Saturday, October 03, 2009

Dreams, according to the Idiot

Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," describes that feeling you hae after waking from a vivid dream:

"And why, too, on waking up and fully returning to reality, do you feel almost every time, and sometimes with extraordinary intensity, that you have left something unexplained behind with the dream? You laugh at the absurdities of your dream, and at the same time you feel that interwoven with those absurdities some thought lies hidden, and a thought that is real, something belonging to your actual life, something that exists and has always existed in your heart. It's as though something new, prophetic, that you were awaiting, has been told you in your dream. Your4 impression is vivid, it may be joyful or agonizing, but what it is, and what was said to you, you cannot understand or recall."

I often wake up and want to share my dreams with others, if I remember them, but find myself wondering what was so incredibly magnetic about the experience. I find with surprise that the dream that was so intense and meaningful, at second glance, does not seem to carry the same weight as it had, yet for me, inside, the weight is still there. I just know deep down that there was something very important involved in the dream which I cannot seem to remember or communicate. I love that Dostoevsky had this same experience and articulates it in his story. It makes me feel validated, in some way.