Posts Tagged ‘poetry’
A Taste of Honey – Does the play represent more than a dramatisation of the cycle of deprivation?
Texts Used: A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney.
If I had to give a title to my view of the play, it would be ‘Windows of Opportunity and Despair’. I say this because the five characters in the play express quite a narrow range of social, economic and personal responses to opportunity. The opportunities that do arise for any of the characters are usually taken into some form of despair. Nevertheless the play appears to be more than a dramatisation of deprivation. It could equally as well be seen as expressing the pitfalls of inadequate communication, or unacknowledged dependence. It dramatises the many dimensions of experience of the two main characters, and demonstrates how they constantly limit and undermine each other.
The aspects I will argue are therefore connected with how the characters limit themselves, communicate badly, and continue their deprivation.
In the opening line of the play, Helen says, “Well! This is the Place.” This, along with Jo’s reply, “And I don’t like it.”(1) spell out a present and past situation existing between them. It tells us there has been no communication about the place in which they are both going to live. Jo has obviously never seen it before, and has been given no choice. Helen goes on to clarify even further that her own choices are made without any mutual agreement between herself and her daughter. She says, “When I find somewhere for us to live I have to consider something far more important than your feelings … the rent. It’s all I can afford.”(2)
This short and sharp exchange also explains the resentment Jo feels toward her mother. Having been given no choice, having been left out of any ability to help find a decent place to live, she has no feelings of participation or wanting to make anything of the flat. But there is another factor too. Helen says the flat is all she can afford, yet soon afterwards, when she sees some of Jo’s drawings she suggests Jo should go to a “proper art school” and says, “I’ll pay. You’re not stupid. You’ll soon learn.”(3) So we must assume Helen has obscure or unstated reasons for wanting them both to live in such a decrepit flat.
Another aspect of the interchange is that it depicts Helen as a character who treats her daughter as someone she doesn’t really want in her life. There are exceptions to this, but it is a prevailing attitude. It is particularly illustrated when Helen goes on her honeymoon. Jo pointedly expresses her need to be cared for, or perhaps her desire to be wanted and included in her mother’s life when she says to Peter, “…. What are you going to do about me Peter? The snotty nosed daughter? Don’t you think I’m a bit young to be left like this on my own while you flit off with my old woman?”(4) Helen’s response is, “We can’t take her with us. We will be, if you’ll not take exception to the phrase, on our honeymoon.”(5)
This exclusive behaviour is then continued by not including Jo in her marriage ceremony. There is no attempt at communication about Jo’s welfare or needs at this time, and Helen leaves for her wedding with the words, “I’ll be seeing you. Hey! If he doesn’t show up I’ll be back.”(6) In fact Helen doesn’t come back for months, leaving Jo to her own devices to survive.
The interactions already quoted highlight something else that, although a quiet theme in the drama, nevertheless remains constantly in the background. The characters all have a tendency to treat each other as if they have no personal or social links. Our social existence arises from an obvious web of interconnections. Few of us have made our own shoes, woven the material for our clothes, worked at generating the power for the light and heat in our houses, or grown our own food. Many or most of the advantages in our life come to us out of our relationship either with other individuals, or from the collective effort of groups of people. Obviously many of the ills arise in the same way, but in the play there is a great one-sidedness toward alienation from other individuals or ‘society’ in such forms as work or education. Instead there is a constant reiteration of the attitude of not needing each other. This has already been show in the relationship between Jo and Helen, but is particularly dramatised in other parts of the play.
For instance, although pregnant, Jo actually manages to remain in the flat, but this is with the help of Geof. When Geof arrives, Jo has to almost beg him to stay with such phrases as, “Please stay Geoff, I’ll get those sheets and blankets.”(7) Despite being homeless, Geoff resists such offers, finding it very difficult to admit his own need, and is not explicit about what he has to offer.
Later in the play, when Helen has left Peter because of his affair with another woman, she does not admit her feelings for her husband, but instead, when Jo says, “I think you’re still in love with him.” responds by saying, “In love? Me? … You must be mad.”(8)
Although Geof is an extreme characterisation of not being able to stand up for what he wants or needs – allowing himself to be thrown out of the flat for instance – Helen and Jo also exhibit the same tendency. Helen does this by not fighting for her marriage, which although difficult has a lot of advantages, and such advantages could have been shared with her daughter and the coming baby. Jo does it by not expressing herself unequivocally when her mother is obviously going to ‘leave her behind’ when she gets married. This ambiguity in relationship seems to be another sign of failing to recognise the social and personal web one is a part of. The failure leads to feelings of powerlessness and personal inadequacy. Geof has in fact developed a working and caring relationship with Jo, and she with him. He fails to see the place he fills in her life, so allows himself to be levered out of the house by Helen.
