This essay messed with my mind, for sure. Dreams are such a weird thing to think about, and it seemed like Erdrich didn't really come to a conclusion about what she thought about dreams, so I felt even more confused at the end of the essay than I did at the beginning! Her experience with the fence and the hunting park (which I think is mean, by the way) seemed so bizarre! It's hard to believe that she saw the park in her dream before she saw it in real life. She mentioned that dreams might make her able to "visit [her] own life in a future moment," which seemed to be the case with the fence.
What really made me wonder about dreams was David H. Lund's idea about "human dream-life as a possible model for a disembodied existence." I have mixed opinions about that idea. In a way I don't think I can make any assumptions about what dreams really are because I can't remember what I've dreamed about most of the time. That's weird in itself: that all these things are going on inside our heads--or wherever they're taking place--and then we can't even remember them. That's actually scary! Like, where are all these thoughts coming from? Maybe Voldemort is getting inside our heads and we just don't know it. That's the best explanation I can come up with.
My mind is blown, folks.
Overall, I liked this reading! Erdrich has a very pretty writing style; I loved all the descriptions she gave. She seems to have a very open-minded view of the world. She considered what skunks might be dreaming about, and she had a lot of respect for them and for nature in general. She was able to find beauty in the hunting park, where most people would view it as either a place for entertainment or something cruel to animals. She was able to look past that and enjoy her surroundings.
Don't worry, my mind was a little frazzled after I read this too! I liked how you talked about dreams and dreaming about something before actually seeing it, like it transports you into the future; to be honest, this actually happens to me a lot and it is really crazy!
ReplyDeleteBefore I read your post, I was really confused about what the point or the "moral" of the short story was actually about, but now I understand it better -- thanks! Great post Julie! (:
This essay definitely gives you a lot to think about! Where do dreams come from? Hopefully not Voldemort.. maybe a there exists a higher power putting these ideas into our head. Or a more feasible explanation could be random connections made that come somewhere from our subconscious. Sigmund Freud described the brain as an iceberg-- the above surface part being our easily-acceptable conscious and underwater a much larger section of subconscious. Who knows what exists down there!
ReplyDeleteSo true! Dave your a fountain of wisdom! I also am curious about the birth place of dreams. As of now, science really can't tell us everything about them, and that's perfectly fine with me. The best part about dreaming is the questions behind it. If Voldy's behind this then i think we'd have a lot more nightmares! :) So hopefully he has no part of it.
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