"Dying's just another way to leave the ones you love."

[greygirlbeast]

I don't write about my dreams much anymore. Frankly, after I began..well...the new drugs, back in 2010, things got better. Dreamsickness became almost a phenomenon of the past. But Lamictal can cause vivid dreams, and when I have to increase my dose - as I have to do every now and then - I get vivid dreams. Crazy vivid, like the old days. Dreams

Comments

[elmocho]

I go through a few hours of strange mourning, for what I lost on waking, no matter how terrible it might have been. It was a universe, if "only" of my imagination.I used to be able to remember only a few of those. I wish I had a good record of how long I took Effexor, an SNRI, because when I would skip a dose, I would get that transportation to another reality. You are right about the sense of backstory, of having a whole other history

[greygirlbeast]

Do you retain much of your other worlds, or do they drift away?

Sadly, only rarely, and only small bits. Elsewise, I'd have awoken this morning knowing how to speak Polish...or something...

[jessamyg]

I envy those people who say they can always perceive when dreams are dreams. I have only ever realised I was dreaming once in my entire life, and that woke me out of it. All the rest of the time it was as much of a reality as anything else I have experienced.

And the argument that the work of art only exists when it is perceived and the critic/reader makes an interpretation of it, I have a perfectly valid counter-argument - bollocks. It's my piece of art and it will mean what I want it to mean, or it will mean nothing at all, my choice. Criticise and interpret it all you like, but you're not going to change it one iota with your criticism.

[greygirlbeast]

I envy those people who say they can always perceive when dreams are dreams

I never have. On the one hand I think, well, if I knew, I'd now how my time there was limited, and i'd treat it with greater care. And be sure people knew how I felt about them...because I'd know it wouldn't last. But haven't I just described waking reality? And I'd not that conscientious on this side.

And the argument that the work of art only exists when it is perceived and the critic/reader makes an interpretation of it, I have a perfectly valid counter-argument - bollocks.

Brava.

It's my piece of art and it will mean what I want it to mean, or it will mean nothing at all, my choice.

Stephen King (not a favorite author, but...) said exactly that about Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining. "I still have the novel, and no one can touch that." He hated Kubrick's film.

[ulffriend]

As an undergrad I once did a long paper, liberally supported with quotes from the text, proving beyond shadow of a doubt that Edmund in Shakespeare's "King Lear" was actually driven to do all the awful things he did because he was unable to express his frustrated incestuous desire for his father. I did it all tongue in cheek, specifically to make the point that "scholars" can support just about any ridiculous thing that they please, but that it doesn't mean that the point has merit. Fortunately for me, my professor had a good sense of humor and got it. But you're right, and I rarely even read literary criticism any longer because most of it seems forced and overdone...I wonder if the continued popularity of the reader-response school is directly connected to the rise of helicopter moms and fashionable outrage

[whiskeychick]

The only time I give props to literary criticism is when it makes me think about the story in a different light, or to consider a different view point from one of the characters. Criticism, is more of an avenue for introverted academics to have a conversation with folks they might not be able to feasibly have a cocktail with on any given night. But, that's just me.

[brendandetzner]

I've never studied theories of literary criticism aside from the quick trip around the internet to pick up the bare outlines of the theories you mentioned. They all seem fine right up to the point where they insist that theirs is the only approach that should ever be used, and seem really silly beyond that point. It seems like a worthwhile, interesting exercise when thinking about a book to just think about the effect it had on me, and to momentarily ignore when and where the book was written or what the author had in mind writing it. It also seems like you'd get something useful by limiting yourself to thinking only about what the author was trying to accomplish by writing it, or just thinking about a book in terms of it's relationship to the audience it was marketed to, or any number of other points of view