Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
This morning's dream: my apartment is small, chilly and not very well lit. It should be well-lit just by natural light, and I don't understand it - the blinds are up, but there's a shadowy area, a blind spot. Suddenly I remember that there's a whole room I haven't been using - I've closed it off to save heating costs. I open the door to this room, and the light from a window in the room illuminates the entire apartment.
I wake, and again the poems ask: when are you going to get back to us?
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
Hitler had a daughter. This daughter married Eichmann, and together they had a son named Scarf. Scarf Eichmann changed his name to Wellesbury, and invented Wellesbury cereal (which looks just like oatmeal, though I think it might have a slight raspberry flavoring). The cereal apparently made him rich, though Scarf was (needless to say) a bit of an eccentric - towards the end of his life, he tried to develop sausage-cream cookies. These cookies were made with sausage, butter, heavy cream and vanilla beans. They look sort of like molasses cookies, but with big hunks of what appear to be chicken sticking out of them.
Man, I must have run out of things to dream about.
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Monday, March 6th, 2006
Strange, convoluted dream over the last four hours. I only remember bits and pieces, and as I said, it's convoluted, but here goes:
I go to a party in Boston. Hannah lives in a totally different apartment, which appears to be attached to a parking garage. Our grad school friend Christa comes to the party on a motorcycle, but as she's speeding up the parking ramp, she hits a cop car. She speeds away, parks and goes to the party, and I don't see her in the dream again.
I arrive at the apartment. When I open the door, there's a large wildcat, sort of like a cheetah. I let it out of the apartment and note it as a bad omen.
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Friday, April 15th, 2005
There are basically two types of ghosts. The first type isn't really a ghost, exactly, but more a recording of an event that replays to haunt the occupant of a house. See, certain types of emotions radiate from deep within us, and they can become trapped in organic materials just like other forms of energy. As those organic materials - stone, wood, brick - decay or change form, they slowly release that energy. Most of the time, it's simply a feeling, a sensation. But under certain circumstances, an event can be recorded with astonishing acuity. These are events that play over and over and over again with no meaning and no variation. There's no one there, no consciousness, just this event.
The second type is the one we usually refer to when we say "ghost." These are the ones who died but refused to let go of life. For them, life becomes a delusion in which they're forever lost. They cling so tenaciously, with no capacity to understand what has happened to them, that the house itself becomes their physical form. Remember those intense bouts of depression, the ones that in retrospect feel like some nightmare in which you had no control over your actions? That's how they feel constantly. To haunt is to be infected with a special kind of madness, eternally trapped in this dream, with no new memories and no way out. The ghost can't learn new things. It can't remember what has happened to it after death. It can only remember its life, the sensation of it, certain faces, desire. You cannot make friends with them, you cannot expect them to remember you, and you can never, ever trust them unless they knew you in life. If it remains in this state long enough, it will eventually lose all true sense of its life, all memories, and surrender its humanity entirely.
Of the lingerers, there are three distinct kinds. First, the ones trapped behind the wall. They can see us, but only as if looking through water or distorted glass. They push against this wall constantly, desperately trying to re-enter our world, and they live in a bewildered terror. They own nothing they recognize, not even hands or bodies. These are the cold spots. These are the ones who make lights flicker and pipes burst.
Then there are the ones who hold so intensely to life that their memory of themselves becomes what they are. They're the manifesters. They refuse to surrender the body or admit in any way that they're not part of the living world. These are the ones who appear as shadows and apparitions, sometimes with voices. They can move some objects, open doors, appear in mirrors, leave handprints on windows.
The last kind is the most terrible. These are the ones with the sight. They see us as we see them. They truly believe they're still alive, and they see the living as ghostly forms who have entered their homes. They can't understand why they can't leave, can't walk to the supermarket or call for help, and they cry their eyes out every time they see us go to the bathroom or fumble out of bed in the middle of the night for a glass of water. They see us as invaders, and they will do anything in their power to be rid of us. These are the ones who blow out pilot lights, rattle beds, slam doors. They are the worst of the dead. Beware of them. They will kill you if they can.
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Thursday, February 3rd, 2005
In my dream this evening, the magazine article I was reading contained the passage, "People don't covet animals who are too stupid or too kind."
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