Dreams..remembering...EPIPHANY!

As I was reading the "Re-membering Finnegan" I felt like I was in another world! I really loved reading the article and was so "into" it when my sister called me- she just could not comprehend the excitement! I felt like I was really able to connect "Re-membering Finnigan" to Kane's chapter 4- Dreams.

What I took from these 2 readings- I may be completely off topic, but this is what I have to say about them:
We are more ourselves and in touch with our lives through our dreams than in the daily life we lead. That is why dreams can be so insightful, while at times also being hurtful, disappointing, scary, happy or sad. sometimes dreams reflect what we already know but mostly they help us to discover the things we don't know or perhaps the things that we do not want to confront when we are awake! I love this..."and only in sleep do we begin to awaken all we have forgotten." What we want to forget or try to forget is never fully forgotten, it is simply sotred in our dreams. It is as if our dreams know right when to unleash certain things to connect to our life when we are "awake". Maybe that is why we go day to day remembering certain people, things or memories. Life, like Joyce's Finnegans Wake, is made up of layers. Oh my goodness, I was watching "The Notebook" last night and there is a line in there that I immediately remembered when reading "Re-membering finnegan" it fits right in with these readings including memory and dreams . "Nothing is ever lost or can be lost"- Noah says this to Allie in the film. Somehow these three pieces of works I have mentioned all fit together like a little puzzle and it was so exciting being able to so easily make a connection!

"What are we, after all, without our memories...without our dreams?"

The Memory Theatres

While listening to people present their memory theatres in class I was absolutely amazed! I thought that Dr. Sexson was asking us to do something impossible when he first mentioned this assignment. I now know that was not so.

Everyone had a unique memory theatre, method of remembering and list of items. Each one in a way reflected that person's interests. It was great to listen to people rattle off information that may mean nothing to me, but to them it is something!

I found it interesting that our memory theatres were not numerical but spatial. When asked to go to a certain number and repeat from there we couldn't but if we asked them to go from a certain item it was possible. I was the same way, I had no idea what the numbers were unless it was number one or fifty...aka first and last :)

Great job to everyone! Very impressive!!!

The Mystery of Dreams

My group presentation is focusing upon Ch. 4 in Kane's "Wisdom of the mythtellers". This chapter had me locked in fully the whole time. I took each section very slowly because there was so much to embrace. The creation story of the Earth was how the chapter began and it was so mythical while incorporating a mysterious beauty into that creation.

Reading Kane's Chapter 4 brought so many thoughts to my mind. How does one separate the real world from their dreams? Is it possible to even separate them? Myth like dreams creates an astonishing energy within- yet that energy can also be very external.

"The act of creating is a sort of rememering" (Kane 132).
Do we create our own dreams on some unconscious level in order to remember certain things? I love this quote from Kane because it is so true. We create many things in order to remember, whther it be a scrapbook, image or writing.

Kane also speaks of dreams as a portal. He refers to a portal into "Pattern" but I could not help but think dreams are a portal into so much more- in a way they are a portal into reality, desires, what we may think of as the impossible and a portal into another life. Dreams are so powerful because they can reflect things that have or have not happened. But why do we dream of things that have never happened and HOW?! When I try to think about the process of dreaming I am absolutely set apart from reality, I feel as if I enter a whole new world. This world is full of mystery, wonderment, and possibility. Just as in reality, in dreams anything can happen- things can go unfinished. While dreams are so different than real life they are also so much the same. Aren't both a mystery to some extent?

Kane also says, "There is something sacred about our feelings, something that prefers not to be talked about." (page 143)
Is this why we have dreams? Are some of our feelings meant to be discovered only by us and by dreaming we can uncover those feelings?

There is so much to discover within this chapter but right now I feel like it is out of reach...for the moment...

My Memory Theatre Methods

50 Places to see before you die...I chose this list of places because I am so passionate about traveling. Unfortunately, the past few years my traveling has decreased due to the college life and debt.

The way I remembered the 50 items was very similar to other classmates. Connecting the place to an image in some way. My memory theatre was my walk downtown. I walk downtown often and so that was most familiar to me and seemed easiest to relate places to. I started at campus- the north hedges suites and moved through campus down College to 8th and worked my way downtown to Tracy.

For example, Safeway was Victoria Falls because I pictured my friend Victoria and I walking to safeway and her falling. The stream on campus was Florida...pictured being surrounded by water. I simply associated people, memories or used alliteration to remember these places. It was easy to picture my self in these places on the list through my walk downtown.

To remember I repeated the places outloud, walked through it in my head over and over, then also wrote them down. Writing things down over and over is one way that I find helpful.