The Logorrheic

I’m waiting for someone to invent several gadgets. Many are similar in that they would somehow externalize a highly subjective and internal process. Still, I think the dream recorder is the coolest one.

A dream recorder does exactly as its name suggests. The reason it appeals to me so much is that, at least for me, there is no way to adequately describe it satisfactorily. While I might be able to include every last detail of the dream, I am unable to place someone else in the very experience of the dream. Somehow, the DR would have to be able to capture the emotional experience as well as the visual elements, else its value is drastically reduced.

I don’t draw or paint very well, so I can’t recreate the imagery, much less the motion and mood, of a dream. Even if I could perfectly remember and recreate the vaporous images, I can’t produce in someone else the feelings and thoughts I had about the dream.

Take, for example, one of the coolest dreams I’ve had. I was a member of some sort of ancient tribe, climbing a ladder that I can still picture, thought the dream occurred 15 years ago. The ladder was leaned against some sort of Southwestern- or Anasazi-like cliff dwellings, many, many modern stories high. As I reached the top, the other tribe members began shaking the ladder. It wiggled and pitched until the ladder began to fall away from the cliff. As it teetered, I began to sing/chant in a language real-me doesn’t know, yet in the dream, after a moment of confusion, I realized I knew what I was saying. I couldn’t tell you now what it was, but the nature of it was ritualistic and sacred, commanding some sort of spiritual power for something I don’t know.

As I try to remember each detail, again, I know I can’t implant in your mind exactly what was there. More importantly, I can’t truly express to you the significance of it, which I only understand in a visceral and non-verbal way. I can’t convey the other-worldliness of the dream, or the sense of it being almost more of a memory than a dream. I know what was happening in my life – or rather, in me – at the time, but I can’t express to you the intensely deep nature of it. Somehow there was a reclaiming of a power that was mine all along, and it wasn’t merely an intellectual exercise, but rather a rearrangement of my psyche almost.

To explain it thus trivializes it somehow for me, and I can even hear me trying to explain it out loud to someone: “Yeah, I was this Aztec or something? And I was climbing this ladder and they started shaking it? And I started singing in Spanish and it was sooooo cool. But, um, you probably had to be there.” I think I’ve even told it to someone not much better than this.

I suppose the player part of the invention should be a DRE (dream re-experiencer…um…or something) as it’s more accurate. Regardless, it would enable me to not only share my dream with someone who is interested or who I want to understand, but also to re-live it myself. Not only was it a fantastically cool dream worth repeating in and of itself, but perhaps a rerun could serve to reinforce the “lesson” of the dream, too. Though it happened many years ago and I am a different person now than then, I frequently need to be reminded of what I’ve learned (though, once again, “learned” seems inadequate).

I’ve always thought it was fun to think about because it’s nothing that would ever happen, more like magic. But I feel sure the Internet and television and radio seemed pure magic to someone in the 15^th century, too.

[But wait, there’s more… ]