Monday, July 11, 2011

Inner World


Dreams and writing have always shared a link in my work. It seems that one easily influences the other, not just in images but also in form. I've included dreams I have had into books I've written. I have had dreams where characters I've written become characters in a dream.

Both writing and dreams attempt to create worlds that don't exist. Recently I've noticed that some elements of my narrative style are showing up in dreams. I've always written extended metaphors into my books by using small details that occur and reoccur in different ways. I'm finding something similar happening in my dreams lately.

A few repeating elements have sprung up in otherwise unrelated dreams. There's the ancient pyramid and spire temple located on a hill behind the buildings lining 57th Street in Manhattan that can only be glimpsed from certain angles. There's the dream apartment that my one friend has had in several dreams, located in the same dream part of the city. Whenever I dream about my yard, the landscape isn't at all as it really is, yet it's frequently altered in the same way. It's as if my dreams are attempting to write a serial novel. I'm interested to see where it goes.

I think the connection between dreams and my work is easily explained. The imagination has a natural inclination for story telling. Writing is simply a tool by which to provide it structure.

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