Trading Neuroses · 21 August 2008
My dream life consists of dancing plushie toys, brightly colored fish flitting amongst oversized livingroom furniture, and forests of cotton candy and singing cows. I know I know; it’s the subconscious of a toddler with a charmed damn life. I’m not a complex person. (At least I prefer not to be at almost all costs.)
The Editor (who, unlike me, doesn’t rise at 4 something in the morning) talks me to sleep each night and takes inventory of the mumblings. I try to resist, but he occasionally manages to feed an his own little joke-images into the mise-en-scene as I’m tumbling through the suggestible crossover realm before deep sleep. His little tricks don’t really qualify as subconscious disturbances.
Lately however, there’s been some bad news in Candyland.
Last weekend I dreamed my adorable, squeaking niece was half-chihuahua. Taco Bell had made her its official mascot. Her halfling picture was made into stickers and she was all over TV. Squeaking. But with gargoylish chihuahua ears and a grotesque little chihuahua body. I was taking solace that at least Taco Bell would pay for her college but then I got into a fight with her grandma, who said chihuahuas can't go to college.
Monday I dreamed I was canoeing in a fjord in winter during the Cold War (a Soviet fjord? There was a hangar-like submarine workshop in an ice floe somehow, with a mean hammer-wielding mechanic staring out the door as he floated past). Impulsively I put my head in the water and got really cold, and then water rushed in to the canoe. Then! all my companions sprang shut like contracted roly-poly insects! The turned grey and covered in scales and became freezing cold roly-poly bugs. I pulled them out of the freezing water cried to the submarine man for help and he laughed. And I couldn’t help my friends come unstuck even though they were all very upset and cold and about to die. I woke up begging the man to help them. Not ok.
What’s going wrong? Is it my night-time reading?
Lately, rather than little poems or scriptures or ancient aphorisms before bed, I’ve been reading anti-anti-anti-romantic bits about the writing process. Like THIS, and the below. The author of the excerpt, Paul Silvia, is a behaviorist for godsakes. Is there a philosophy of the human I dislike more than behaviorism? Ok, maybe fascism. But this guy quotes BF Effing Skinner in polite conversation! (No good terrible very bad bad bad: Skinner’s the rat researcher who black-boxed the mind in the 60s and from whom psych is just now sort of recovering, and only sort of). Here’s a passage from Silvia’s How to Write a Lot (pp.45-7):
“Wait,” you might say. “So far, this book hasn’t said anything about writer’s block…” I love writer’s block. I love it for the same reasons I love tree spirits and talking woodland creatures—they’re charming and they don’t exist…. Academic writers cannot get writer’s block. Don’t confuse yourself with your friends teaching creative writing in the fine arts department….
Writer’s block is a good example of a dispositional fallacy: A description of behavior can’t also explain the described behavior. Writers block is nothing more than the behavior of not writing. Saying that you can’t write because of writer’s block is merely saying that you can’t write because you aren’t writing. It’s trivial. The cure for writer’s block—if you can cure a specious affliction—is writing….
Just as aliens abduct only people who believe in alien abductions, writer’s block strikes only writers who believe in it. One of the great mysteries of the writing schedule system—a spooky mystery, in fact—is that scheduled writers don’t get writer’s block, whatever that is. Prolific writers follow their writing schedule regardless of whether they feel like writing… oblivious to the otherworldly halo hovering over their house.
Soo… Let’s be honest. Isn’t it good? I guess it’s upsetting on the subconscious level to get my bullshit subverted right before bedtime, but this is some transformational scripture and I’m learning to deal with it. Not at all beautifully written, annoyingly behaviorist, patronizing, not in any way fun… but also… true, inspiring, and awfully useful.
An excellent little mindfuck of a bedtime meditation. Thanks, Paul.
Posted by (0v0)
Categories: arbitrage
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Hi (0v0)
Well, it would be the first time I heard of someone saying they dreamed of a relative being half dog. Dreaming that friends get stuck in freezing water, becoming roly poly insects? I don’t know, but you must be synthesizing the events of the day. I don’t imagine you visited a submarine, but did you see the water yesterday? Could your friends include your cyber mates? We sometimes become stuck. Good observations regarding writer’s block not really existing. I sometimes blather away, hoping what comes out is well constructed. There is a spiritual practice to that.
hugs
Arturo
Posted by: arturo · Aug 21, 06:11 PM · #
So is Paul just saying to practice and all will come?
Posted by: knl · Aug 21, 08:53 PM · #
I hate Paul Silvia, but I think he is right, I don’t have a writer’s block, I have the fear of writing something less than perfect, so I don’t write anything for weeks, walking in circles like a mad woman, with every exuse ready for my prorastination and end up writing a shitty thing in the last two days before the deadline and then beat myself about it. Oops, am I revealing too much here?
I also found this one useful when writing up my PhD by Joan Bolker “link text“
On the dream note, I dreamt about your blog last night, and it was set in two narrow columns, and as I was glancing at it from a corner (don’t really know why). I saw a mention of someone I knew in it, so I wanted to look closer but then the words and letters started disappearing and the two columns turned into a wooden box, with two compartments, full of little items, which turned out to be my toiletries (so it was the ikea toiletries box in the end) I am beginning to think that the trip to IKEA was a mistake
Posted by: Fatou · Aug 21, 09:31 PM · #
and I could easily hate Allegra Goodman too ;-)
Posted by: Fatou · Aug 21, 10:00 PM · #
Oh, this reminds me of something I read years ago in an interview with John Ashbery. He said essentially the same thing about writer’s block. Said he liked to put on a piece of music and write for the length of the piece, then just stop. Said the creative was always there, waiting for us to tap in, tune in, write…
And once, the Boston psychoanalyst went on a most uncharacteristic monolog about Picasso and how his work overflowed from a belief that the creative was always turned on full blast.
