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Anatomy Of A Dream
Sep. 25th, 2024 08:09 am I have been noticing how my dreams are structured.
Though "structure" isn't quite the right word because space and time- which structure our waking life- no longer exist- or not exactly as we know them.
There is no narrative. Instead there are things that are going-on within a certain spatial and temporal containment field. I know that's not very clear but it's the best I can do.These "goings-on" are- as it were- layered; they nest within one another; they interpenetrate. And none of these statements- derived from a waking apprehension of space-time- is quite accurate either.
This morning I had really rather good recall of a the dream I'd just woken from- and this will be an attempt to break it down.
The context or spatial-temoral contaiment field involved a visit to a country house that was variously my mother's farm, a retreat house run by Matt and Julia, the couple who used to do our gardening, and an aristocratic stately home.
And the goings-on included.
1 Sitting down to some sort of celebratory meal at which my mother and first wife were present- all personnel being fluid and having a tendency to morph into one another
2 Having a conversation with our hostess about how they might have to close the retreat house and what she really wanted to do was run a cafe
3 The planting of a hedge along the drive way- consisting of beech interspersed with flowering shrubs and rose bushes
4 A meeting with a little old man, ressembling the Britsh comedy actor Moore Marriott, who was renting an appartment in the country house. I'd expected him to be a bore but found he was actually a highly skilled sculptor who showed me an enormous sarsen stone- cemented into the wall at the entrance of the flat- in which he had carved ever so subtly the suggestion- no more than the suggestion- of the outline of a bull.
5 A firework display mounted by the little old man in which little flying contraptions made ot withies bombarded the windows of the house with hawthorn buds.
6 The reading of a newspaper from 1921 containing articles deploring the degeneracy of modern times. Alfred Lord Tennyson had just died and there was a full page cartoon showing John Gielgud delivering a eulogy
7. A discussion of the confirmation of Edward VII- how it had taken place at this country house- and been the inaugural celebration at the new cathedral. Many great people had attended- and the celebrities asembled in Lord Creevey's corner had been particularly distinguished.
8. A survey of Lord Creevey's will- with the disposition of the properties he'd owned, including one called Southampton Abbey....
After I woke, I continued half in and half out of the dream. In one reality I heard the clock on the pier strike the quarter hour. In the other I looked out the window of the country house and saw there was a single track railway running across the lawn below.....
Though "structure" isn't quite the right word because space and time- which structure our waking life- no longer exist- or not exactly as we know them.
There is no narrative. Instead there are things that are going-on within a certain spatial and temporal containment field. I know that's not very clear but it's the best I can do.These "goings-on" are- as it were- layered; they nest within one another; they interpenetrate. And none of these statements- derived from a waking apprehension of space-time- is quite accurate either.
This morning I had really rather good recall of a the dream I'd just woken from- and this will be an attempt to break it down.
The context or spatial-temoral contaiment field involved a visit to a country house that was variously my mother's farm, a retreat house run by Matt and Julia, the couple who used to do our gardening, and an aristocratic stately home.
And the goings-on included.
1 Sitting down to some sort of celebratory meal at which my mother and first wife were present- all personnel being fluid and having a tendency to morph into one another
2 Having a conversation with our hostess about how they might have to close the retreat house and what she really wanted to do was run a cafe
3 The planting of a hedge along the drive way- consisting of beech interspersed with flowering shrubs and rose bushes
4 A meeting with a little old man, ressembling the Britsh comedy actor Moore Marriott, who was renting an appartment in the country house. I'd expected him to be a bore but found he was actually a highly skilled sculptor who showed me an enormous sarsen stone- cemented into the wall at the entrance of the flat- in which he had carved ever so subtly the suggestion- no more than the suggestion- of the outline of a bull.
5 A firework display mounted by the little old man in which little flying contraptions made ot withies bombarded the windows of the house with hawthorn buds.
6 The reading of a newspaper from 1921 containing articles deploring the degeneracy of modern times. Alfred Lord Tennyson had just died and there was a full page cartoon showing John Gielgud delivering a eulogy
7. A discussion of the confirmation of Edward VII- how it had taken place at this country house- and been the inaugural celebration at the new cathedral. Many great people had attended- and the celebrities asembled in Lord Creevey's corner had been particularly distinguished.
8. A survey of Lord Creevey's will- with the disposition of the properties he'd owned, including one called Southampton Abbey....
After I woke, I continued half in and half out of the dream. In one reality I heard the clock on the pier strike the quarter hour. In the other I looked out the window of the country house and saw there was a single track railway running across the lawn below.....
