Across the pond

Awoke about 6 AM, irritated because I could only remember fragments of dreams which seemed to be telling me something.  This led to an attack of introspection. Seeking to understand how the human mind I have works in the belief that it is not that different from anyone else’s, despite my bi-polar temparament.

Thinking some more about the idea that the dreaming self is the model for works of fiction. That while asleep we are busy telling ouselves stories, painting pictures, directing films. Our bodies are resting but our minds, during the dreaming phases are very active. And these stories we tell ourselves do, I think, have a powerful influence on our behaviour.

Most of my own dreams, like the dreams studied by the scientists in the dream laboratories have these characteristics. The main characters in the dream stories are mostly family, friends and colleagues and less often famous people, like politicians and the Queen. The dreamer is also there, both as partipant and observer of the action.

Last night’s dreams were a bit different. The main characters were two students, not students I know, but stereotypes I had invented, rugby playing types in shorts , who had apparently taken over my room at City University.  And although I was in the dream myself, it not my usual self.

I was German not English.

This kind of speculation about the meaning of dreams and the workings of the mind has been fuelled by works of non-fiction as well as novels. One of the best of the non-fiction works is a book I read many years ago by the psycho-therapist, Charles Rycroft, The Innocence of Dreams.

This kind of thinking underlies some of what I write in The Daily Novel. Alongside another  idea that has gained much wider acceptance; the theory that modern journalism, far from objectively reporting the facts, is using the facts to construct reality. The evidence for this can be found in the social science literature and in every newsroom in the land, where news editors ask when the reporters return to base;

What’s the story?

(In checking out the Amazon link I discovered that Rycroft published a new version of  The Innocence of Dreams in 1996, two years before he died. Have not yet found out how much different that was. Meanwhile, readers interested in Rycroft might like to read the obituary in The Independent, which gives a useful appraisal of his work.)