tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post1657665732161135118..comments2023-12-28T13:11:06.666+00:00Comments on Pics and Poems: Myself and Harold PinterDave Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-67118873789916665732008-08-25T13:04:00.000+01:002008-08-25T13:04:00.000+01:00Hi Dave,That's one fascinating dream experience. I...Hi Dave,<BR/>That's one fascinating dream experience. I have never experienced anything like that before. On the matter of whether hearing is the last faculty to go; if I die in my sleep my hearing will have been long gone beforehand. It takes me about 10 minutes to restore my hearing after I wake up. I don't know if that's a proper condition, but it's damn annoying. My ear lobes are numb from all the tugging...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-89664187802558404012008-08-23T08:49:00.000+01:002008-08-23T08:49:00.000+01:00Conda,Hi, yes it was remarkably logical, which is ...Conda,<BR/>Hi, yes it was remarkably logical, which is to say I cannot recall anything illogical about it, although the remembered bit was extremely short. I know it seems long in the telling, and the pause seemed to go on forever at the time, but as I look back to it I seem not to be able to recall much of the dream at all.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-61856467194921055132008-08-23T01:42:00.000+01:002008-08-23T01:42:00.000+01:00My, your dream was somewhat logical, or at least l...My, your dream was somewhat logical, or at least logical in the telling. I do have dreams that are inspiration for stories, but they are much changed by the time they're finished.<BR/><BR/>Also, I've experienced the "dreaming awake" when I've traveled and not slept and certainly not slept well--most notably on a 33 hour plane ride. Weird.Conda Douglashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12972790965426924941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-49840812806724185412008-08-22T08:36:00.000+01:002008-08-22T08:36:00.000+01:00BradyNot at all, I find it a really remarkable sto...Brady<BR/>Not at all, I find it a really remarkable story, well worth hearing, and the pressures against further investigation I well understand! Thanks for taking the time.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-76472319129490586132008-08-21T18:41:00.000+01:002008-08-21T18:41:00.000+01:00You know, I'm not sure why I didn't go and take a ...You know, I'm not sure why I didn't go and take a look. Though I suspect that it was mostly because my youngest was getting grumpy because we were out later than usual. When the little one gets grumpy the wife tends to get grumpy... so I figured I could save it for another day.<BR/>At any rate, it's another excuse to get out of the house again, isn't it? <BR/><BR/>:)<BR/><BR/>Sorry for taking up so much of your comment space... I started typing and that's what I ended up with. It was quite strange.R. Brady Frosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16926505633531944151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-44540190103162106832008-08-21T11:10:00.000+01:002008-08-21T11:10:00.000+01:00Brady,Wow! - or should it be OOooo-err?Quite a sto...Brady,<BR/>Wow! - or should it be OOooo-err?<BR/>Quite a story, did you not want to find out if the fence ran round to the other side - and if someone had cut a hole in it? I don't think I could have resisted the urge to investigate.<BR/>Thanks for dropping by, and thanks for the story.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-24362017136372518372008-08-20T23:44:00.000+01:002008-08-20T23:44:00.000+01:00Many years ago, perhaps before I married my wife, ...Many years ago, perhaps before I married my wife, I had a very memorable dream that I was at a park. Of course, as in many dreams, the park was a bit different than it was in real life but I understood in my subconscious that it was one and the same. Much as the case in reality, the park had a long walking path and at the end there was a bridge over the river the path had followed, from there reality and dream diverged from one another. Instead of the baseball diamond being to the right of the bridge, it was located on the other side. To get to it I climbed through a gap in the chainlink fence that appeared to have been made by bolt cutters. That is where the dream started getting interesting, and it had nothing to do with baseball...<BR/>I had long forgotten the dream in the years that followed, perhaps ten or more but it's hard to place a date on it. It's like grasping at a dream that you want to hang on to as you begin to wake up and regain a foothold in the conscious realm.<BR/><BR/>Last night we went to that park for the first time in a very long time, probably since as late as 2001. We threw down a blanket and ate dinner, the children ran off to play on the jungle gym, and soon enough I was left to fend for myself, my wife had taken the kids to feed the ducks while I had a bit of quiet time. The memory of the dream remained buried.<BR/>Time trickled away and I looked up from my Mother Earth News magazine and glanced at my watch. I slowly gathered the trash and threw it away in the bin and then packed up. I dropped our stuff off at the van and set out on the path to find my wife and kids.<BR/>At nearly the halfway point of the expansive trail I caught sight of them and jumped the fence to hide in the bushes, hoping some rogue goose wouldn't decide to creep up on me instead. As my two oldest came into view between the gaps in the foliage, I jumped out! "Yaaaarrrrghhhhhhh!!!!" I roared.<BR/>My oldest, Becca, cowered in fright, Gryphon jumped in alarm.<BR/><BR/>Having had my fun, I turned them around and we headed back the way they had came, to the end of the trail.<BR/><BR/>We wound our way to the end of the line and I was surprised to find the fountain that had always splashed and gurgled in my youth was dry. Something in the back of my mind began to itch.