What a week; what a month! Term’s in full swing for me now, and the rest of January is chockablock with writing and teaching and Zoom engagements, so, naturally, I want to talk about sleep.
A few nights ago I had a very weird dream, of the kind that makes me wonder whether dreams aren’t so much the result of our brains chaotically processing the contents of our days as they are surfing a cresting psychic wave of the world around us.
I read The Great Gatsby either immediately before or immediately after watching Baz Luhrman’s film; I genuinely can’t remember which. There are definitely sections of the novel that I remember as scenes from the film, but that doesn’t prove anything. I remember enjoying it, and finding a lot more in it than I expected to, but I didn’t fall in love with it the way I do with a lot of things, seeing the world through the lens of it for a while, bending my body and soul into a dance with it.
Which is to say it was absolutely baffling to find myself dreaming, quite vividly, of being Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gatsby, wearing a phenomenally beautiful pink suit, and being accosted by horrible wealthy men being snide and sniffy. I thought, very clearly: why am I anywhere near these dreadful people? They are bad, and I am rich, and I don’t need to put up with this.
So I excused myself and left their company, left their scrutiny, and decided to live in a beautiful stone cottage in a different, more modest and neighbourly place. The cottage was called Pomegranate House, and the stone was covered in climbing roses, yellow and pink and blowsy; nearby, across the street and somewhat aslant it, was a neighbour’s house with a gigantic, spreading persimmon tree in the yard, heavy with fruit.
Not having thought, consciously, of The Great Gatsby for years, not having allocated it quarters in my heart’s home, it was thoroughly strange to find it so viscerally in my dreams. I woke thinking maybe it was someone else’s dream — that maybe I had to wander away from it in my own head, wander towards pomegranates and persimmons in order to find my own mind again.
Do you remember your dreams? Have you ever felt a dream possessing a quality so foreign to your own head that you felt it must be someone else’s?
Wishing you a lovely weekend,
Amal
PS: Here’s a drink I made last night on the occasion of a Zoom-with-friends. It’s a MonteNegroni: a Negroni made with Montenegro instead of Campari. It tasted a bit like a vision of fruit trees opposite cool grey stone in a British summer.
I have kept a dream journal for years. I have found that the more I write, the more (and more often) I remember. Sometimes I have dreams that, somehow, feel like more. It is like I have “travelled” to another reality. It is a strange experience
Yes, I remember my dreams, or at least temporarily. Some I forgot by the end of the next day, but some persist.
I think the most distinguished thing about dreams is that initially, you believe the conceit of the dream, no matter how ridiculous it is. And sometimes there's usually an interstitial element--whether it's the mixing of two different genres or transitioning from one to the other.
I never considered my dreams as my own per se, and know that it can be volatile and whimsical and draw on from the past as well as the present. Pretty much in the same way that a lot of people found the year 2020 to "not work in a story" because there are too many seemingly-unconnected calamities coming together and resulting in unexpected combinations, I treat dreams as such and don't try to overanalyze them and just let the story take me where it wants (or sometimes, I gain enough consciousness to realize it's a dream, and take control of the story for myself).
But that's just me and it was lovely to hear your own experiences.
Recently I decided to give more attention to the dreaming phenomenon and pondering about dreams and what the are : meaning?, access to a different universe? , just brain jitter?
Like Chronological I started writing down the lingering fragments.. And I'm getting better at it:)
After writing down I often ponder about meaning, locations, persons, color..
However, most of my dreams seem rather bizarre, lost from reality which could also be the reason I like dreaming !
I do remember my dreams occasionally. I'm afraid these days they tend to be nightmares, or anxiety dreams at best. But sometimes I do find myself hating a dream so much that I push myself out of it. It's rarely a pleasant experience, but it feels like fighting through a tough sticky wall, and the rush of release upon breaking out is a very rare but happy feeling -- usually associated with waking up, and taking in a big breath.
I have very vivid dreams, and I dream a LOT. (Fitbit says 30% more than the avg human.) I remember dreams from decades ago in intense detail, and while that's not necessarily a good thing, it does mean I've put in a lot of mileage considering & examining dreams in general. Your description of the cottage & your neighbor's yard puts me in mind of several dreams I've had where the location was the most distinct and compelling part of the dream, to the point where many years later I can visualize the rooms clearly, even the details of where the wainscoting didn't quite line up at the corners.
For almost all of those location dreams, the building or location would recur so often I'd name them (I still have the Logic House, Embasen's Bookshop, and The City Where It Is Always Night dreams) so I did some research. Many dream symbolism books indicate that houses reflect one's mental state. I don't know how much of that is true, but I will say this: as I've become more friendly with my brain as I age, the dreams where the back of my house was connected to, and completely open to, a big soulless mall have gone away.
I'd be very interested to hear whether Pomegranate House showed up in your dreams again. <3
I have kept a dream journal for years. I have found that the more I write, the more (and more often) I remember. Sometimes I have dreams that, somehow, feel like more. It is like I have “travelled” to another reality. It is a strange experience
Glad you're getting sleep :)
Yes, I remember my dreams, or at least temporarily. Some I forgot by the end of the next day, but some persist.
I think the most distinguished thing about dreams is that initially, you believe the conceit of the dream, no matter how ridiculous it is. And sometimes there's usually an interstitial element--whether it's the mixing of two different genres or transitioning from one to the other.
I never considered my dreams as my own per se, and know that it can be volatile and whimsical and draw on from the past as well as the present. Pretty much in the same way that a lot of people found the year 2020 to "not work in a story" because there are too many seemingly-unconnected calamities coming together and resulting in unexpected combinations, I treat dreams as such and don't try to overanalyze them and just let the story take me where it wants (or sometimes, I gain enough consciousness to realize it's a dream, and take control of the story for myself).
But that's just me and it was lovely to hear your own experiences.
Recently I decided to give more attention to the dreaming phenomenon and pondering about dreams and what the are : meaning?, access to a different universe? , just brain jitter?
Like Chronological I started writing down the lingering fragments.. And I'm getting better at it:)
After writing down I often ponder about meaning, locations, persons, color..
However, most of my dreams seem rather bizarre, lost from reality which could also be the reason I like dreaming !
What a lovely dream Amal :)
I do remember my dreams occasionally. I'm afraid these days they tend to be nightmares, or anxiety dreams at best. But sometimes I do find myself hating a dream so much that I push myself out of it. It's rarely a pleasant experience, but it feels like fighting through a tough sticky wall, and the rush of release upon breaking out is a very rare but happy feeling -- usually associated with waking up, and taking in a big breath.
I have very vivid dreams, and I dream a LOT. (Fitbit says 30% more than the avg human.) I remember dreams from decades ago in intense detail, and while that's not necessarily a good thing, it does mean I've put in a lot of mileage considering & examining dreams in general. Your description of the cottage & your neighbor's yard puts me in mind of several dreams I've had where the location was the most distinct and compelling part of the dream, to the point where many years later I can visualize the rooms clearly, even the details of where the wainscoting didn't quite line up at the corners.
For almost all of those location dreams, the building or location would recur so often I'd name them (I still have the Logic House, Embasen's Bookshop, and The City Where It Is Always Night dreams) so I did some research. Many dream symbolism books indicate that houses reflect one's mental state. I don't know how much of that is true, but I will say this: as I've become more friendly with my brain as I age, the dreams where the back of my house was connected to, and completely open to, a big soulless mall have gone away.
I'd be very interested to hear whether Pomegranate House showed up in your dreams again. <3
In
I wonder who was in the persimmon house.