Across the pond

Woke up about 8 AM from a half-remembered dream. It was a good example of the kind of dream which is of immediate use in dealing with mundane reality. No need for an hour on the couch of one of the disciples of the Great Sigmund to interpret it. The message was immediately apparent.

In the dream I am one of a group crowding around a visiting celebrity, the journalist and author, George Orwell, who in my dream is alive and well, and available for interview. Orwell is so impressed by my profound wisdom that he invites me back to his house for a private conversation. We were all discussing another celebrity and I impressed Orwell, when I said solemnly, ‘He was above all self-deprecating’.

When I woke up I could not remember who this celebrity was, nor anything about what Orwell told me in my exclusive interview at his house.

No matter. The dream immediately started me thinking about my friend, Richard Keeble, who is a huge admirer of Orwell. Which reminded me that I have promised to deliver him a book chapter about James Cameron, the journalist, on 1 June, which is now just over a month away. In the last few weeks I have been so consumed with mundane domestic matters, such as repairing the garden shed, which is falling down, that I have only had time to write two or three blogs, and had entirely forgotten about this commitment.

So forget the oedipus complex and the royal road to the unconscious. Just remember that the sleeping mind is working on your behalf throughout the night.

Far more useful than those computer ‘To Do’ lists, which I occasionally fill in but never read until it is too late.

Now I’m off to mow the lawn, but at the same time I shall be starting to write the Cameron chapter in my head.

(The picture is scanned from a painting of James Cameron done by his second wife Elisabeth, probably in the late 1940s when he was establishing his reputation as an outstanding foreign correspondent.)