Okay, these examples are more optimistic and full-bodied than Silvia, but they’re pointed in the same direction…
Just googled a teeny bit, hoping to find the Ashbery interview (I think it was an old Paris Review). Delightfully, his new book is titled “Notes From the Air.”
Posted by: karen · Aug 22, 05:17 AM · #
You’re making the first part up. Come on, admit it.
Posted by: LI Ashtangini · Aug 22, 07:43 AM · #
I know I hate getting my bullshit subverted before bedtime… :)
I love what you said over there in Liz’s comments. You are so VERY, I suppose you know. Right on. Hope tonight that you get your friends unstuck.
Posted by: joy · Aug 22, 09:05 AM · #
Ashtanga theatre of the Real “INSIDE OWL” has once again presented a stunning visual spectacle. Her lavish performance of “why to write when I have nothing to say” is bursting with flamboyant dreams, sensual dancing, and imaginative (though simple) sets-an eye-popping feast.
Today’s post staging suites well Owl’s infamous tales of ashtanga debauchery and blog decadence and talks about writing promiscuity. It points toward her play’s heroes, her frighten friends. The story glides outside of this page showing disguised and corrupt inner workings of so called wannabe-ashtanga-blog-warriors.
The play also touches and publicly exploits the notorious Zee, blog’s greatest Troll which with absolutely no conscience or scruples, incarnates the “when I’m not near the blog I love, I love the blog I’m near too” philosophy.“
In her pre-sleep thought discovery, Owl echoed the sentiments of the blog-writers in her plea for some sort of coherent writing stability although she could just say “get back to the script”. She wants to be simple but her incredible talent to complicate things was not thrown away. Her complication strategy was well rounded and consistent though out the post, with good direction and focus.
We humans are too ridiculous to take ourselves completely seriously. We need to laugh at our own ludicrous foibles from time to time. Yet Owl’s blog needs some humour to hold the concept together – even farce sociology must have limits, boundaries to control the seriousness. Those boundaries, sadly, were never established in her blog.
Posted by: Svengali · Aug 22, 11:23 AM · #
Fatou’s link.
These people who demystify the discovery process are just awful, aren’t they? I guess the practice and all is coming thing is the same.
It’s admirable though, you know? Being someone who de-mystifies is much more difficult than being someone who mystifies.
But I’ve been thinking all week about how the teachers who will practice beside me, and the professors who have made me their research assistants so I can watch their process, are the ones who have by far given me the most even if they’re also the ones I don’t get to store on pedestals.
Anyway, Writing your dissertation in 15 minutes a day? I wonder if the book has a Killer abs in 2 minutes a day index in the back.
Ashbery is so good. Notes from the Air I’ve never seen, but I will get it to read before bed after I’m through with Silvia and (sorry) On Writing Well by Zinsser. Probably more sweet for nighttime. (Paris Review recently published two volumes of interviews from over the years and they’re supposed to be amazing—I bet we’ll find Ashbery’s comments in there.)
Posted by: (0v0) · Aug 22, 01:05 PM · #
About the dreams themselves. I do think they happened because I couldn’t go to my usual falling-asleep place. They seem to reflect an anxiety that gurus, teachers and parents are not actually taking care of the people in their charge. And somehow this is turning the devotees, students and children into… weird little mutants?
Strange, this may indeed be relevant to my life right now…
Sonya, I hate to say I’m not making it up about my subconscious. I don’t think I dream like that all night, but it seems like over the course of my life I’ve created this giant room than I go into when I’m falling alseep. No narrative—just pictures. It’s mostly an outdoors place, and there is a lot of bright color, and slow rocking movement, and little creatures, and candy, and an odd collection of stuffed animals.
Last night I dreamt of Twizzlers licorice.
Posted by: (0v0) · Aug 22, 01:07 PM · #
Oh, the comment to Liz, to which Joy is referring, is the following. Apologies if it makes anyone mad. :)
“Nice reality check about the dork factor! Ashtangi insiders? Hairy, dirty hippies. Ick. Not actually cool.
But also, I bet a lot of the Ashtanga culture is explained by the childhood outcast experiences of a lot of practitioners. I mean, don’t you have to be a dork to get really into this practice, and to get so good as asana that people start saying things like you have a beautiful practice? For some, the late-life designation as a cool kid is too much to manage and they get weird, elitist, and go crazy policing the insider/outsider boundaries. If there’s only one place in the world you feel cool, then you got to keep that place “safe.”
None of which is to say I’m not a dork in many ways. I am.”
Posted by: (0v0) · Aug 22, 01:08 PM · #
Oh, Svengali? More like Don Juan.
Posted by: (0v0) · Aug 22, 03:05 PM · #
Ok ok ok.
BF Skinner was a thinker and liked systems. Yes, just write, but what if its crap? Thats the problem. The solution is to write without judging it, and where its going. Thats a complex; wanting certainty. Writing crap is like running during bad weather with a slightly sore leg – its only good afterward, even if it brings only one good moment through the drizzle.
All characters in dreams are aspects of the dreamer. All things in dreams are symbolic, some personal but mostly collective. The sea is symbolic of the unconscious, the boat is your way of moving across the unconscious, your animus (the man) is in charge of the mode of transport that can navigate the unconscious. etc etc. Its a very strong dream. Very exciting! I am getting a book from the library that is supposed to be very helpful, there are not many. This one is written by a Jungian Analyst.
Posted by: Gregor · Aug 22, 05:54 PM · #
Hi (0v0)
Dreaming of plushie dolls is really sweet.
Cheers,
Arturo
Posted by: arturo · Aug 22, 07:02 PM · #