of Jacob's Dream which I think is a really interesting theme in paintings

I had a dream that my friend ari became an architect and that i was his assistant. The only thing is, ari does a lot of drugs so all the buildings he designs defy the laws of nature and are impossible to construct, and I’m having a panic attack trying to configure his designs. Suddenly he grabs me and pulls in towards him, as I push away from him I realize I’m in one of those buildings. The walls are constantly shifting and everything is in a state of flux but it feels secure all the same. Everything is so beautiful and I never want to leave. I wake up.

I must admit, my initial reading of Wide Sargasso Sea left me unimpressed. I really didn’t like it at all… something about it didn’t sit well. I think I didn’t like the fact that a postcolonial reading of Jane Eyre penetrated my reading of it. Also- my initial reading of Jane Eyre left me sort of unaffected. I enjoyed the novel for the story, one that felt a bit contrived but all in all well done and entertaining. I didn’t mesh with the heavy and political implications of WSS. But now I’m thinking about the contrast between the two initial readings of each novel. Perhaps the incongruity of the two is the intended affect- like WSS is the seedy underbelly of JE… and maybe that’s a very superficial understanding of it but I cant seem to move on to a more sophisticated relationship between the two novels because WSS feels forced in to fit the JE narrative. I probably would have liked it more if I treated it as a work that exists entirely on its own, but then the subtleties and marvelous plot-oriented connections would be lost. I think I need more time to think on the reading. As a post-colonial piece WSS fits perfectly, expressing tensions and hardships or discrimination, being forced into an outsider’s mold, the entire notion of being an “outsider” or the “other”… but as a book- just a book that I would pick up for the story… that I cant quite get- it’s as if there is something there but I can’t get to it yet. I hope I get to it eventually.