[Video: Dream of the Wild Horses, an experimental short film by Denys Colomb Daunant, initially released in 1960. I first saw this in a film class in the 1970s and never forgot it, although “nothing happens.” I’ve always liked to think that the title doesn’t say this is a dream of someone — some human — about wild horses; rather, it says this is a dream which wild horses themselves have. The wild horses in the film apparently were among the Camargue.]
A subtle but complicated cloud of tension surrounds the topic of sleep at our house. The tension stems from two related facts: (a) The Missus has trouble sleeping, and (b) I myself have no trouble at all.
Confession: I love to sleep. I’d talk about sleep every day if I could do it without upsetting The Missus. (She’s not the only person I know with a sleep problem, which means I almost never bring the topic up because I never want to upset anybody. Which perhaps is your cue to tell me that you, too, don’t want to hear someone warbling a hymn to the infinite pleasures of sleeping. It also hints that I’m not really a good sleeper, but a sleep vampire. But that would be a different post, and a very different confession.)
One of the best things about sleep: dreams.
Whatever else they might be, dreams are a peculiarly intimate sort of fiction. But because we’ve all heard that dreams “mean” something (although we’ve also heard that they mean nothing), our dream-stories don’t make it into small talk. We don’t share them with random elevator co-passengers, say.
On the other hand, we’ll readily share (some of) them with (some) people who know us well. Everyone dreams, after all. And although some people say things like I never remember my dreams, it’s hard to imagine that even they don’t remember at least one dream apiece. Which is good, because dreams are easy to talk (and write and read) about. Dreaming is a shared experience, even when the details of a given dream seem completely alien. (People we actually know often have key roles in our best dreams; depending of course on what happens in dream-land, these can make for the best conversation about dreams. Detailing the bizarre and/or shocking behavior of real people in dreams is like gossiping freely in a land without slander laws.)
That we all “get” dreams, and that anything at all might happen in them, makes them a tempting, inexpensive device in fiction. You needn’t write fantasy or magic realism to recount what your characters dream about.
For instance, say a hack writer of didactic stories wants to be sure the reader understands the moral of a given fable; the writer can just throw in a dream with a lot of heavy-handed symbolism. If razzed about it later, he or she can always claim that sometimes, y’know, a cigar is just a cigar.
Or a suspense writer might introduce a dream (effectively or otherwise) as a foreshadowing device. Naturally, if it’s a suspense story, we already know without being told that something will happen, and probably sooner rather than later. But sometimes an author might want to hint at what that something is — imply that another character isn’t quite what s/he seems to be, for instance. And sometimes an author might want to use a dream to mislead us, to make us think one thing in advance, only to pull the rug out from under us later.
In discussions about dreams, The Wizard of Oz often comes up. Somewhere out there a novel waits to be written about a “real” Dorothy Gale — one who had The Dream and woke up, but told no one about it and just went on with her life. It would be a different novel, for sure, and maybe one successful on its own terms. But it wouldn’t be The Wizard of Oz. The Dream would still change her inner life, but not the inner lives of millions of others.
What about you? Are you a dream lover?
The question — here at any rate, ha — just asks: do you love dreams? Particularly, do you love them when they show up in fiction? If you write fiction, have you used a character’s dream(s) in a way you liked? What are some good examples of dreams in fiction? What makes them work? What makes fictional dreams not work so well?
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P.S. Now that I’ve given the post this title, I almost have to include this additional soundtrack. (Lyrics below.)
[Below, click Play button to begin [Song Title]. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:28 long.]
Lyrics:
Dream Lover
(Bobby Darin)Every night, I hope and pray
A dream lover will come my way
A girl to hold in my arms
And know the magic of her charms(Chorus:)
Because I want a girl
To call my own
I want a dream lover
So I don’t have to dream aloneDream lover, where are you
With a love oh so true
And a hand that I can hold
To feel you near when I grow old?(Repeat chorus)
Someday — I don’t know how
I hope you’ll hear my plea
Some way — I don’t know how
She’ll bring her love to meDream lover, until then
I’ll go to sleep and dream again
That’s the only thing to do
Until my lover’s dreams come true(Repeat chorus)
Ashleigh Burroughs says
I was humming Dream Lover as I was reading your post and then there it was, waiting for me at the end. I do like how you think, JES!
My dreams tell me what I am worrying/obsessing/stewing over, even if I’m not aware of it consciously. I, too, am a great sleeper and my daughter is a Professional Sleeper – put in her earplugs and she’s out. I went through a period of middle-of-the-night-awakenings, but that passed with my 40’s.
