Dream

Something remarkable happened to me the other night; remarkable because so often my dreams are painful expressions of things that afflict me; for instance the loss of confidence & self belief, & other insecurities which I need my waking hours to expel before facing another night which may or may not turn out to be another battle. These are quite likely to destroy my equilibrium for a few hours. Woe is me under these circumstances!

As often as not I can’t even remember what’s been going on in these dreams but I know I haven’t enjoyed it. I guess if I can’t remember  them  they can’t be that bad, whereas if I can remember I can then work on exorcising them.

 This night I entered another world, anchored by the presence of three familiar characters; a young version of Kate,(my daughter) Andy,(my wife), & a male friend I have known for over 60 years.

This world, as you would expect from a dream, was very much of my own invention which is to say it suited me rather than having disturbing elements in it. I was able to inhabit it for longer than the normal duration of a dream by gently compelling myself to stay within it, being aware that I didn’t want to leave it

My vision was a sort of idealised “somewhere” between town & country. I have to say that apart from my companions who were drifting in & out of my company, there weren’t many people about.

The buildings surrounding me were not so much for containing people as sculpted objects, the purpose of which was to express the beauty of their materials.

And what extraordinary objects they were! Formed of great slabs of glowing ceramics, sheets of darkened glass, slabs of terracotta, bronze & stainless steel, with shafts of curved metal projecting at purposeful angles, inviting exploration. This was not a vision of traditional forms, but a modernist or cubist one, abstract rather than real, certainly reminding me that surfaces don’t necessarily need decoration.

In the distance were buildings that were as ethereal as spiders webs, sketched ideas that gained substance as I moved towards them; line drawings that filled themselves in as I approached.

What was this about? I only wanted to share it with people I knew well, beauty was everything, but it wasn’t the crafted beauty which I set great store by, it was a modernist abstraction, infinitely appealing with the language of an architecture I’d just invented but was not particularly familiar to me

I felt that if I could have stayed within the dream I could have extended this language for I was in a creative place, & returning to reality meant returning to the world of my inhibitions. This world was my production but I was being reminded of things I knew but had forgotten. That there is a distinction between the real & the imagined, but it is up to us to make the connection, That the imagined becomes real by a process which at one point in my dream involved moving physically towards it yet might remain more beautiful by keeping it at a distance, just on the edge of vision. That beauty is akin to vitality & the perception of it is dependent on a state of mind, although somethings are inherently beautiful. That culturally we are disposed towards the appreciation of town & country combined although we (I?) prefer not to share it with too many other souls lest they destroy that appreciation.

There is very little in the imagination that cannot be made real. Reality progresses from vision through words & diagrams to substance. Yet it is not just substance but an amalgam of things. Finally & ultimately it will dissolve.