<BR/><BR/>A bit further up the trail was the familiar bridge that had escaped my memory. I passed it without second thought and the itch became stronger. Following the sidewalk instead, we veered right.<BR/><BR/>"You can't go that way, Dad." Becca told me. I shook it off and rounded the bend. There in front of me, cutting across the sidewalk that had been forever unobstructed was a chain link fence. <BR/><BR/>At that moment I felt akin to reaching the pinnacle of a roller coaster ride, in that speck of time that feels slower than reality. And then with a <I>whoosh</I> it all came flooding back. Like a father jumping out at his children from the bushes, it was alarming, but there was nothing to be afraid of...<BR/><BR/>I couldn't help but wonder if the fence ran around to the other side of the bridge as well... and if it did, had someone cut an opening with bolt cutters? A stray thought crept into the back of my mind. If there was a fence and there was no hole, was I supposed to cut it?<BR/><BR/>I left the thought unanswered, turned around, and sped down the hill, pushing the stroller and yelling, "Vroooooooom!" as we passed the bridge again.<BR/><BR/>The rest of my thoughts on the matter were drowned out by September's giggles as the stroller bounced on the tiny cracks in the sidewalk.R. Brady Frosthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16926505633531944151noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-22277263605139256962008-08-20T11:09:00.000+01:002008-08-20T11:09:00.000+01:00RachelYes, it was a particularly vivid dream for o...Rachel<BR/>Yes, it was a particularly vivid dream for one in which there was not much action. Thinking back, it was rather quakeresque, if I can coin such a phrase.<BR/>Pinter's non-play writing is mostly very political, but the rest is absolutely fascinating - I find, anyway.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-73727538627322147642008-08-20T10:17:00.000+01:002008-08-20T10:17:00.000+01:00I love the dream - particularly interesting with a...I love the dream - particularly interesting with a Quaker slant (they are some of the only people who don't get freaked out by silence!). I loved the waiting...as you waited to see what would happen next. I think sometimes dreams wake us up if we can't deal with what is happening in them (terror etc.). Maybe that awkward fidgetting and anticipation was just too much.<BR/>I like the Pinter quote better than any Pinter I've seen/heard to date. Still I admire the man for doing his thing, in his own way.Rachel Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11803852725693518924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-9811461772475565742008-08-20T08:57:00.000+01:002008-08-20T08:57:00.000+01:00FiendishPhew! I thought you were going to say I'd ...Fiendish<BR/>Phew! I thought you were going to say I'd given you a nightmare! Way back, I did get interested in the whole business of whether dreams have any sort of meaning: the rule of thumb, I was assured, is that a person who is current in your life is that person in the dream; an unknown person, or a person no longer current is a symbol for whatever that figure means to you at present. Yes, well...Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-1215629830423247572008-08-20T08:52:00.000+01:002008-08-20T08:52:00.000+01:00Dick,alas, I do not remember many of my dreams now...Dick,<BR/>alas, I do not remember many of my dreams now, not for more than seconds after waking, that is. More usually, I will recall just the last image and become really frustrated that I cannot recall what led up to it. It's a bit like being able to remember the storm in Shakespeare's Tempest, but not how it fits into the tale. I will have a look at bitter brush. Thanks for the steer.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-62741984387002843912008-08-20T08:46:00.000+01:002008-08-20T08:46:00.000+01:00Hope,Yes, I remember being told I would die if I h...Hope,<BR/>Yes, I remember being told I would die if I hit the ground. These days, I'm told it's all because the heart has missed a beat - or have cause and effect been confused there?Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-18986665813383597532008-08-19T18:22:00.000+01:002008-08-19T18:22:00.000+01:00Strangely, since reading this post, I've had the m...Strangely, since reading this post, I've had the most vivid dream of my life, which involved meeting someone I admire very much amongst dozens of other seemingly unrelated things.<BR/><BR/>Nice post - I've been re-quoting the Pinter quote for days now :)Fiendishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06427088675092430747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-2517991355012233622008-08-19T17:58:00.000+01:002008-08-19T17:58:00.000+01:00I no longer remember my dreams. I have perfect rec...I no longer remember my dreams. I have perfect recall of dreams from childhood, one of them certainly from around the age of two because recollection of it has accompanied me from the family move from London to Surrey, which happened when I was three. I am conscious now only of the general atmosphere generated by my dreams and I know that they are the product of long-term anxieties. Their potency can colour much of the day following their occurrence. The frustration is not being able to recapture the narrative so as to address its effects!<BR/><BR/>So I'm very impressed by the clarity, detail and narrative drive of your dream, Dave. Amongst bloggers only Sam - http://bitterbrush.blogspot.com/ - is your rival.<BR/><BR/>Loved the Pinter quote. I have his famous language/silence statement coming up soon topping a Pinter post.