According to psychologist, dreaming is attributed to the mind's recollection of the day's events or past memories. Dreaming is just the manner in which the mind recalls and sorts through experiences. I am curious as to what happens when the mind deliberately inserts fiction into the reality of memory recall and results in new memory formation based on events that have never happened in reality. Adding to a-posteriori knowledge, do these fiction-turned-experiential memories affect who we are?
I dreamed I was in Geek Love. This has happened before, where I've dreamt myself into a movie, or novel, or daydream, or fantasy... But always as myself; either a better version, or a past version. In this dream, I was unrecognizable. I was very small, with very long fingers and toes, and if I held my breath long enough I could see other people's thoughts. Now, I am not particularly tall, and I do have rather spindly fingers and toes. But what I find extremely intriguing is that I find myself trying to read other people's minds. Suddenly, new thought patterns are forming, experimentation is imminent, and the perception of myself has altered just enough based on a memory rooted in a non-reality. Fascinating.
Beyond this rhetoric of self-development, Geek Love has been one of the best books I have read in a long time. Dysfunctional enough to be relatable, elusive enough to turn the page, gruesome enough to be seductive and to top it all off, well-written. I couldn't have asked for a better warm up to this course. And with a subconscious reaction as mentioned above, I am finding it difficult to pin down my conscious reactions without a longing to be behind a display case.
More to follow. After a good night's sleep.
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What a great dream! I've had similar experiences where I find myself in the text in my dream - but always as myself. Sometimes, during extensive reading periods, I'll actually dream that I'm reading the rest of a book, only to wake up and realize I haven't actually read the rest yet - but my mind had somehow decided how the story should progress and scripted the narrative with my subconscious.
ReplyDeleteThere's a terrific short story by Russell Smith called "Dreams" where a woman talks in her sleep and her partner records her stories, voiced aloud without her knowledge, and transforms them into his own stories. He becomes a popular author and she's thrilled for him - but every time she hears his stories, she has physical reactions to them. You might want to check it out, given your interest in dreams/memory.
I can't help but wonder as I reread your post: isn't memory, perhaps, always part fiction?
One of my favorite lines from Douglas Coupland's book Generation A was the assertion that "all fiction is autobiographical."
ReplyDeleteI almost never remember my dreams, except when I'm having recurring nightmares, but I do spend a lot of time daydreaming about books. I kept wondering how I would fit into Geek Love, what kind of freak I would be. I don't think I could ever voluntarily amputate, so it would have to be something that I was born with. It would have to be something sexually accessible, I decided, because I couldn't handle Oly's fate. I think it would be too difficult to be so cut off from physical touch, always craving someone to warm your spine against.
I loved the description of yourself in your dream! I pictured it kind of like the classic grey alien - all elongation and brains.