This alienation that is partly self-inflicted and partly inflicted by others, reaches its height in the scene in which Helen, talking about the food Geof has brought in to the house, says, “You can bloody well take it with you, we don’t want it.” The following actions then dramatise the situation more explicitly:-
[GOEFFREY empties food from his pack on to the table while HELEN thrusts it back. HELEN finally throws the whole thing, pack and all, on the floor.](9)
These self-limiting behaviours in the play can be seen to result in lack of, or loss of, ongoing steady relationships, a reasonable place to live, better economic state, and a system of mutual support between individuals. As an extreme opposite we have what has been called the ‘old boys network’ in which individuals take great pains to give and receive support. The lack of self-revealing or explicit dialogue about needs, about dependence and what each person can offer, between the characters is also part of the system of defeat they are all running. Perhaps such systems were put into place originally by feelings that one would not be heard even if needs were stated. In the situations dramatised however, the system of retreat, denial, lack of explicit communication, along with its failure to recognise the social web and ones part in it, all contribute to present misery. The impoverished situation is as much a result of such failures, as it is a cause. Helen and Jo could mutually support each other if they stopped in the middle of their person-to-person battle and wondered what they wanted from each other. Geof could have stood his ground. Perhaps as a character he might not have done this through forcefulness. He could have recognised his value to Jo however, and stood his ground for her sake. But I use thes remarks as examples – they did not happen.
If there is such a thing as a ‘cycle of deprivation’, I don’t think the play dramatises this in particular. It seems more, from what has been looked at, to deal with self-perpetuating systems of failure in personal and social relationships – including poor communication and blindness to the social web, leading to alienation.
Bibliography
Delaney, Shelagh. A Taste of Honey. Published by Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1992 (originally 1959.) ISBN: 0413316807
(1)
Notes
(1) Page 7.
(2) Page 7.
(3) Page 15.
(4) Page 34.
(5) Page 35.
(6) Page 45.
(7) Page 48.
(8) Page 80.
(9) Page 84.
The Use of Private and Public Personae in the Poetry of Keats and Shelley
In defining the public and private personae of the two poets Keats and Shelley, it is helpful to compare their poetry with that of more recent poets. As an example to start with, the lines from Keats’ La Belle Dame sans Merci will be used.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful – a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.(3)
Although Keats is using the first person in starting, the meads or meadows he is writing about are ones of imagination. This is obvious from the first line of the poem starting as it does with the words “O what can ail thee, knight at arms”. The scene is therefore one of medieval times, and the woman one of myth or fancy. The personae who is the ‘I’ in these lines is the knight at arms who is being questioned in the first line, a knight who falls in love with the lady in the meads. Comparing this with a more modern poet, Eva Dobell, we have these lines:
Crippled for life at seventeen,
His great eyes seem to question why:
With both legs smashed it might have been
Better in that grim trench to die
Than drag maimed years out helplessly.(4)
This is not a mythical or imaginative scene, but a description of something Dobell has witnessed during the First World War, with personal responses added. So in La Belle Dame sans Merci, Keats is expressing through a personae of poesy, of myth and imagination. If Keats is expressing any private feelings, if he is giving any clue of personal relations or pains, then we must look for these in the tale of La Belle Dame sans Merci itself. At the end of the poem the knight’s dream reveals that “La Belle Dame sans Merci / Thee hath in thrall!”(5) The suggestion might therefore be that Keats felt at the mercy of his desires for women.
Looking at another poem by Keats, it includes the lines:
As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept,
So in Delphic reed, my idle spright
So played, so charmed, so conquered, so bereft(6)
This is described as a dream Keats experienced after reading Dante’s Episode of Paolo and Francesca. Like La Belle Dame sans Merci it is also expressed in imagery and language of mythology and imagination. Keats is thus placing himself, his personae, in a position akin to the Greek gods. He is saying, “As Hermes” once took to his feathers” so did I. Instead of a heaven however, he visits the “second circle of sad hell”.(7) That the sad hell includes the description of “Pale were the lips I kissed, and fair the form”, once more brings us to pain, or hell, in connection with a woman.
Many of Keats’ poems mention the lips and hair of women he has met, and sometimes their feet (there is apparently nothing in-between). Kissing is a frequent theme. So Keats’ public persona is at times one of poesy and imagination, far from any direct connection with everyday life. His private personae, assumed from the little read, has some aspects of being pained in relationships with women.
Shelley too has a very marked tendency to express within symbolic or mythic language, though perhaps not so markedly as Keats. In The Mask of Anarchy, a description and condemnation of the massacre of Peterloo, we have examples of this.