As for books, I am NOT a fan of dream sequences. I often skip them (dirty secret) ….
a/b
John says
a/b: I’ve had periods of major crisis during which my dreams suddenly take on the aspect of panicky nightmare. For the most part, though, I can’t (and don’t really try to) connect them to real life. Often they involve chase scenes, heists, and/or a lot of driving around.
If I want to, The Missus (despite her own battles with sleep) is always great to discuss dreams with; she has a readily accessible library (in fact, plus in her head) of dream interpretations and psychic/intuitive understandings and experiences to draw on whenever she wants.
And on another note, Dept. of Funny Coincidences: I lead with the Dream of Wild Horses film on the same day that you blog about the new Secretariat film… and one of my favorite music-related sites decides to cover the Rolling Stones’ song “Wild Horses.” Great minds, same channels!
DarcKnyt says
Interesting. I love dreams, but seldom remember them. When I do I try and write them down, but I haven’t done that for months. My dream journal has dust on it. (!)
I love sleep, too, but don’t do it well. I toss, turn, and am easily disturbed. This has a lot to do with my dream recall, I’m sure.
Still, even if I can’t directly relate, a great post for thought-food. :) I like the idea of the Dorothy who never spoke up, too. Weird. Alternate realities rock.
Froog says
I couldn’t help thinking of the creepy karaoke of Roy Orbison’s In Dreams (by Dean Stockwell, isn’t it?) in Blue Velvet.
In fiction I’m generally not a fan of dreams – they usually seem too easy or too heavy-handed. However, I do love – am properly haunted by – Anna Karenina’s precognitive dream of the dwarfish wheeltapper.
In movies, I love the dream sequences in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. And David Lynch, of course, creates the sensation of a dream often when he’s depicting straightforward action; but his real ‘dream’ sequences are particularly memorable. It’s nearly twenty years since I’ve been to the ‘Black Lodge’, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.
fg says
Three initial thoughts about dreams.
1/ I recently found that a conversation with a friend’s parent over a small polite dinner party of introduction somehow wound to my saying, “Well, you do know that they say dreaming of swimming means thoughts about having sex.” It was a mighty conversation stopper, I knew immediately that it was report too far and I am grateful to whoever saved us by striking up with something new.
2/ Tonight I was shown a new application for the I-phone. (get this, and I an not a user or in need of one But get this!) There is a “app” which allows the user to know their sleep patterns each night. The vibration of the mattress as you slumber or lie restless and all the places in between are recorded and presented to you in the morning as an apparently accurate graph. Wow. It looked good.
3/. I don’t always remember my dreams but I NEVER do in Beijing. In London I do and they are 3D with surround sound, emotional and gripping. The last one was tumultuous and it took me a while staring at the ceiling to know it wasn’t happening to me. This lack of dreams I begin to attribute to the lessened amounts of oxygen in the filthy Beijing air – Better suggestions on a post card.
John says
Darc: When I was in college, we had to keep a dream journal for a semester-long course in fantasy/SF. Of the dreams I had then, the one page I remember most was the one whose contents consisted entirely of numbers (as in digits — nothing spelled out). Satisfyingly, it sort of blew the professor’s mind, too.
Since then, though, I’ve gone the journal route only rarely… I usually don’t want to wake up to write anything down at the moment, and by the next morning I’ve forgotten all but the most recent. :)
Froog: Here y’go:
(You knew I’d have to look it up, didn’t you?)
Another hole in my literary CV: I’ve never read Anna Karenina, and I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen the film. (The only redeeming element is that when I asked The Missus, she said she hadn’t read it either.)
You need only reference Twin Peaks approvingly and you’ll have to make room for me in the same corner.
(Btw, one of my reCaptcha words right now is becaufe. ReCaptcha does 18th-century English!)
fg: I’d love to have that conversational moment captured on film. Bet there were a lot of nervous glances running around the room — especially from whichever party had been talking about a dream of swimming. Of course if NO one had been talking about such a dream — if you came up with that remark out of thin air — then all the nervousness should have been yours.
I’m so self-conscious that usually when discussing dreams, I avoid mentioning any features with obvious symbolic meaning. What drives me crazy is when I’m recounting a dream and someone suddenly stops me in mid-dream to tell me, as you apparently did, “You do know, they say that a dream about X is really a dream about Y?” Especially if they smirk knowingly. I once shared with a psychologist friend a dream in which the point of view wasn’t obviously mine, but that of a cat. The guy let me get through the whole thing and then sandbagged me: “Cats in dreams often represent the feminine.” That was the last time I talked dreams with him.
That iPhone app practically invites abuse, doesn’t it? Heh.
marta says
I sleep like the dead. I’ve slept through fire alarms and through the dog walking over me when he’s terrified of storms. And perhaps not coincidentally, I have vivid dreams.
