Re: Perfect Emperor=Dream

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 21:56:52 GMT


Nils Weinander:
> A couple of years ago, the dragon-dream connection
> prompted the idea that dragonewts are so weird because
> they are simultaneously dreaming and fully awake. The
> idea may not hold water nowadays though.

At the risk of being annoying, I'm inclined to ask at this point, "In what sense?" Are we talkingh about dream as a state of consciousness, as a mytho-magical 'place', or...?

> The dream magicians of the East Isles probably do have
> an opinion about Kralorela and draconic stuff in
> general. I guess it's on the line that the Kralorelans
> do stuff with dreams, but that they aren't aware that
> that's what they are doing. They are thus not quite in
> control, playing with fire...

I shall assay an opinion about the converse situation; or maybe just pontificate about mysticism in general, you can take this either way: I think the Kralori, and/or many 'conventional' mystics would associate dreaming with levels of consciousness, in the particular sense of levels of apparent reality one can 'wake up from'. They would point out the commonplace phenomenon of seeming consciousness/reality in sleep (dreams) as being an instance of, or a metaphor for, the ultimate unreality of the mundane world. While such experiences are not wholly unrelated to the 'real' world, they're just fragmentary, scrambled misperceptions of it -- in either case.

So back in the original example, I'd say that the Kralori probably don't regard Dream Dragons, or indeed the Emperor, as being 'dreams' in a strongly literalistic sense -- or at least, not in any more than is everything else. Perhaps less so, since a dream dragon, and certainly the emperor, is a higher/more fully realized level of (draconic) consciousness than Jobo Longs in the street.

I may just be blethering senselessly of course, so please strike me with a bokken/wet haddock if this seems necessary to anyone.

Cheers,
Alex.


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