Recurring Dreams
Taking inspiration from Brother Jones, who, in addition to naming me "raconteur and gadabout", recently espoused on the topic of recurring dreams. It got me thinking, so here's mine.
I've had a few recurring dreams in my time, the one I remember the most is quite unremarkable, except that I've had it before. Sometime in pre-adolescence...... (cue dream music)
I'm on a large boat, traveling through one of those strange lands.. It's a wet place, with scattered villages. Then the scene changes to outside one of those houses and I'm talking with those people. I actually don't remember much more beyond those two images right now. I know there's more, it's just been a while.
The recurring part happens when 6 months later, I dream of the same setting, except that 6 months have passed in the dream as well. Nothing crazy, just the people I talk to in the dream refer to it. That I haven't been back in 6 months, and I know that's true. I look around, and the settings the same, it's just....later. If I recall correctly, I've returned there three times in my life. And it's one of the most 'realistic' dreams I have (no purple monsters, etc). Time just moves there as in the waking world.
This probably explains my fascination with the sometimes overwrought prose of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was fascinated with dreams, often the darker side of them. My favorite stories of his are collectively known as his "Dream Cycle". While not a cohesive cycle of continuos stories, a reading of them gives the impression of a definitive world, populated by various creatures and minds, that exhibit a curious conformity to the rules set out by Lovecraft. I found much similarity between "The Dreams in the Witch-House", and "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" even though the characters are different. They both inhabited the Lovecraft realm of 'dream as another viable reality', and one could easily connect the methodology from one story to the other. "Kadath" was Lovecraft's finest work, in my opinion. A sprawling visionary piece, it followed the adventures of one Randolph Carter as he 'descended the thousand steps of sleep' into a land he traveled frequently, in search of meaning for an earlier dream of a glorious sunset city with no inhabitants. Interestingly, Lovecraft proposed that the Earth had it's own dreamworld, governed by it's own gods, that differed from the dreamworlds of other planets. One could travel from one dreamworld to another, but the way was often perilous and populated with all manner of beings and minds most terrible. Of course, if you made it to another dreamworld. Who knew what you would find, or comprehend? Who know what other beings dream of? ( A recurring theme of Lovecraft was the human encountering 'outside' intelligence, and being driven mad by it.)
Kadath, The Silver Key, Behind the wall of sleep, and Celephais all deal with Randolph, his friends, and adventures in that dream world. A land fully formed with sentient citizens of it's own. Connected to all of us by the threads of dream and sleep.
I've had a few recurring dreams in my time, the one I remember the most is quite unremarkable, except that I've had it before. Sometime in pre-adolescence...... (cue dream music)
I'm on a large boat, traveling through one of those strange lands.. It's a wet place, with scattered villages. Then the scene changes to outside one of those houses and I'm talking with those people. I actually don't remember much more beyond those two images right now. I know there's more, it's just been a while.
The recurring part happens when 6 months later, I dream of the same setting, except that 6 months have passed in the dream as well. Nothing crazy, just the people I talk to in the dream refer to it. That I haven't been back in 6 months, and I know that's true. I look around, and the settings the same, it's just....later. If I recall correctly, I've returned there three times in my life. And it's one of the most 'realistic' dreams I have (no purple monsters, etc). Time just moves there as in the waking world.
This probably explains my fascination with the sometimes overwrought prose of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was fascinated with dreams, often the darker side of them. My favorite stories of his are collectively known as his "Dream Cycle". While not a cohesive cycle of continuos stories, a reading of them gives the impression of a definitive world, populated by various creatures and minds, that exhibit a curious conformity to the rules set out by Lovecraft. I found much similarity between "The Dreams in the Witch-House", and "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" even though the characters are different. They both inhabited the Lovecraft realm of 'dream as another viable reality', and one could easily connect the methodology from one story to the other. "Kadath" was Lovecraft's finest work, in my opinion. A sprawling visionary piece, it followed the adventures of one Randolph Carter as he 'descended the thousand steps of sleep' into a land he traveled frequently, in search of meaning for an earlier dream of a glorious sunset city with no inhabitants. Interestingly, Lovecraft proposed that the Earth had it's own dreamworld, governed by it's own gods, that differed from the dreamworlds of other planets. One could travel from one dreamworld to another, but the way was often perilous and populated with all manner of beings and minds most terrible. Of course, if you made it to another dreamworld. Who knew what you would find, or comprehend? Who know what other beings dream of? ( A recurring theme of Lovecraft was the human encountering 'outside' intelligence, and being driven mad by it.)
Kadath, The Silver Key, Behind the wall of sleep, and Celephais all deal with Randolph, his friends, and adventures in that dream world. A land fully formed with sentient citizens of it's own. Connected to all of us by the threads of dream and sleep.
posted by DLoyd76 at 6/07/2005 10:33:00 AM
<< Home