Story is Dreaming With Eyes Open

Have you ever awoken dream-tossed; rattled by the visceral content of your mind left to roam wide and free in the night?

Mornings like that used to frighten me until I realized human beings ought to be startled by how far out the fences of freedom are set. They are a long way out, so far in fact, it takes more than a lifetime to reach them. Understanding that settled some things for me; cut some fetters from my wrists. Waking dream-tossed, amazed or horrified by the stark presentation of my deepest humanity, is, I now see, the entire purpose of story.

When I wake from a naked encounter with my dreams, I have actually woken from a hidden part of my own story: The bits I can't manage to focus on while awake will mosaic together the missing pieces of me as I dream. When I wake, I have lived through chaos and upheaval without leaving the comfort and safety of my bed.

Then, books.

Story stands us up in the eye of alteration and disruption without overturning our waking lives but managing, mentally and emotionally at least, rearrange the furniture.

Life after encountering great story (be it one we read or one we write) cannot remain identical to what it had been before. The shock of story stains us bright colours, throws open the window and transforms us into prisms that toss stories onto the walls almost against our will.

The more books, the more colours.

Repeated, intentional encounters with story have the accumulative effect of growing us as people, but not to the end we might have thought. I once believed story could help me find completeness, fullness as a human being.

Now I wonder if there is such a thing as completeness, capacity of fullness, an end point to be reached while there is still dirt beneath our feet, a story trail to follow, and another night of dreaming ahead.

Stories We Tell Ourselves When We Sleep

Novels matter because...

"Telling stories is how we think." 
(I've said that.)

or

"Stories teach us empathy." 
(I've said that too.)

or

"Stories help us feel again."
(I've heard that.)

or

"To relieve stress."
(Are you kidding? Did you know MRI images have shown that the brain stresses much the same when it watches a story as it would if the events in the story were really happening? So if you want to use fiction to relieve stress, maybe you should pick a really boring story.)

or

Whatever you tell yourself. Fill in the blank.

But why bother? I know I'm not the only one who feels the need to justify the hours I spend reading novels. Or writing them. But why?

Maybe "Just because" is the only answer we have to the question of why fiction matters. Jonathan Gottschall says, "We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories."

All along, you thought your mind was relieving stress by processing subconsciousStories  anxieties, when in reality it was just playing with its toes, weaving characters into situations to see what would happen next.

I'll bet you've got a couple of dreams in mind already, times when you've awakened thinking, what a ride that was!

Care to tell us?

I'll start:

Some years ago, I dreamt that I was in a huge castle court, with tall white marble walls, and white marble pillars holding up a white ceiling somewhere high above. The court was filled with people formally dressed as you would expect in a castle. God was in an office off the hall, fat with a beard, clearly troubled about something, his desk piled with papers. And Satan was a strange little man, running around telling everyone "You'd be perfect" at this thing, and "perfect" at that. 

Then suddenly, God ran out of his office, and squatted down to rifle through a basket of papers on the floor. 

And he said, "Genesis! Where is my Genesis!" 

Here's another:

A couple years ago I dreamt I was walking through a seaside village where everything was painted black and white. (White doesn't figure into all my dreams, but it did in this one, too.) 

A white van roared up the street, and skidded to a stop beside a man walking on the sidewalk. A bunch of men piled out of the van and assaulted the fellow, forcing him into the van. 

The van sped away, only to stop at a white travel trailer down the road. The men forced their victim out of the van and into the trailer. At the last moment, I caught a glimpse of his face and realized: he was Jesus! 

Something clearly had to be done. I ran to the trailer and opened the door. The bad guys were all clustered around the table to my right, too busy hatching evil plans to notice me. Jesus sat on the bed at the other end of the trailer, hands tied, head sagging, face covered by his long hair.  

I sat next to him to untie his hands. "Jesus," I whispered. "We have to get you out of here."  

At which point he lifted his head to reveal a radiant, loving smile, as if to say, "Really? I need to be rescued by you?"

It's strange to realize how many of my dreams are CBA material. Even stranger to know that any reader who makes a study of dream interpretation now knows more about me than I might knowingly disclose.

But I dove in. Now how about you? What stories have your minds woven while you slept?

I'd love to read what you have to say.

Beauty Treatments and Waiting for Dreams to Come True

I called a friend to check up on her husband's cancer battle. So typical of Nancy, I was the one who left the conversation seeing my life differently. Placed. Meaningful. Hopeful. How did she do that?

In my own clumsy way I hope to do the same for you. If you've felt like you're spinning your wheels in the writing world, that your dream has insomnia, or that your calling has gotten a busy signal, let me share a truth about how God works that has freshened my outlook and spurred my expectations.

Here's it goes! (Remember, I'm not a theologian): Callings are issued and the waiting begins. Think of Sarai and Abram. They waited 23 years to have Isaac, even though they tried to step in with some clever bait and switch stuff we've all come to regret.

