Here is where one of them happened. It's an amazing church-turned-bookstore in the Netherlands that I'd never seen or heard of except for when I dreamed it a few weeks ago--and then again when I startled myself by accidentally stumbling across this photo of it on the internet yesterday:
I knew the Davenport Hotel too, years before I ever visited it. Knew where to find the grand ballroom, a particular portrait, the stairs to the rooftop, a place behind a potted tree where I had hidden in a dream. I've recognized intersections, a new friend's back yard, the view from an apartment I was visiting for the first time. I sometimes wonder if every place I ever thought I had imagined really is out there somewhere.
No point to this post, really, except that it's on my mind.
And my shoulder is hurting again. Badly.
Now, this I find fascinating.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think you sound weird, just for the record. Not at all. There are enormous, unseen elements of life that I don't think our human minds have an actual category for...
What do you make of it?
Cathy in Missouri
I don't know what to make of it! It's very odd, very surreal. Makes me think about the nature of reality, and other difficult things, which I don't mind. Although when I was walking up the stairs at the Davenport I nearly cried, I was so freaked out.
DeleteThe freaked out sounds normal, too. I wonder, often...what are our minds up to? What do they know that we don't? Or see that we don't see?
DeleteI mentioned it to my family at dinner last night and the kids had a lively discussion. They think you are an interesting, complex person. So do I.
Are you familiar with Myers-Briggs? You sound very INFJ/INFP(?). I think Catherine W. is, too, and I am, and quite a number of the writers around Glow seem to be. All attracted by the same sorts of things, the same ideas, the same love of words and deep waters.
When you write, I think. Keep on...(when you want. no pressure.)
Cathy in Missouri
P.S. Do you read http://mommicked1.blogspot.com/? This won't be the first or last time I recommend TracyOC. She is pretty stellar.
And, she doesn't try to draw attention to herself, so it's possible to miss her in blog land...like you, who I only found recently. Remarkable writers/thinkers you always hope you'll stumble across - and, oh happy day, sometimes you do. :)
It delights me to no end to have sparked a dinnertime discussion. That makes my day.
DeleteI have been given the Myers-Briggs but I don't recall my result. At the time I was just barely coming out of my shell but I gave true answers and the administer-er was a bit surprised by the end but I don't think anyone would be now.
And I adore TracyOC! I quite fiercely and selfishly wish that she wrote more often.
I have moments like this too from dreams. You are right, it is quite startling.
ReplyDeleteI just blogged about a relationship that I just had to put on hold, and ironically, also about my shoulder in the same post. It has been injured since last September, and just not healing. My Chiropractor had suggested I look at metaphysical possiblities with my shoulder. I looked it up, and found that shoulder pain can sometimes suggest codependency in a relationship or "shouldering" too much responsibility in a relationship. When I set boundaries with my friend, suddenly, my shoulder stopped hurting. Completely! It was amazing. It has only been hurting at the moments i am worrying or thinking about the relationship. When I remind myself of truths, it ceases. Just a thought. Who knows. :)
<3
I've heard that too, about shoulders. I've been dreaming about my parents a bit, so that might have something to do with it.
DeleteCurious - which shoulder? It is always my left. Has hurt for years.
DeleteIs yours always on the same side?
I wish I could figure out how to get mine to stop hurting like Journal of Healing did! (I will be thinking about the boundaries, though!)
Cathy in Missouri
It's the right one, always, radiating upward from behind the point of my shoulder blade. And it always seems to be worst when I am already feeling vulnerable about something else.
DeleteFar from the point but that is one amazing bookstore. I wish I could have dreams set in such picturesque locations. That must have been very startling, suddenly coming upon it in reality (well internet reality anyway!)
ReplyDeleteIt's really a very interesting thing that places that truly exist in reality can appear in your dreams without you having seen them previously. And I'm wondering how this could all tie in with psychogeography which is something I understand very poorly but is an idea I'm extremely drawn to and think about a lot (in my slow, ponderous way!)
"psychogeography - the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals."
Perhaps you are experiencing inverse psychogeography? Your emotions and dreams are causing precise law and specific effects in the geographical environment to come into being? Perhaps you are conjuring the beautiful bookstore and the Davenport Hotel from your own brain? Perhaps my house is somewhere you once dreamt of? Who knows? Seems as likely an explanation as any! But I can imagine that it is unsettling. I find dreams rather disconcerting on the whole, particularly when they reminders of the past. And I wake up and don't know where I am or how old I am or even, sometimes, who I am.
I hope your shoulder stops hurting. It was interesting to read Journal of Healing's comment. The mind is an interesting place and I think that it is probably very poorly understood still.
It is an amazing bookstore! That is what the article was about that I was reading when I found it, actually, and why I was reading in the first place. :)
DeleteI hadn't heard of psychogeography as a theory before and am very interested to investigate the idea further. And inverse psychogeography! What an extraordinary thought.