{"id":7902,"date":"2010-09-22T11:16:53","date_gmt":"2010-09-22T15:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=7902"},"modified":"2010-09-22T11:16:53","modified_gmt":"2010-09-22T15:16:53","slug":"so-a-dream-lover-are-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/so-a-dream-lover-are-you\/","title":{"rendered":"So — A Dream Lover, Are You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/object><\/p>\n

[Video: <\/em>Dream of the Wild Horses<\/a>, 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 — <\/em>about wild horses; rather, it says this is a dream which <\/em>wild horses themselves have. The wild horses in the film apparently were among the Camargue<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

A<\/span> 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.<\/p>\n

Confession: I love<\/em> 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<\/em>. But that would be a different post, and a very different confession.)<\/p>\n

One of the best things about sleep: dreams.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

W<\/span>hatever 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>, it’s hard to imagine that even they don’t remember at least one<\/em> 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<\/em> dreams. Detailing the bizarre and\/or shocking behavior of real people in dreams is like gossiping freely in a land without slander laws.)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In discussions about dreams, The Wizard of Oz<\/em> 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<\/em>. The Dream would still change her inner life, but not the inner lives of millions of others.<\/p>\n

What about you? Are you a dream lover?<\/p>\n

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<\/em> work so well?<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

P.S. Now that I’ve given the post this title, I almost have to include this additional soundtrack. (Lyrics below.)<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>[Song Title]. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:28 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:dreamlover_bobbydarin.mp3|titles=’Dream Lover’|artists=Bobby Darin]<\/div>\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

Dream Lover<\/strong>
\n(Bobby Darin)<\/em><\/p>\n

Every night, I hope and pray
\nA dream lover will come my way
\nA girl to hold in my arms
\nAnd know the magic of her charms<\/p>\n

(Chorus:)<\/em>
\nBecause I want a girl
\nTo call my own
\nI want a dream lover
\nSo I don’t have to dream alone<\/p>\n

Dream lover, where are you
\nWith a love oh so true
\nAnd a hand that I can hold
\nTo feel you near when I grow old?<\/p>\n

(Repeat chorus)<\/em><\/p>\n

Someday — I don’t know how
\nI hope you’ll hear my plea
\nSome way — I don’t know how
\nShe’ll bring her love to me<\/p>\n

Dream lover, until then
\nI’ll go to sleep and dream again
\nThat’s the only thing to do
\nUntil my lover’s dreams come true<\/p>\n

(Repeat chorus)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,16,53,74,5,36,372],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-themissus","8":"category-movies-media","9":"category-music","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-reading","12":"category-style-and-craft","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-23s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7903,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7902\/revisions\/7903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}