A dream within a dream...
"All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream..."
This is a quote taken from Edgar Allan Poe's "A Dream Within A Dream" poem (1850).
My favorite part of this poem is the second stanza:
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! Yet they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitliess wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
When I was in highschool, I took a creative writing class in which we had to choose a poet to do a huge project on - and at the end of that project, we had to get up in front of the class dressed as that poet, and read an original autobiographical poem about that poet. I chose Edgar Allan Poe. And yes, I had to dress up like him and read a poem to my class about his life. I even sported a fake mustache to be more realistic. It's ironic reading "A Dream Within A Dream" now - I can see how much my recent poem "Time" draws on the same themes: mourning the loss of time, which in fact is the loss of life we cannot get back. Each minute that passes is a minute closer to death, a minute we'll never witness again. No matter how tight we grasp a handful of sand, the grains just keep slipping- just as life literally slips away from us with the blink of an eye.
As a young girl, I was enamored (in addition to the ocean of course) with the dark hours of night, the moon, the eery calm of dawn, lucid dreams, darkness, etc. and I wrote about these things in my poetry (which sort of freaked my Mom out when she would come across such writings). Poe wrote about these things too, and much of what Poe wrote about was not accepted during his time because frankly, many of his writings were just too dark and scary. Poe's poems reflected his tormented life and his tortured soul. His poetry bleeds with emotion; always set in a palpable atmosphere that leaps off the page and into your mind. In a way, I can very much relate to him. His writings also reflected his thoughts on dancing along the fine line between being "mad" and being "brilliant".
"...but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence - whether much that is glorious - whether all that is profound- does not spring from disease of thought- from moods exalted at the expense of the general intellect."
Poe's mind was so deep, so contemplative, and so imaginitive - it is hard to imagine what plagued his mind so often to produce such brilliant, yet dark writings. Poe frequently talks about dreams, dreamland, and sleepers. I have always been fascinated by the mind's ability to create such elaborate, and sometimes frighteningly vivid dreams. It's no wonder the very title of this blog is "Oceanic Dreaming" and my other blog "Honolulu Dreaming"... I have also contemplated whether or not life is nothing but a dream...wondering if dying is in fact, awakening. Poe's questions about life and death, dreams and reality, seem to strike a chord with me. I believe writing was his outlet, his passion. He alluded to the fact that no one understood him. And sometimes, I feel the same way.
There is a depth and a darkness to each of us that may or not be accessible to others; in fact, it may not even be accessible to oneself. For me, I have been acutely aware of this depth and darkness my entire life. And don't get me wrong, when I say "darkness" I'm not necessarily referring to negativity. It means that I don't just take life at face value. I sit. I think. I contemplate. And my mind creates ideas, theories, perspectives, opinions, feelings, emotions...
Here's an example: sometimes I'll sit and zoom out from myself while pinpointing my location on a map of earth. And I keep zooming out in my mind, and my point keeps getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller... to the point where I'm not visible anymore. To the point where I am no bigger than a single grain of sand within the Sahara desert. To the point that my existence is merely a microscopic blip within the unending blackness of infinite. And it makes me wonder. And it makes me feel completely and utterly powerless; completely and utterly insignificant. And then in an instant! I'm once again present in my life - back to this world, back to the room I'm sitting in, back to the people around me, to the TV playing in the background... and it makes me wonder...
is all that we see or seem, but a dream within a dream?
;-)
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