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-34221780685572119192008-08-19T14:13:00.000+01:002008-08-19T14:13:00.000+01:00When I was a kid, I remember being told that if yo...When I was a kid, I remember being told that if you had a dream about falling and you didn't wake up but hit the ground in your dream, you would die. <BR/><BR/>I can still see the confused look on my Dad's face when he came to see what the thump was one night. I was 8, had been in a falling dream and actually rolled over and fell out of bed. In the dream I also hit the ground..hard. When Dad came to check on me, I looked up and asked him, "Am I dead?" :)hopehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03306622656461205674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-42985246632328616622008-08-19T10:55:00.000+01:002008-08-19T10:55:00.000+01:00Hope,Thanks for the tip. I will go have a peep at ...Hope,<BR/>Thanks for the tip. I will go have a peep at the site. I recall when occasion as a lad I fell out of bed. My dad rushed up to find me, still asleep (or half asleep?), climbing back in. He asked me if I was okay. I told him I was dreaming that I'd fallen out of bed.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-67618752186437462322008-08-19T10:51:00.000+01:002008-08-19T10:51:00.000+01:00BarbarasI have never actually managed to incorpora...Barbaras<BR/>I have never actually managed to incorporate a dream into a poem. A dream has sometimes suggested something that I could use, but that's as near as I have menaged to get.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-42214741225601035982008-08-19T10:48:00.000+01:002008-08-19T10:48:00.000+01:00Jim,I have gone the other way, seemingly: I have a...Jim,<BR/>I have gone the other way, seemingly: I have always had good recall of dreams - very vivid in my childhood - until recently. Now they often slip away before I can replay them, so to speak. I do sometimes know that I am dreaming and when things are getting serious - ie I am about to come to a sticky end - I have been known to push the dream off at a tangent instead of waking up. That, though, is another faculty I appear to be losing.<BR/><BR/>The connection between dream and day-dreams is another aspect that fascinates me.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-3174490109627854072008-08-19T00:31:00.000+01:002008-08-19T00:31:00.000+01:00Dave, you're not alone. I'm one of those vivid dr...Dave, you're not alone. I'm one of those vivid dreamers who thinks falling asleep is like going to the movies, only with better plots. ;) On more than one occasion I've been able to hear what is actually happening in the room, yet I'm not quite out of that dream yet. <BR/><BR/>WebMD.com has an interesting article on this, which is sometimes referred to as hypnopompic sleep paralysis.<BR/><BR/>In a nutshell, if REM sleep [that good, restorative sleep] is interrupted before it completes its cycle, you can feel caught between sleep and awake. It can make some folks feel paralyzed yet aware of their surroundings.hopehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03306622656461205674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-46250660711426138522008-08-18T10:51:00.000+01:002008-08-18T10:51:00.000+01:00What a vivid overlap between your dream and realit...What a vivid overlap between your dream and reality. I sometimes have the rare dream like that before waking. I've then used them in poems. They happen so rarely, I'm lucky to catch them at all. Lovely segue into Pinter too :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06280161801824435219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-81114272083297315842008-08-18T09:50:00.000+01:002008-08-18T09:50:00.000+01:00I can't say it's ever happened to me in the way yo...I can't say it's ever happened to me in the way you describe – in fact until recently I never recalled my dreams (well hardly ever) and I felt cheated by all these people who could remember them in glorious Technicolor – and yet it happens quite regularly now, in fact my wife has learned to ask me as soon as I awake what I've been dreaming about because they do slip away so quickly and I relate them to her usually in a dry, whispery voice. On a few occasions I have felt … I suppose you'd call it an overlap, as if for a short time I have a foot in both world, I'm aware of being conscious and yet the dream hasn't quite ended. I've always known I <I>was</I> awake though and the dream is like one of the old TV sets where the image fades before it vanishes.<BR/><BR/>Loved the Pinter quote about the six year-old by the way. W's I can do. I always had a problem with the letter r as a kid. My teacher used to make me write pages and pages of 'em. It's still not my favourite letter.Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-89371905978244313132008-08-17T08:39:00.000+01:002008-08-17T08:39:00.000+01:00JarodI actually met a guy once who claimed he coul...Jarod<BR/><BR/>I actually met a guy once who claimed he could recall dreams from the womb!Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-65933633130160878642008-08-17T08:37:00.000+01:002008-08-17T08:37:00.000+01:00Ken,I love the Pinteresque pause. I believe (some)...Ken,<BR/>I love the Pinteresque pause. I believe (some) actors got (get) hot under the collar, being told when to pause etc. That rather amuses me.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-23146761010033242482008-08-17T08:35:00.000+01:002008-08-17T08:35:00.000+01:00SorlilI did experiment a while back with trying to...Sorlil<BR/>I did experiment a while back with trying to "seed" my dreams by thinking, as I was "dropping off" the sort of thoughts I wanted to explore. Sort of worked once or twice - up to a point!Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2508563923634392703.post-77701117644588149332008-08-16T22:31:00.000+01:002008-08-16T22:31:00.000+01:00Considering that I never remember my dreams, I wou...Considering that I never remember my dreams, I would actually welcome such an experience. I hear people recount such detailed descriptions of dreams and I feel a little left out. Interesting post. Perhaps the experience was akin to a night terror. http://www.nightterrors.org/JKAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06803670271920839776noreply@blogger.com