subconscious

[helenic]

My dreams recently have been full of novels. Not real ones, but invented books that slot perfectly into my subconscious memory, books I dream-remember reading when I was twelve and revisit now, or that I've heard of before but have only just picked up. They enthrall my sleeping self, move me to tears, keep me captivated through long afternoons perched on the windowsill of my old house, where I used to hide behind the curtains with cups of tea and gingernut biscuits, and read. Of course, when I wake up I realise how much the stories were influenced by the books I've read this term, but at the time they seem fresh and vivid and utterly compelling.

The first was on Thursday morning, when I said a drowsy goodbye to Iain at 6.30am and then slept again until eleven. The main character and mood were very reminiscent of Jane Eyre (although the plot had elements of Wuthering Heights); she had such a sense of wonder, of the sublime, and it was so filled with beauty, with grey seas and magnificent fleeting skies, that it was uplifting even when everything seemed to conspire against her.

It began with her childhood in a foster family - set in the early nineteenth century, I think - relations who took her in after she was orphaned. She grew up in close companionship with the second son of the household, who was a couple of years older than her, and as time went on she fell in love with him; but knew the family would disapprove and was forced to keep it secret from him. Eventually he was sent to university, and after some family difficulties the father became gravely ill. They generously intended to adopt her, thus ensuring her a share of the inheritance (it can't have been that early, I suppose, if women could inherit) but as that would make her his sister she desperately fought to persuade them without seeming ungrateful, and without revealing her feelings for him. In the end she and the family fell out and she was obliged to leave, penniless. The middle section of the book was a Jane-style wandering of self-discovery as she became independent, and years later she had set up house with a couple of sisters (presumably based on Diana and Mary) when they encountered an injured stranger on the road, and took him home. Of course it was her cousin she'd fallen in love with so long ago, but she didn't dare mention it to her friends, and when he came round he was so polite and civil to her she wasn't even sure if he recognised her. It was another two chapters at least before they finally realised they both felt the same way.

The story's such a mishmash of different stories that it loses all the power I felt when I was dreaming it in the telling, but the feeling has stayed with me; that space of time after finishing a good book, emotionally drained but wildly jubilant, and trying to put off the inevitable return to reality for as long as possible.

This morning the book was heavily influenced by The Bone People but was very unlike it in mood. It seemed to become reality halfway through, and I was caught between a drunken father and dying mother, unbearably oppressed, and trying in the midst of it to unravel ancient Maori mysteries. Then, suddenly, she had died, and it was my mother, and when I realised it was actually real and began to think about how close we'd become recently, and how cruelly that had been taken away, the grief was so real and so painful I woke up, and it was several minutes before I'd worked out what was true again.

I'm well aware that everything here can be traced back to things I've written about recently, but the emotional effect they have on me once my imagination rearranges them is staggering. I wonder if this would have started happening again if I hadn't written about it - does putting things into words make them more mentally concrete, established ideas rather than random thoughts? The material the subconscious chooses for its diversions is intriguing.



It's a big, sunny, windy day outside, cold and bright and the sky a perfect cloudless blue. You can see the moon, which I'm sure has some significance, although there's still a week until the equinox.

Comments

[viennawaltzing.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind, but I added your to my friends list. violent_angel above showed me one of your entries and I was...well, I decided I was in love with your writing. *grins* I'm not used to randomly adding people, and am definitly a bit short on the proper etiquette for doing so [if there is proper etiquette].

- Aly

[libellum.livejournal.com]

welcome both; flattery will get you everywhere. Many thanks for the compliments (which made me smile) ... which was the entry, may I ask? I'm curious.

xx H.

[viennawaltzing.livejournal.com]

circadian