c. 1997 · Essay — a recurring dream, and what it was about.
The images that make up our lives often live only an instant. Even so, we associate ideas with these images. We are compelled to pay close attention to those which we see again and again. And so it is with dreams. I have dreamt of a particular scene many times, and because I have seen it often, it carries special significance.
Imagine a wide grassy valley. You are running free through waist-high sedge toward the bank of a wide river. The first drops of rain fall upon your lips, leaving a salty taste that somehow instills a sense of dismay. You run faster. The clouds darken behind you and trees at the end of the meadow rustle against the wind. Now the rain begins in earnest. Heavy droplets pound against your head, the sound reverberating inside your skull. The river looms near, ominous and forbidding. The wind howls, plastering your wet hair against your face. You achieve the river and start to cross the bridge. The wood is slippery and you fall. The current below is deafening; the water level rises before your eyes. You scramble up and keep running.
The valley slopes sharply downward hereon, and the river has flooded so that water begins pouring down the hill. In the distance you hear gunfire. No longer grassy plains, the land is now overgrown with brush and vines. The water overtakes you and flushes you on and downward. The vegetation scrapes your body as you are forced through and underneath this jungle. You get the impression you are being watched. After ten minutes of this torture, you finally grab hold of a branch. The current threatens your grip, but you pull your exhausted body upward into a clearing. The noise of the raging waters is muted to a whisper. Inside this inverse copse the temperature is very warm and humid. Vapor is visible as you survey your sanctuary. Vines and branches create a low ceiling, low enough to prevent you from standing. Strange and exotic plants grow around a small pond at the center. The water is warm to the touch and slightly effervescent. The soil is dark, and gives an extremely potent earthy smell. You decide to rest your tired body here for a while when suddenly a hand reaches through a section of thicket seeking your own. You grasp the hand, to pull it into your shelter, but instead the hand pulls you from your refuge, and the world outside is like nothing you have ever seen.
The sky is pitch, and yet an argentine sun illuminates the desolate scene before you. The hand that grasps your own belongs to a skeletal creature with bloody eyes that sees through your body into your soul. You can feel its thoughts as it stares into your eyes and smiles grimly. Its evil intentions permeate your being and you lose consciousness. The gray and diseased land around you fades to black.
I relate the previous scene with themes of freedom threatened, and of sanctuary under siege. Certainly “running free through waist-high sedge” implies a sense of liberty. It is an analogy of the power to move through life without being held back. The darkening clouds and the beginning of a tremendous storm are obviously signs of approaching danger. One could associate the “feeling of being watched” with growing paranoia. Obviously, the “clearing in the woods” is a form of sanctuary, short-lived as it turned out to be. Overall, the dream is an image of the concept of paranoia.
The relationships between ideas and images become evident when one analyzes them thoroughly. When certain circumstances–images–repeat themselves, we associate a concept or abstraction to them.
Composed 1997 · part of the Essays collection · authorship documented on the Provenance page.