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Felicity and Other Dreams
In dreams, the rules of reality don’t apply. One thing leads to another, not by cause-and-effect, but by thought and association. In dreams, the logic of Aristotle gives way to irrational leaps of the imagination. Two people can be one and one can be two.
Some dreams are like abstract paintings – a wash of colors, or a tangle of wordless impressions. Some are surreal, teeming with bizarre imagery and logical paradox. Some blur the boundary between reality and dream, so real do they seem.
I believe there is meaning in the recurring images we see in our dreams. Some are archetypal and some are personal. In the course of our lives we experience various permutations of these images. I believe these images come from our deepest selves.
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I once had a dream
that was more real
than waking life.
I call it Felicity –
a philosophical fable.
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“Felicity” is a philosophical fable set in a dreamscape. The main character of this surreal novella finds herself in a world of bizarre happenings, irrational dream logic, and paradoxes in time and space. She doesn’t know what she is or where she is, she doesn’t know why she is there or how she came to be there, but she must learn to live in this world and give meaning to her life.
Told in poetic prose that is simple, lucid, and spare, “Felicity” is a metaphysical fantasy that explores the nature of dream and reality, consciousness and time, knowledge and art.
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The second part of the book is a selection of poetry.
“Visions,” “Out of Time,” and “The Moon Rabbit” are about the worlds we inhabit in our dreams. A blind artist is driven to madness by dreams of light and color. An old woman steps out of time and becomes a child. A lonely little girl meets a very unusual friend on the moon.
Aesthetically luxurious yet playful, the language of these poems evokes the fantastic and mythical realm of dream.
“Nightmares and Bugbears” is a sequence of poems that form a labyrinth of dreamscapes, a nightmare world of fragmented consciousness.
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The third part of the book is a selection of nonfiction.
“Lafcadio Hearn and the City of Dreams” is a collection of four essays on Hearn’s dreamy recollections of childhood and the magic New Orleans exerted on his imagination.
The ten personal essays in “Reading as Reminiscence” are works of memory and nostalgia inspired by my reading.
“A Personal Mythology” is a collection of six essays and sketches on myth, philosophy, and consciousness. It is an introduction to the philosophy I develop in The Adventures of Analog "I" in Spatialized Time.
“Imaginary Gardens” is a lyrical meditation on poetic inspiration.
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An original fairy tale concludes the volume. “Plum Blossom Maiden” is a prose poem influenced by my love of dreams and my appreciation for Japanese art and poetry. The impression is that of a haiku or a Japanese watercolor.
“Plum Blossom Maiden” brings the book full circle back to the mood and spare poetic style of “Felicity.”