On writing about dreams

The trouble with writing about dreams, is that your thoughts about the dream, the words you find to describe it, thereafter contaminate your memories of the dream.

One remembers the act of writing, the thoughts and images that one had while trying to recall and explain the dream, with at least the same clarity and vividness as the dream itself. It's obvious that this could happen: isn't a dream just thoughts and images?

I was shocked to read Zhoen's comment that the person behind the dream-character that I had called "my lost lover" might have been a child. Characters in dreams are not necessarily whom they appear to be: according to some analysts many dream characters are aspects of oneself that don't get expressed in daily life. I know that and knew that at the time, so what exactly was so disturbing? I think it was the juxtaposition of the words "child" and "lover," strengst verboten and rightly so.

So I reconsidered: where did that word "lover" come from? was it really in Monday night's dream, or rather in Tuesday's blogging? (This is the point at which I realized the extent to which my memory of describing the dream overlays my memory of the dream itself.)

There was certainly nothing (overtly) sexual in the dream, even the nakedness was childlike, Adam-and-Eveish. "Lover" is clearly the wrong word; in the dream she was someone whom I had valued as a dear friend and lost contact with, not someone with whom I had had a sexual relationship. The emphasis should have been on the word "lost."

Bygones. Next up.

In other news I switched the central heating on this morning. Winter has arrived, to mingled cheers and boos.