(no subject)

[mamculuna]

 Joy of the day: Actually of the night--a very vivid dream of being on a big touring boat on a river near my house (not navigable in daytime reality), sitting with some various students and someone who was important a long, long time ago. We go past so many old ruined Victorian-era houses on the riverbank, partly vine-covered and surrounded by trees dripping Spanish Moss. Someone brings up a net full of seafood, conveniently ready to eat (shelled and cooked) but weirdly from the ocean (shrimp, squid, etc), and we eat it. Someone starts playing music and I'm dancing with old flame, who disappears, maybe to another deck of the boat, so I'm talking with one of the others, a young boy with some kind of disability---and then flame appears, but is seasick.

I'm sure reading other people's dreams is about as fascinating as watching ice melt, but it's been a long time since I remembered a dream so vividly or understood it so little, and I wanted to write it down while I remembered it. And it was mostly a very joyful dream, even if very strange. IRL, old flame has been living with a man all these years, and I've been twice married. Didn't expect to have memories like that return.

Comments

[cactuswatcher]

I'm sure reading other people's dreams is about as fascinating as watching ice melt

I wouldn't say that. When they are told to this detail, it's interesting seeing how the mind works putting it all together. My interest in understanding dreams went out with my interest in psychology at the beginning of the 1970's. Back then linguistics was deeply into generative/transformational grammar, and psychology missed the boat by not looking at dreams from that angle.

Big boat - ocean seafood - and sea sickness on a tiny river, general good times, atmospheric scenery... I think we're all so creative when asleep, but it's tougher to be that way when awake. But then, when awake, we want all of it to make sense.

[mamculuna]

Yes, the whole idea of art and dreams as being "constructed" and having syntax as well as synecdoche is fascinating. I also like the Jungian way of looking at dreams (which isn't unrelated). There's a very interesting book on that, Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill by Jeremy Taylor. I've been in some dream workshops that used his ideas. I think my own dream has a lot about traveling into the past in it, but the water thing is also really important. I'll be thinking about it for a while...

[moonhare]

The nice thing about getting a dream recorded (I was going to say 'down on paper') is that re-reading about it, even years on, can bring back images that are crisp and clear. It's amazing how fleeting those memories are otherwise.

[mamculuna]

Yes, I really should try again to keep a dream journal. It helps me remember them if I write them down before I get out of bed.