the dream police are at the donut shoppe
(This update is a little personal, barely adult-themed, but comes to a point)
Even with the emergence of spring, the basement chamber in which I sleep is of the sensory deprivation-type. That is to say, with the new absence of pitter-patter of constant feet above my head and the removal of the big television that lacked a remote - so at night I used the DVD remote and set it to a “blue” screen - if it wasn’t for the gently chiding ‘bing-bong’ of my cell phone’s alarm I might never wake up these days.
The result of going to sleep in a dark room with no ambient light or noise, compounded with poor discipline against late snacking is bad juju dreams. It is subject to debate which came first: the sci-fi or fantasy movie and television show that presented the idea of a lifetime occurring in a flash (see: Wizard of Oz, Star Trek/NG: The Inner Light) or the human psyche that imagined entire spans of time when the REM stage of dreams was really only a few hours - then only remembering edited bits of it, allowing for time.
In any case, it was something that I was used to by now in some 30-odd years of epic storytelling dreams. I wasn’t always in control of my dream body (or puppet), but very often I could change the subject or environment as easily as changing a channel. A common trip shopping would eventually become a full space-battle. A classroom hallway would become a mansion. Sometimes I would get to complete an act of lovemaking with a general or specific woman in my dreams, but most often something would interrupt or block it.
So imagine my surprise when a whole bunch of them showed up last night one at a time, like my mind was running a “best of” clip show. If previous unfulfilled sex efforts were my mind’s censoring for broadcast television syndication (or a Freudian communication), then this recent night was the unrated DVD version. Every act was sweet and tender (and of course, pleasurable), every act went through.
What was disturbing then, was the mental DVD commentary made by superego. It apparently was on drugs, as I struggled to make clear what was recollection of real-life past partners and what was daydreamed or previously dreamed. Like the Manchurian Candidate, I was somehow convinced - even into the first hour of a wakening state - that these encounters had happened.
Normally I would not quote wikipedia for anything, because most entries are more like jumbles of voices in open thought than a definitive definition. But this passage for ‘false memories’ was interesting in this case:
“Memory is a complicated process, only partly understood; but research suggests that the qualities of a memory do not in and of themselves provide a reliable way to determine accuracy. For example, a vivid and detailed memory may be based upon inaccurate reconstruction of facts, or largely self-created impressions that appear to have actually occurred. Likewise, continuity of memory is no guarantee of truth, and disruption of memory is no guarantee of falsity.”
The process by which we choose to remember something may fly in direct conflict to what we know happened, and I do mean “we” in the collective form in this case. There are instances in which the individual stands alone as a witness to something that later gets entered as historical document, and there are cases in which the subversion of text (and here I’m not poking wikipedia but classroom textbooks) slowly becomes the accepted position.
Then there is the cliché but recurring ability for people to forget something and have it happen all over again. Perhaps an individual thinks themselves better than a former counterpart, or that modern technology and society would not let that moment happen again.
Unfortunately we live in a cyclical natural world in which what goes around comes around. We put ourselves in regular patterns and in situations where history can repeat itself.
But vivid momentary déjà vu happens to me on regular occasion. This is different, as it is something akin to a fabric of your sight stretching for a moment. I slow for a moment for uncertainty until I let the moment happen and pass. Then I return to the unknown, un-previously seen world in its lovely temporal one-way street.
While the use of video, film, and digital imaging can be skewed, slowed, repeated, and generally be ripped apart and re-assembled in a preferred manner - is it fair to say that the mind its natural neural capacity is following the act of simulacrum or is more original and fragile than this?
The psyche and mind can edit but not with complete control. It can extend scenes with new scenes or change them completely - without pre-planning the production and script as a crew would have to in real life visual storytelling mediums. I re-visited long past events that happened and didn’t happen, and I was momentarily delirious to know that these neural pathways have not been shed or vaporized to make room but instead is carefully storing moments in the old attic.