During certain phases of life, I’ve had recurring themes–like water (but not, ahem, of swimming). Usually drowning or just being, living normal life but under water. Or running underwater. Impossible things in real life.
Lately, I’ve had a lot of dreams that end up with standing on a ledge or cliff. Yeah, make of that what you will.
I’ve read never to use dreams in fiction. I’ve also read to use them, but be very careful when you do. I’ve used a few dreams in stories, but I keep them super short and only to show the dreamers real state of mind or what the real worry they have that they haven’t admitted to themselves yet.
There is an artist (I can’t remember her name) but she would sleep in an art gallery with electrodes stuck to her head and then use the printed out graph of her sleep patterns in her art.
I’ve actually read Anna Karenina–but I was an English major. I loved the novel, but I don’t remember the dream bit.
And was I fascinated by Dale Cooper’s dreams in Twin Peaks? You know I was!
Oh. And I’ve always heard that dreaming of snakes is dreaming about sex. But when someone tells me they’ve dreamed about a snake, I keep that tidbit to myself.
John says
marta: I was just zapping a couple slices of Papa John’s finest which we froze last night, and thought of a book title: Dreaming of Leftover Pizza. Way I look at it, it would be a sort of anti-culinary memoir. A memoir to send Julia Child screaming from the room.
Froog’s phrase “dream of the dwarfish wheeltapper” made me decide it was high time to read Anna Karenina. I downloaded it last night to the Kindle. (Secretly, I was hoping it would be on a banned-books list, so I could kill two birds etc. But apparently not. So for this banned-book week I’ll read something short but banned, and then I’ll switch over to reading about wheeltapping dwarves.)
Agent Cooper’s dreams played such a big role, I’m surprised they never showed up in the credits. Among our favorites were the sort of waking dreams he had in the Roadhouse and in those surreal few moments after he got shot at the Great Northern — especially the shuffling, wandering old guy who turned into the freakazoid giant, bathed in blue light (at one point in the Roadhouse, raising his hands and intoning It is happening again…!).
Well, shoot. Now I’m in the mood to watch THAT again!
fg says
Ah, just for the record, no-one had mentioned swimming until I did so the moment was definately at my expense (a very British pass-time). Everyone was shareing dream info and stories. I wasn’t even the first to bring up the topic of sex. But mine was a bit too much. OR maybe everyone needed a moment to rack their brains to recall their last swimming dream and ‘dream lover’?
cynth says
I was blown away with your mention at the top of the post with “Dream of The Wild Horses”. While in my methods class in college, we used this film as a way to start a creative writing class! I haven’t seen it in years and was heartened to see it again.
I love to remember my dreams–a technique I learned a long time ago. I use pieces of dreams for different things in my writing, but I don’t think I attribute them as “dreams” in the writing, just something that a character does showing their quirkiness or their inclination to be cavalier about social mores–or just to be weird.
You had a post a while ago about recurring dreams, do you remember it? I remember it because it made me think of the dream I used to have of the basement in our old house. Oh, damn, now I’m going to dream about it again. Thanks, JOHN!
John says
fg: I think that uncomfortable, nervous silence is being shared right now among all of us following this conversation, staring off into space and remembering those things and trying hard not to smile lest we give ourselves away.
Somewhere, I’ve read that dreams about OCEANS are sex dreams. Maybe because I can’t swim, I seldom (never?) dream about swimming. But oceans… hmm?, uh, oh yeah, right. I think I might’ve dreamt about them once. Maybe twice. Thrice. TWENTY-THREE times, absolute maximum. Well, except…
Inner life was so much simpler when I was younger and first read about whatzisname, (de) Chirico? the Surrealist? all those paintings of trains and tunnels? Right.
John says
cynth: Recurring dreams — you may be thinking of this post, from last December. (Although a recurring dream — one of mine, in disguised form — also features prominently in this scrap of a novella, almost exactly a year earlier.)
Apparently that YouTube Dream of Wild Horses clip doesn’t include the original soundtrack. But in truth, if I hadn’t seen that at the YouTube page I wouldn’t have noticed — the video itself is just so mesmerizing!
marta says
@John –
Oh, I do wish Twin Peaks was on Netflix’s instant streaming. In fact, why don’t I own it? I guess I’ll have to settle for dreaming of Dale Cooper.
John says
marta: And I guess Dreaming of Dale Cooper could be the title of a memoir of your own.
One of the special features on the boxed set (not that I’m trying to frustrate you further!) is a recently filmed conversation among David Lynch, Kyle Maclachlan, and Madchen Amick (who played Shelley, Leo’s wife). It’s odd seeing them all with another 20 years on them… KM is still a good way from how he looked in Cooper’s dreams of himself as an old man, but you can see which way the wind is blowing.