Remembrance in Dreams

I read that if you are interrupted you can lose a thought in 3 minutes

My dreams remember for me

As daylight synapse firings lie

And truth that catches light

Will blind the eye

To realities glancing blows

 

While I play shell games

With known and unknown

Changing chameleon like

Before I lift the nut

To find real

And grasp truth

Only redefined

By words redefined beyond

Meaning

 

Where I find myself beyond

Meaning

Reason

Logic

Or

Consequences

And in darkness

My dreams remember for me 

Reviews

[TLK]

The first line immediately captivated my attention. Perhaps it is because I teach Psychology, but I am sure that it is a beautiful sentiment regardless. Beautiful while also being somewhat threatening -- I am sure that part of madness must be this equivalence between memories and dreams.

Small points first. I think these are typos: "realities" needs an apostrophe to indicate a possessive, I needed to read "chameleon like" twice to realise it was 'chameleon-like'.
I also think that "to find real" might read better as "to find reality", but that might just be me.

Bigger point: the second line was awkward, but eventually I understood it as you meaning something like 'dreams remember the truth whereas our awake brain-states record unreality'. Sorry for bludgeoning the poetry out of the sentiment!


The metaphor of the shell games is very enjoyable, bringing me into a twilight space where dream logic rules. I found it very effective. The linguistic trick of "words redefined beyond / Meaning" really hit home for me (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation).

The last stanza had the vague brooding power of a dream which is clustering storm-clouds in its wake. The only thing I can see to potentially alter about it is to separate the last two lines to give them more gravitas -- that is how I read them regardless.


I really enjoyed this, and am therefore subscribing to your writing.