Squidmek

I remember, as if it were just days ago, deciding whether or not I should take the honors senior seminar. I'd heard of the work load, and the concept of an honors exam scared the hell out of me. After the first few classes, though, I was very happy I had joined. The amount of reading was really something but, more, I was excited about the multiple mediums we were exploring--viusal art, film, music, etc.

But when we began the blogs, I was suspect. My nature is not that of "computer guy." I often do things accidentally to the computer, and my wife has to fix the them and then she yells at me for messing with it. Given that, like many others, I was horrified when we were informed that we would building web pages too. Didn't seem like something I could do, and not to mention--my god, more to do.

And then I began to become really taken with the blogs. My own afforded me the opportunity to think about about ways in which dreams informed art that I was experiencing outside of class. This, above all, has been the most valuable thing taken from this class--and I'd imagine that was Prof. Tougaw's intention. I'm constantly on the lookout for dream in songs (as in right now, as I listen to the new Wilco record that talks about dreaming a few times) and films, and especially in fiction. The blogs have given me a forum--whether or not someone's listening--to think about how dreams work whenever I come across them. I found myself jotting down things like "the dream in that short story," and not actually thinking about what it means for the story until blogging about it. It's been so useful, and in some ways addictive.

And of course there's the great experience of reading other blogs. Reading different perspectives on the work under discussion always added to my own understanding. Also, getting a sense of someone more intimately (though in most cases anonymously), I believe, really helped the class become more cohesive and ultimately a richer one. I have to say, one of the most valuable aspects of the blogs was to have Prof. Tougaw share his with us. It demonstrated his level of investment in the topic of dreaming, and of his investment in us as his students. It really created a trusting environment, one that allowed for open discussion. In the end--despite the work load--I will miss the class. It has proven, by far, to be my most memorable, useful, enjoyable and rewarding experience at Queens. One that would not have been the same without this blog project.

Just re-read Jim Crace's wonderful and strange book Being Dead. It's the story of a couple who returns to a beach, on which they met decades before, for a picnic. The opening paragraph mentions that they're brutally murdered during the picnic (so I'm not ruining anything, I promise), and the subsequent chapters alternately tell the tale of their meeting, their youthful romance, and the literal decomposition of their bodies as they return to the earth, picked at by crabs and gulls. It's oddly strange and beautiful.

I wish I had the exact wording, but I lent the book immediately to a friend after reading it. Anyway, Crace's narrator is frighteningly omniscient and nuetral, and he describes the husband's last few moments, "a little more than a half-hour." At one point closer to his end, the husband begins to dream, and yet the narrator doesn't tell us what he dreams of. It's interesting because it leaves the man some dignity, after we've witnessed his very undignified death. But more interesting is the concept of dream at death. Never thought of it before. Death is so often described as sleep, but rarely (except for Shakespeare) do we speaking of dreaming at or in death. It's lovely really, and I'd never fully considered it as metaphor, but more for it's possible reality. Maybe we do live on in dream. Energy goes on without dying, so perhaps we live on in dream on some energetic level. There was an ancient Indian philosopher, Shankara, he insisted that the dream state is every bit as legitimate as waking state--each only pale versions of Ultimate Reality. And that we can only achieve Ultimate Reality when we see that this life too is is dream while we're here, and that we will go on within alternates states of waking and dreaming until we "wake up" from waking life. And he claims to have "woken up" a few times himself. Now I'm going off on a tangent. I guess I just found it beautiful and even comforting. And it's a good example of this course's ability to heighten awareness and, in turn, enrich the experience of art and life. I'd read the book before, and that one brief bit was glanced over. Read in the context of this course the book has taken on yet another level of poetic intent. And I'm free to imagine a good dream for the two of them.

I just woke up from a morning nap on my sofa and yet again had an extremely conscious dream. My ex-wife was sitting next to me on the sofa, and I was very aware that I was sleeping and that she wasn't actually there, but her voice was clear as day. And I knew that if i concentrated she would just appear. And she did. But she kept disappearing, and I'd hear her in another room. So I would go to that room (which, now that I think about it, felt like the house I grew up in)--and in that room I would listen for her voice, and then tell her to appear and she would. At one point I said explicitly in the dream, "I know that I'm dreaming," three times in a row. Like Dorothy. I kept seeeing her, but could not approach her. I told her I wanted to talk, that I'd heard she gotten married. She laughed, and said it was none of my business. She kept laughing, and then I believe I fell into deep sleep.

I was in a large stadium, one much like Shea. In fact, it felt like Queens somehow. And we were all waiting for the arrival of something. All meaning the entire stadium filled with people. It got suddenly very dark. I looked up and saw a blimp, or a hot air baloon, not sure which--it was landing on top of the stadium completetly covering the stadium opening, blocking the sky. Ropes fell and we all began to pull, trying to pull the blimp into tha stadium. Door flaps fell open, and we all got very excited.

I seem to have the sleep paralysis thing happening quite a bit, but almost always on the sofa when napping. Just ten minutes ago, I hear (in my sleep) the horrible and inconsiderate people that live above me (in reality) running through the halls and stomping up the steps--in my dream, however, this turns into some kind of evil intruder in the hall, tyring to break in. But I cannot get up and suddenly, in my dream, I'm on my couch while someone is attempting to break down the door, but I cannot move. Completely paralysed as I try and awake.