I met murder on the way –
He had a mask like Castlereagh –
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:(8)
By giving murder a gender – ‘He’ – Shelley, despite giving names and details, such as Castlereagh,(9) makes a symbol of the act instead of giving a straight description. For instance, what is Shelley referring to in these lines?
I bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwind my banners unfurl.(10)
The title of the poem is The Cloud, but once more Shelley has given the cloud an anthropomorphic identity. He is also ascribing to the cloud – I bind the Sun’s throne – a power of will and effectiveness. In the lines given, and in the other lines of the poem, he does not appear to be using the cloud as a symbol, simile or metaphor. If one were to write descriptive lines such as –
My thoughts arise like doves each day,
On Mercurial purpose bent they fly away,
Touching each corner of the world,
Arrows from my bow of mind are hurled.(11)
they could be seen as an uneconomic way of saying that publishing ones ideas allows them to reach other people the world over. Therefore, although this is obviously a generalisation, Shelley and Keats appear to have a public personae which poses as an identity with great learning and wide ranging mind. The pose is dressed in massive reference to simile and metaphor, and the wrapping of ideas in long and complex chains of words. Instead of “poetry” lifting “the veil from the hidden beauty of the world” – instead of the poet being the “heirophant of an unapprehended inspiration” as Shelley has suggested, it seems this personae may often be an obscuring force to what is plainly seen by many, but perhaps not put into words by them.
As for their private personae, the many poems of Keats on red and ‘pulp’ lips suggest hidden feelings.
Tis young Leander toiling to his death.
Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero’s cheek, and smiles against her smile.
O horrid dream! See how his body dips
Dead heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile:
He’s gone: up bubbles all his amorous breath!(12)
Considering that Leander swam treacherous sea to make love with Hero, today we might simply say, I am dying to have sex with you. In fact this poem is a very powerful statement to be made publicly. If we take Leander and the Hellespont to be symbols of what Keats feels, and what Keats is addressing to Miss Reynolds who is the object of the poem, then Keats is struggling almost to the death with turbulent forces in order to arrive at love making with Miss Reynolds. The turbulence may be emotional, or it may be the social forces or attitudes against which Keats must swim in order to arrive at the delight of sex. In the end lines though he is suggesting he cannot make the journey to the island of her sex. He drowns, he dies under the massive currents and energy against which he pits himself, or against which his natural urgent desires press him.
Therefore, in ascertaining the personae of these two poets from today’s viewpoint, it appeared very necessary for them to publicly dress themselves in cloaks of learning and poesy. I mean by the latter word an expression in action and words of living in a mental emotional world more beautiful and tragic than ‘normal’ humans, a world of vision and unusual inspiration. I am not saying they did live in this world, only that they wanted to, and wanted to appear to do so.
Their private persona seems tied to this. What they did outwardly was an expression of their own personal ambitions and uncertainties. If their outer expression was less passionate and direct than their feelings, then we must assume they hid personal pain. The social attitudes in which they lived, and that were alive in them, were forces against which they both fought. Clues to the private world underlying their social personae, may only be arrived at by a close reading of a wider sample than I have managed. However, the few poems mentioned do throw some light on this.
Bibliography
John Keats – The Complete Poems. Edited by John Barnard. Published by Penguin Books, 1973, UK. ISBN: 0-14-042210-2.
Reilly, Catherine – editor. Scars Upon My Heart. Published by Virago. 1981. ISBN 0-86068-226-9.
Shelley – Poetical Works. Edited by Thomas Hutchinson. Published by Oxford University Press. 1970. UK. ISBN: 0-19-281069-3.
(1)
Notes
John Keats – The Complete Poems.
(2)
Shelley – Poetical Works.
(3)
John Keats – The Complete Poems. Page 335. Fourth verse.
(4)
Scars Upon My Heart. Eva Dobell. Pluck. Page 31.
(5)
John Keats – The Complete Poems. Page 334.
(6)
John Keats – The Complete Poems. A Dream, after reading Dante’s Episode of Paolo and Francesca. Page 334.
(7)
John Keats – The Complete Poems. A Dream, after reading Dante’s Episode of Paolo and Francesca. Page 334.
(8)
Shelley – Poetical Works. Mask of Anarchy. Page 338.
(9)
Robert Stewart Castlereagh was foreign secretary from 1812, when he devoted himself to the overthrow of Napoleon and subsequently to the Congress of Vienna and the congress system. Abroad his policy favoured the development of material liberalism, but at home he repressed the Reform movement, and popular opinion held him responsible for the Peterloo massacre of peaceful demonstrators 1819.
(10)
Shelley – Poetical Works. The Cloud. Page 601.
(11)
My own fancy free.
(12)
John Keats – The Complete Poems. On a Leander Gem which Miss Reynolds, my kind Friend, Gave Me. Page 101.
