Skip to main content

Close your eyes and dream

"Close your eyes and dream."

"What about?" How do you conjure up the dream that fills your "night without a stir" (J. Keats) or that "stretches away, elusive" into the "infinity of space" (P. Gaugin)?

The prospect of meeting the demand to instantly invent a dream, to then dream about, is as agonising as the "Make a wish!" moment that accompanies cake cutting -

"Wait a minute ... wait a minute ... oka-a-ay, yes ...  no, wait a minute ... fine! Yes!"

You screw your eyes up to make the wish. And wish whilst holding your breath. And cut the cake. Then worry that you made the wrong wish. You worry so much that you say out loud what you wish you had wished. When this is met with groans, rolled eyes and nodding the why-did-you-wish-for-that nod,  you remind your friends that you didn't make that wish - "Of course not!" - and a fanfare of relief explodes inside your head.
You resolve, before you put the knife down, to decide on a wish to use in the future: the same wish to use every time you are asked to make a wish - a wish that fulfils the want of all the other wishes you could possibly wish and the charity of all the wishes you should wish.

The secret, therefore, of composure in the face of abrupt forced decision making, is to carry a brain-filling filing-cabinet of lists around in your head - the ideal wish; the list of best dreams you ever had; a list of dreams you wish you might have.
Equally effective at making your heart race and your mind leap into quicksand is the "What's your favourite ...?" question. You know what your favourite is ... if you have time to think about it. Put on the spot and you drop the contents of your favourite-file on the virtual floor and flounder as you look for the answer before turning beetroot and coming out with "I don't know ... it was that one ... you know? ... um ... that one." The elusive one will spring unannounced into your suddenly conscious mind in the middle of the night. Disturbing the dream.

(I like making lists. Making lists is the top hobby of the procrastinator. I have a list on my desk - of all the things I wanted to do this morning.

It now says 'Things to do' - this afternoon!)

I wonder if having a dream to always dream works. It might be a little like self-hypnosis: imagining a place of calm, that feels secure and slides you gently into sleep. I suspect that the effectiveness of this depends both on the moment and what went before - was the day a good one? Were you with friends? Did you laugh? Did the sun shine? Feeling contented will place you in a good emotional balance and the dream you have is likely to be filled with mellow happiness.
If the hours before were turbulent with frustration, argument and a gut-knotting sense of failure, the dream will be restless and any sleep that sneaks into your mind will be fitful.

You might even find yourself adopting the alternative Jack Sparrow approach -

"Close your eyes and pretend it's all a bad dream."



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...
Post a Comment
Read more

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful.  Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten! ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Life in a time of covid-19: part 18 - Hope. A rant, a little history and some small hope.

Hope : from Old English hopa:  definition - verb, to express a desire for something; noun, the feeling of desiring something that's not entirely beyond your reach. So ... I hope to see you tomorrow (verb) vs. It is my hope that none of us will be pinged before our holiday (noun). Hope is an essential part of our lives. Without hope, what are we? Who are we? And where are we going?If hope were completely withdrawn from our lives, most of us would be utterly lost. I know I would be. Hope, after all, is the thing ... the essence, if you like ... that drives us. It is the catalyst of ambition and the enabler of dreams. Pliny the Elder said, "Hope is the pillar that holds up the world."  I like that image ... a solid pillar holding up the world ... for us. It is somehow reassuring. But Pliny didn't say solid. The hopeful part of me added that, making it a hopefully solid pillar.  What if the pillar were to get a bit blurred? What if it bowed perhaps and buckled? Is the ...
Post a Comment
Read more