I dreamed of an anthology of short stories recently. I was sick with fever, not delirious, but my dreams were unusually vivid. I dreamed an anthology, and in the dream, I read through the table of contents several times. I woke up practically reciting it.
That part of the dream was so lifelike, it felt like a memory. The stories are all real; they're all ones I've read. But I've checked, and this collection doesn't seem to really exist. It seems to be loosely based on a couple of real books, The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories and Feeling Very Strange. But it's not the same as either of them.
The idea was so insistent, I had to write it down.
It's not unusual for me to dream about books, but it is unusual for me to dream about anything real, and it's unusual for me to remember any of the titles. I blame the fever.
I dream all the time about visiting used bookstores, old converted houses with shelves lining every wall, the floors covered in tables, everything stacked full. Most often, I dream of finding roleplaying books, ones that supposedly came out in the 1980s or 90s, but of course, none of them ever really existed.
I dream of libraries, and I'm always reshelving. The collections are immense and comprehensive, I get distracted looking at everything else on the shelves.
I dream often of music. In my dreams, I have a collection that I don't really own. I have a favorite playlist that shows up over and over, a mix of indie pop music. The first few times, years ago, I thought I was dreaming of music I'd really heard, in an arrangement I could reproduce. But it keeps showing up, and I've realized that none of the songs or the artists are real. They don't even have imaginary names. In fact, I've noticed that I never actually hear the music in the dreams. I know what it's supposed to feel like when you listen to it, but not what it actually sounds like.
But that's how it often is in dreams. You can have experience the feeling of understanding something without knowing anything; you can feel the epiphany of a breakthrough without actually having a new idea. You can read or watch or listen to something in your dream, and feel the emotions the art was supposed to elicit in you, without dreaming the content of the art at all.
So this dream anthology, made up entirely of real stories. Is something unusual, something rare.
"The Healer" by Aimee Bender
"St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" by Karen Russell
"The Ceiling" by Kevin Brockmeier
"The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter" by Glen David Gold
I will check out this dream anthology! I have dreams about bookstores too, but it's usually about the local Borders store that used to exist when I was a child. But it's a dream so it's also not a 1:1 match of what that place was before.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah, I think the stores I dream of are based on real places I've been, but they're only similar, not the same.
Deletemang i ain't read sea oak in a hot minute, i should really dig up my bender and saunders books, i think they in my dad's quonset
ReplyDeletebookmarking this to read the other stories as well
my dreams are usually just stories unto themselves, but this is a matroyska dream, yr brain's got some good ideas