Then there's Joseph. The boy was given visions he was immature enough to share with his brothers. Between his dream and the fulfillment, he was dropped into a dank well and left to die. More valuable alive, his brothers fished him out and sold him into slavery. He served in the house of Potipher until his wife couldn't suppress her desires for Joseph. Off to prison he went, only to be abandoned by the self-serving cup bearer. (Is this sounding like anyone's publishing career yet?) Finally, he finds himself in the household of Pharoah, where he saves all of his brothers, the beginning of the nation Israel.

Even Jesus had to wait. He knew exactly what He came to earth to do. But we don't hear about Him, until He's circumcised and again when He's twelve. And then he's out of the picture until he starts his ministry.

His cousin John is called in the womb. (Any of you write haiku in the womb?) But we don't hear about him until he comes out of the desert dressed like a crazy man with an even crazier diet.

Paul went into the desert for a long time, and then to Tarsus (experienced any detours in your career?) before he started his missionary journeys.

Don't forget David! Anointed as king as a boy, he didn't reach the throne for many years. And he had to keep one step ahead of Saul to arrive alive.

Here's my favorite. Esther. She went into the harem of King Ahasuerus to save her people, the Jews. She was a woman with a purpose. But she was subjected to twelve months of beauty treatments before she was taken to the king to fulfill her call. 

She didn't complain. In fact, the time she spent in the harem proved valuable. God used that time to prepare her. To make her more beautiful, more His.

That's how I'm choosing to see the time between what I feel called to do (write) and when I reach the skill level and loyalty to God's purposes to do His will. I'm in the middle of beauty treatments, that's all. 

And that's what God is doing in you. You're experiencing beauty treatments planned especially for you. We all have stuff that needs His touch that will prepare us to answer His call.

And remember, He has plans for you to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11), and He always finishes what He begins (Phil. 1:6).

You can see that I'm no Nancy, but I wanted you to know that waiting is His work. I would suggest that you cooperate with Him. Dive into His Word. Talk to Him openly and honestly about where you are and how you're feeling about life and your career. Wait on Him like a waitress waits on a customer. Be about His business in your writing and in other areas He leads you to. It's all good. It's all top-notch beauty stuff.

Under some serious beauty treatments? How do you deal with the waiting part of building a writing career? If you want prayer in your waiting, just leave a comment. We'll pray for you. 

Zoetrope Dreams

I will begin by saying: this is the advice I write to myself. What follows is more my aspiration than my wisdom, but I pray it nourishes you all the same.

Before I wrote my first novel, I used to graze the center tables of bookstores, fingering richly illustrated covers, turning them over to read - not the back cover synopses, but the endorsements above and below them. "Magical" was a favorite word, as was "enchanting." When I read these things, I wove a dream that they were written about my book, the one I was going to write one day.

Imagine, then, how I felt when I spotted this from an issue of Pages Magazine:*

"If you know the novels of Steve Erickson... then you've glimpsed the dizzying zoetrope of history in all its shadows and light, drunk hard from a future that is mad and chaotic and a perfect extension of a past that is just as vertiginous, and emerged from the journey with a soul both wiped entirely clean - that is, redeemed - and with a greater sense of moral and spiritual obligation than you've ever felt before. You come out of an Erickson novel simply knowing what you must do, who you must be, how the beat of your heart and the burn of your dreams relate, almost umbilically, to a future that could be far off or almost already happening, but is certainly on a collision course with you."

I'll give you a moment to catch your breath. I certainly need one. It's the Mount Everest of all endorsements, isn't it? And here we stand gazing up from the valley with our Keds on.

I had to look up zoetrope**, and also vertiginous***.  I hold little hope that either word will ever have much to do with my writing.

The trouble with following big dreams is that they can grow so big that they cease to inspire and commense to frighten us. We mean to put on our boots and begin with a hey and a ho, but we feel suddenly, strangely tired, and decide instead to begin with a nap.

I'm going to buck conventional wisdom, now. Prepare for a shock. I'm going to suggest we let go of our dreams.

Can we drop them right now, just let them fall?

Of course we can. We are believers here. If we weren't it would be harder, because then who would dream for us?

But there is One who dreams for us. He said, "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

See there? There is a future, and it is indeed on a collision course with us. It could be far off or almost already happening; we may not know exactly what it is.

ut it is good, and we will get there.

And meantime, what must we do?

I think we must write the next word. Make it the simplest, truest word we have in us, and then write the next one after that. And in the interest of simplicity and truth, we must resolve above all to pay attention. Take seriously the eyes to see and ears to hear thing. It is easy to let the commentaries tell us what's out there, but we must read and listen and look through our own senses until we know what those senses, our own, have told us.

I spent much of last week cleaning closets, culling out a mountain of stuff I don't need. It surprised me, what I was willing to let go of, and it surprises me still, how good it feels to have it gone, how this new measure of simplicity allows me to stretch and breathe.

I think I'll add my zoetrope dreams to the pile.

How about you? Do you have dreams that have robbed you of elbow room? What might happen, do you think, if you put them in the rummage sale and just sat down to write?

Do tell. We love to read what you have to say.



*Why did they cancel Pages Magazine? Why? 


**An optical toy, in which figures made to revolve on the inside of a cylinder, and viewed through slits in its circumference, appear like a single figure passing through a series of natural motions as if animated or mechanically moved


***Having or causing a whirling sensation; liable to falling