Story, Fantasy, and Dreams

Back with parallel lines again to essay the similarities of story and dreams.

Each sets the viewer off on a journey that meanders through the venue of a fantastic landscape, brought into high-relief detail by the teller's idiosyncratic store of impressions.

In dreams and narrative imagination, the currency is events.  These events are under no obligation to pay heed to convention.  In fact, events often stray from the restrictions of convention, onto the verges of taboo, whether the personal taboos of the viewer or the conventions in which the viewer is raised.  The degree of stray from the leash of convention produces delicious cocktails of satisfaction mixed with the thrilling fear of discovery.

We can, and often do, have experiences in dreams that are complete trespasses on convention.  Sometimes, as we catch ourselves in dreaming flagrante, we awaken, nervous and eager to reassure ourselves we would not do such a thing in reality before wondering if we had not been all along doing the very thing in waking dreams or fantasy.

You have heard individuals in reality telling you, "In your dreams, Lowenkopf," by way of making some judgment on a goal or dream of yours, either expressed, as in, "Some day, I'm going to bring my marathon time down under three hours," or implied by your behavior and attitude.

So far, you've launched dreams, daydreams, fantasies, all with extra baggage room to carry the luggage of taboo.  These play against plans, goals, agendas, words chosen with some deliberation to represent things which may still be difficult to accomplish but which breach no taboos.

You see the possibility of arguing fantasies as early drafts of desires, agendas, and goals.  Dreams are the unedited manifestations of desires, fears, unacknowledged goals,  Some of these unacknowledged goals may venture into taboo, forbidden or unthinkable liaisons or activities.  Some dreams place you in fearful situations to remind you of apprehensions you've tried to deflate with rational equations of logic or with an entirely rational process of trumping them with some coming to pass of you inheriting a quantity of power sufficient enough to ward off the fears.

Agendas that begin in reality often present major obstacles which you must cope with if you are to have success.  This is also where, after a lifetime of trying to understand story, you recognize you've conflated story with agenda.  You proceed in reality, looking for ways to cope with opposition or reversal. 

 If the goal at the end of the agenda retains its value for you, how quickly agenda crosses into your dream life, where that part of your story and problem solving mechanisms suggest  stepping over into the areas of taboo, first to provide you with a sense of completion then a greater determination to advance toward accomplishment of your agenda.  You use agenda here rather than goal for the important nuance that goal may be a one-time thing, something as basic as a mere sexual encounter as opposed to an agenda, which is the consequence of the braided interaction of sexual activity, respect, admiration, combined forces, and not to forget companionship.

How easy is it to substitute some status goal for the mere sexual encounter?  Quite easy.  The terms, conditions, and pieces are beginning to line up in perspective for you.

Having one thing published in one place is not as important as a continuous dialogue relative to your work and its future appearances, even more so its potential for evolution along ways you've addressed to some degree but which are still open-ended.

At some point, your reality life and your story life jumped the tracks of parallelism.  They became conflated for many hours during the day before jumping back to their geometric integrity.  You quite enjoy living this way.  Often, you can indulge the ironic self-humor of telling yourself, "In your dreams, Lowenkopf."  Such states produce an existential sense of being game ready for challenges of curiosity and discovery.

There may be delightful as well as scary taboo-breakers in dreams, but even in dreams, there is no free lunch--only the dream of one.

You must be free to investigate and pursue the journeys your imagination prepares for you, even when some of its offers appear to be a free lunch or a desirable agenda.  And you must be willing and able to set at least one foot back on the soil of reality from time to time to test the balance.

Early in your days in the publishing craft, when you wished to support the acquisition of a project, even one in its near-completed form, you were required to estimate the amount of in-house hours for content editing, copyediting, and research.

Where ever your fantasies, dreams, and curiosity take you, the no-free-lunch mantra must be recited so that you can set the required foot down on reality as you assess the consequential editing time necessary.