scatteredessay/dreamlog
Night before last, two dream sections. See iCal for July 13, 2005.
July 14, 2005
Last night three or four sections.
Dreams are always murky, that’s why I like them so much, this is not to say that they cannot be or that they were not clear last night. In their murkiness, their propensity for the surreal, they are some of the most lucid experiences I’ve ever had.
Dreams embody a languor similar to the one I attempted to describe to Malek yesterday when I expressed the effect and/or importance of James Lavadour paintings. His landscapes are far from realistic and far from impressionistic as the genre manifested itself at the time of its development, but they are a kind of new impressionism in that they emit a feeling more than a graphic representation of a subject. Considering images (paintings, photographs, and engravings) are two dimensional objects and constructed of pigments or crystals alone and that they cannot therefore fool a viewer into thinking that they are actually seeing anything other than a two dimensional representation, impressionism was on the right track. Impressionism is the closest painting has come to providing a real experience, outside of the analytical activity of reading into symbols or the most rudimentary critic’s job of assessing skill level. James Lavadour, with his dripping images, has merely to suggest the form of a rock to invoke a feeling that is, in my experience, more similar to standing in front of a rock than any photo realist painter has ever managed.
The “murkiness” of dreams is what gives them their power. After all how do most clairvoyants achieve their visions? They achieve them through trance, dream or from some other perspective entirely different from the consciousness most of us inhabit in our waking hours. What I hope to communicate here might merely be to understand for myself why it is that in all my art, writing, and experiences I wish to inhabit and then evoke a space of cloudy dreaminess. This has been the case from the beginning of my interest in art. (In seventh grade I was lucky enough to come across the band, “Cocteau Twins”, and with their ethereal melodies and imperceptible lyrics, I think it was the closest to touching magic I had yet been).
July 14, 2005
Last night three or four sections.
Dreams are always murky, that’s why I like them so much, this is not to say that they cannot be or that they were not clear last night. In their murkiness, their propensity for the surreal, they are some of the most lucid experiences I’ve ever had.
Dreams embody a languor similar to the one I attempted to describe to Malek yesterday when I expressed the effect and/or importance of James Lavadour paintings. His landscapes are far from realistic and far from impressionistic as the genre manifested itself at the time of its development, but they are a kind of new impressionism in that they emit a feeling more than a graphic representation of a subject. Considering images (paintings, photographs, and engravings) are two dimensional objects and constructed of pigments or crystals alone and that they cannot therefore fool a viewer into thinking that they are actually seeing anything other than a two dimensional representation, impressionism was on the right track. Impressionism is the closest painting has come to providing a real experience, outside of the analytical activity of reading into symbols or the most rudimentary critic’s job of assessing skill level. James Lavadour, with his dripping images, has merely to suggest the form of a rock to invoke a feeling that is, in my experience, more similar to standing in front of a rock than any photo realist painter has ever managed.
The “murkiness” of dreams is what gives them their power. After all how do most clairvoyants achieve their visions? They achieve them through trance, dream or from some other perspective entirely different from the consciousness most of us inhabit in our waking hours. What I hope to communicate here might merely be to understand for myself why it is that in all my art, writing, and experiences I wish to inhabit and then evoke a space of cloudy dreaminess. This has been the case from the beginning of my interest in art. (In seventh grade I was lucky enough to come across the band, “Cocteau Twins”, and with their ethereal melodies and imperceptible lyrics, I think it was the closest to touching magic I had yet been).
posted by borton at 12:49 PM
1 Comments:
With my new lifestyle I have been dreaming intensely every night. It can be shocking at first. But then again remembering dreams after a long time of not remembering them or not having any dreams at all can be its own mind expanding experience. It's like the dreams give you access to these stories that are under your consciousness during the day but which you have no way of accessing at that time and therefore just manipulate you without having any control. Of course, you don't have control when you dream, but you do have access, at least. It's like, events in life always seem better or more interesting once they've receded into the past a bit. Similarly, perhaps, the dreamlife is more interesting precisely because while you're in it there is no reality-expectation jabbing at you, saying, "This is all supposed to make sense." In dreams you try to say one thing but another thing comes out your mouth, but its O.K. because some part of your dream self knows you have no control. Unlike in life, when your reality self keeps telling you you should be in control.
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