Dreamtime

How to create a Tale that is like a dream?

There are structural, technical ways of telling the Tale to make it dreamlike. A dream plunges the dreamer into a situation, landscapes change, characters morph, the dreamer-self must always be catching up to what is happening and why. Transitions are dropped: the narrative simply is in another place and time and different events are underway. The logic of all these changes relates to some underground currents, not what lies on the surface; and everything is symbolical.

Symbols play a great part in dreams and can be used in non-structural, non-technical ways to make a Tale more dreamlike.

Archetypes are dreamlike. The kindly grannie, the dark man, the sun woman, the fool, the priestess, the sorcerer.

Certain relationships relate to very deeply-held desires, fears, and notions. Mother-child, father-child, man and siren, woman and demon-lover.

Certain places are more likely to be accepted as symbolic. High peaks, deep wells, dark forests, cottages with glowing hearths.

Certain activities are also more dreamlike and symbolic. Flying, digging, swimming (rather like flying?), fighting, climbing, falling.

Why should the tale seem like a dream at all?

For ‘immersive reading’ or the ‘fictive dream’ readers like the dream. But not all readers prefer or even like this. For those who do, though, the dream is tops.

(Composed on keyboard Tuesday, July 1, 2008)