A Wandering Mind: Part 15–Replica
“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the mind while awake? –Leondardo da Vinci
A memory is a replica of an event, an object, a place, a being. Original works of art are replicas, an artist’s best rendition to best express a vision, a movement, an auditory epiphany, a literary piece. Fakes have their “tells” like the faded plastic stick-on that covers my window — so much like an authentic Tiffany stained glass masterpiece, but the colors blurry, not as crisp and vibrant, the plastic flat without the clearly-defined texture. The recreated MacKinlay’s Highland Whisky I sipped burned in much the same way as it did to warm Shackleton’s South Pole expedition team, but the spirit wasn’t from the original bottle.
Each day I pass a poster of Amelia Earhart, not the original photograph, but a blown-up copy of her. Wherever I move she stares at me and I look back at her and ask “Amelia, where did you go?”
Memories are tokens of a past that symbolize something of another’s or our past, our daily present or a future we will have. They remind us who we were, what still remains and nudge us in the direction we should go to reach who we’ll become.
The mementos we bring back from dreams are faded, distorted replicas of where we traveled, what we saw, said, sensed, shared. If I were to form a stained glass window using Tiffany as my model, the colors I’d create, the shapes, the spacing in between the dividers, the depth and perspective would not be Tiffany. If another person were to use the same Tiffany pane as a model, theirs would be distinct enough from mine as well as from the authentic version. In the same way, our remembered dreams are distorted reflections, our recall our best attempt at describing the experience, shaped by the tools we have at hand at the given time.
Dream interpretation has always been tricky especially precognitive visions due to symbolic images, sounds, sensations wrapped up into the condensed spacetime, in most cases, with no timestamp of when that future event will happen.
The dream is an involuntary kind of poetry. –Jean Paul Richter
“An English housewife, Barbara Garwel of Hull, dreamed in early March 1981 that she was riding in a car with two Germans wearing uniforms resembling those of the Nazi SS. A large limousine approached and stopped, and a man stepped out whom Garwell uncertainly identified as a well-known actor. The two SS men got out of their car; one drew a pistol and fired several shots at the actor, who fell to the ground. Three weeks later, on March 30, 1981, the former actor and then-president, Ronald Reagan, stepped out of his limousine and was shot…two assassins were seen, whereas in actuality there was only one. The SS uniform may have been relevant: Hinkley had once been a member of a neo-Nazi group…” –Robert L. Van de Castle, Our Dreaming Mind
Dreams have gotten a bad reputation because they’ve been considered confusing, weird, and inaccurate. However, what if what we see is accurate, we just have at hand an incomplete reproduction created using our polluted perspective?
“hypothetical unseen dimensions don’t yet have a name. But should they exist, they would be new directions along which something might travel. So when I need a name for an extra dimension, I’ll sometimes call it a passage. These passages could be flat, like the dimensions we are accustomed to. Or they could be warped, like reflections in a fun-house mirror.” -Lisa Randall, particle physicist, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions
Perhaps Barbara Garwel’s dream of Reagan’s assassination attempt was accurate. Maybe she saw simultaneously two possible futures, each with one assassin, each with a slightly different version or outcome, looking through a semi-transparent film or membrane of future time. Outside her dream, in her memory of the future, her mind interpreted it as two assassins.
As humans, while awake, we are used to memories, thinking about the future, experiencing the present — in physical and virtual spaces–with several or all our senses — one timeframe at a time. In dreams, spacetime is jumbled. We jump to real and imaginary local, international and interstellar locations from one instant to another, or so it seems. We mingle with the known and unknown, genuine and disguised, real and fictitious people, places and things from the past, present and possible futures. No wonder we have trouble interpretting dreams. However, we sh0uld never stop wondering where we go, the when we visited or the who or what we shared dreamspace with. The more replicas we create and share, we continue to fill the museum with ever more multidimensional, multitemporal perspectives, which eventually will give us a crystal clear masterpiece.
As we explore our own spacetimes–physical, virtual, dream, InnerNet and beyond–we need to define the relationships we have there: with the space, how we spend time, with one another and with what kind of Other. What is essential? What should be in our survival kit? What will keep us from going out of our minds crazy as we travel interdimensionally? What should we do when we fall madly in love with a space, a place, a time, something or someone? When borderlines are blurred and confusing? When we become entranced and stray? How do we bring things into focus and keep things clear?
Navigation Tool: A masterpiece takes many drafts and a lot of passion.
The Why’s of a Relationship
00:00 01 April (16 years old) from Gnotebook
- Expect the unexpected.
- Understand better the feelings of others instead of yourself as you always lived for only you (observe the other, examine)
- “the only pleasure in life is love”
- confusion makes love difficult and challenging
- “puzzled” = put the known and suspected pieces together to create a masterpiece
- special attention: someone always there
- sacrifice the good things and you will get the better
- bring each other through our troubles — even if we both get angry at the other
…We went an hour and a half to Las Estacas, again through many villages, speed bumps, hills, saw horses, goats, cows and dogs. Las Estacas was beautiful. You drift from a spring-fed pond down a “río” through a leaf-thatched tunnel, into the “jungle” down to where another pond area is, then you get out, eat and put some more suntan lotion on. After a while of sitting in the water I decided I wanted to go off the platform in the spring-fed pond. It was muy divertido.
23:00 10 June (16 years old)
The jungle stream’s cool current carried me past waterfalls, rock tunnels, and small grottos. One grotto was next to a waterfall. I swam over to the rock wall and dragged myself into the minicave. I looked all around the wet walls, only a few stray leaves clinging to small ledges, caught until a heavy rain will dislodge them. The loamy scent of the jungle growth above filtered in to the bland stone smell. Occasionally the buttery fruit perfume of my sunscreen circulated, a light pollen dusting the air.
Somehow, you found my hiding place. With even strokes you closed in until we stared at each other. My arms stretched out along the natural lip. Your feet on a natural underwater stone step. You caress my shoulders and your fingers, as if brushing the petals of a tropical flower, slip over the curves of my upper arms, into the tuck of my elbow, past my wrists to tangle with mine. As we grip each other, you press yourself into me, breathing in my aroma, tasting me. We savor each other in this secret garden.
“Grotto” 17:44 15 February (41 years old) Love at First
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The story continues each week here on Medium.
For behind-the-scenes info and the science behind the story visit Ideapod and the Oneironauts series.
Everyone dreams. Are you one who realizes there is more to dreams than just what you do while sleeping? Check out @virtuonaut on Twitter to see who else throughout human history has commented on the value of dreams, wondered about the unknown and pondered the unexplained.
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