Which reminds me of this great moment in the book of Job of what sounds very much like an incubus:

"Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear recieved a little thereof. In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake, then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up; it stood still, but I could discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence and I heard a voice saying ..." (Job 4: 12-16, King James Version).

Given the context of the story, this cannot be a spirit asscociated with God, and it is wholly nightmarish.

Been reading prose poetry lately. Two brief instances in which dreams came up, and both are from the late nineteenth century.

Mallarme's is interesting because it reminded me so much of our blog project. This is the opening excerpt from his "An Interrupted Performance," from Divigations, 2007:
"How far from procuring its much-touted pleasures the civilized state really is! One should, for example, be astonished that in every big city there doesn't exist an association of dreamers who happen to be there, an association supporting a journal that recounts current events from the particular perspective of dreams. Reality is just an artifice, good for anchoring the average intellect among the mirages of fact..."

Baudelaire's is notable for, simply, how beautiful it is. This is a small excerpt from "V: The Double Room," from Paris Spleen, 1869, New Directions, 1970:
"A room that is like a dream, a truly spiritual room, where the stagnant atmosphere is nebulously tinted pink and blue.
...Every piece of furniture is of an elongated form, languid and prostrate, and seems to be dreaming; endowed, one would say, witha somnambular existence like minerals and vegetables. The hangings speak a silent language, like flowers, skies and setting suns.
No artistic abominations on the walls. Definite positive art is blasphemy compared to dream and the unanalyzed impression. Here everything is bathed in harmony's own adequate and delicious obscurity..."

The piece goes on in this dream-like way, describing the room for maybe ten more paragraphs and concludes. It's very pretty and, I think, very creative in the way it creates a dreamy atmosphere. I wonder if Dali had read this. Perhaps this was an inspiration.

I found myself noty nervous at all, until I got up to the podium. Then my mouth felt like it was filled with cotton.

As far as the conference as a whole, I found myself fully engaged the entire time. Really enjoyed watching people deliver their material, and handle some difficult and left-field questions. My wife said she was completetly interested from beginning to end, and that time really flew by. I was a bit nervous that there would not be enough questions from the audience, but there almost too many! That one gentleman had me laughing. I was waiting for him to ask if his dreams would ever come true.

Kim Bain! I'm so proud of you. I heard from Prof. Tougaw that you're the valedictorian of my ACE class! So happy for you and you deserve it. Sorry I couldn't make it to see the speech. I had unavoidable class.

And Anthony- your mom's antipasta was so good. Tell her thanks so much.

Last night I saw Guy Madden's new film Brand Upon the Brain!, and it was really one my favorite cinematic experiences. The entire film was shot in distorted and bleached black and white, and it was entirely silent--complete with cornball titles and captions for dialogue--each with an exclamatory! It was accompanied by a live orchestra providing the score, a live "interlocutor" (as she was referred to) for narration, a live castrato singing parts of the score, and a live foley (great new word)--which is a set of performers that, with various props, provided live sound effects. Walking upstairs, water splashes, etc. It really was an amazing show.

BUT I bring it up here because it was extraordinarily dream-like, and the plot was a virtual celebration of Freudian obsession and dependency. Evil doting mother in love with son, evil mad scientist father experimentingon children, sister doubling as mother having sex with father, continually revisiting a primal scene. The whole shebang. Even the title; I think Madden is riffing on the very concept of Freudian thought, and its unavoidable presence and influence since.

I'm napping on my couch this morning, but in dream I'm lying flat on a street. Around me are my family having a BBQ. The sky goes wild, black swirling clouds, fireworks of light and gathering clouds. I see the silhouettes of large sailing ships floating through the skies. I point them out to my father, and he says, "Get up and run." A black cloud tornado-like cloud is fast approaching. As it comes closer I see it is quite small, though tactile. I can touch it. It's sticky, oily. My father says to get up and run, but I can't move. I yell for him to take my hand, because I cannot move. At this point I become completely aware that I'm sleeping, and become afraid that I will never get out of the dream--which is odd considering I know that I'm sleeping and this is dream. I focus all of my strength on my hand--just raise my hand.

I wake and see my left hand raised. I'm feel dizzy upon waking, and still somewhat groggy even now.

I just got turned onto Jim Harrison, finished reading one of his novels--The Road Home. It was really very beautiful. Dealt quite a bit with displaced Native Americans. One passage that struck me (though I cannot actually find it right now)--the gist of it: one of the unspoken tragedies of the displaced Native American, their dreams are no longer their own. Because dreams are rooted in personal myth, and myth sprngs from place.

Not sure if this is true, of course. And I certainly did not say it nearly as poetically, BUT it got me thinking about (on a much smaller scale) about how dreams change with location. As in, I dream very differently in a hotel. And what got me thinking this in the first place--I often take a nap at 6 or 7AM (I get up very early), and it's always on my sofa. On the sofa I have the most bizarre dreams. Very quick, very intense. Often aware, not necessarily lucid-just the awareness of dreaming. Very often I experience sleep paralysis. When I'm in bed, however, nearly never.