Souls are living mirrors, images of the created universe.
- The Monadology, 1714. Gottfried Leibniz
In the autumn of 1989 I began keeping a journal of my dreams. But it is almost impossible to record them as the act of writing destroys the fabric that holds them together. You are left with nothing but tatters. As you seek to order the eidetic fragments with words, you realize that you are not recording a dream to interpret it later - you are already interpreting a dream to record it now.
Despite the slippage that occurs, it is a curious and necessarily surreal exercise, often bearing strange fruit. Here is an excerpt:
It is a world war and I am on a hill, toward the top, looking down the slope. It is a nice green hill like the kind you would find anywhere in suburbia. The outfit I am with is advancing. Everywhere people are shooting and being shot. I only fire half heartedly and I aim to miss. I think this is senseless. As we advance the enemy start shooting themselves. We are not distinguished by race or uniform. There is a referee and a fool. The only way I know he is a fool is because he shoots the referee with blanks.
My mother and father are eating brunch in a hotel/motel. They invite me to join them, but I decline, I am trying to find a plate on the wall that tells what type of brick was used in the building. I go around to the front. The building looks like an old three-storey walk-up. There is a ladder going into one of the apartments. I know it is Eva Braun's. I climb the ladder and my parents follow.
It is a very small apartment with only a fridge and dusty kitchen. It is old and decaying as if the building had been abandoned since the war. On the fridge is a portrait of Hitler in his last days. His moustache is missing. His face is long, drawn and wrinkled, and he appears to be wearing make-up. Blush rouge in attempt to cover the yellowness of his skin. He wears the uniform of the SS. There are also blankets. I ask Mom and Dad if the blankets are theirs. They say no. I leave and take the picture with me.
Here is a list of books.