Comparing the symbolic treatment of Childhood in Blake and Wordsworth
Both Blake and Wordsworth particularly emphasise childhood in their poetry. Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience for example especially appear to treat childhood as a symbol of the human condition as seen from Blake’s perspective. His poem The Voice of the Ancient Bard in Songs of Innocence, starts with the lines:
Youth of delight come hither
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new-born.(3)
This sense of pleasure and newness is typical of the impression Blake gives throughout Songs of Innocence. In a mixture of words such as ‘Little boy / Full of joy’(4) – ‘When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy’(5) and frequent usage of rural imagery, lambs and sunshine, Blake uses childhood and joy as a symbol of an aspect of human experience. But it is only when the Songs of Innocence are read against the background of Songs of Experience and other writings such as All Religions are One, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that one can begin to grasp what childhood symbolises in Blake’s writings.
In ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ we read that “Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained”(6) and “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires”(7). Blake is maintaining in such lines that as humans we have no lower nature – ‘everything that lives is holy’. For Blake Heaven was what he called Poetic or creative genius. Hell was man’s body and all the energies of movement, emotions and delight that it generated.
Comparing the positive imagery of ‘Innocence’ with the changed tone of ‘Experience’ we find such lines as:
In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind forged manacles I hear:(8)
As Blake is also writing about childhood in ‘Experience’ we cannot simply assume the difference is between childhood and adulthood. The poem Infant Sorrow makes this plain:
My mother groaned, my father wept!
Into the dangerous world I leapt,
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.(9)
Who is the fiend and what the cloud though?
Perhaps this is clearer in the poem A Little Boy Lost.
The weeping child could not be heard;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain.(10)
Something has been hidden, something bound, something stripped of its possible apparel. Blake appears to be describing what he calls the natural ‘energy’ that is the opposite to nursed ‘unacted desires’. He is delineating how different the world appears when we are bound by religious or social views that lead to constraint. Blake was a self-taught youth, allowed to read and explore in his own manner, and he may well associate his own genius with this ability to follow natural inclination. Apart from this however, he makes it plain that aspects of religion and social restraints lead to social and personal sickness – ‘Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion’.(11) Blake does not appear to mean a simplistic judgement by this. More likely it refers to the sort of social attitudes that not so long ago led many women to madness or suicide when they were pregnant with an illegitimate child. Today we would think such levels of stress very strange in an unmarried mother.
Michael Mason, in his Introduction to Blake’s poems, warns the reader that one must resist the temptation to simplify Blake’s intent. To quote Mason, “Blake, who is so readily simplified by his readers, was the great anti-simplifier, always probing for contradiction and tension.”(12) Blake may even be pointing out a way of doing this when he wrote, “I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s.”(13) “Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.”(14) To have ones own response to life, full of its contradictions and conflicts, and attempt a marriage of these antipodes of human experience, is recommended by Blake.
Wordsworth writes in quite a different way about his physical surroundings and childhood, but nevertheless, still describes nature and youth as representing something more than simple trees, rivers or scarcity of years. In his poem Michael, we read:
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.(15)
Just as a story in a book may lead us on to form a picture, or even an understanding that is not explicit in the words, so Wordsworth is suggesting in the above lines that nature intimates or leads to certain thoughts or understandings about human life. He defines this further in Lines – Tintern Abbey:
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams …
To me was all in all. – I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood …”(16)
The words “what then I was” refer to childhood, and the state defined as “That time is past.”(17) This with the words ‘all in all’ suggest the experience of nature in childhood was complete in itself, experiences that have meaning, but perhaps meaning which is the very think known, rather than what may later be thought or interpreted, written about.
But Wordsworth at some point in his life had a vision of the wonder of birth, ““Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”
It suggests that not only is birth a holy event, but we exist before our birth, and that we have enormous awareness already.
Bibliography
William Blake. Edited by Michael Mason. Published by Oxford University Press, 1994, UK. ISBN: 0-19-282305-1
Wordsworth. Complete Poetical Works. Published by Oxford University Press, 1936, UK. ISBN: 0-19-281052-9
(1)
Notes
William Blake. Edited by Michael Mason. Published by Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN: 0-19-282305-1
(2)
Wordsworth. Poetical Works. Published by Oxford University Press, 1936, UK.
(3)
William Blake. Page 66.
(4)
William Blake. Spring. Page 64.
(5)
William Blake. Laughing Song. Page 65.
(6)
William Blake. Page 75.
(7)
William Blake. Page 78.
(8)
William Blake. London. Page 124.
(9)
William Blake. Page 125.
(10)
William Blake. Page 127.
(11)
William Blake. Proverbs of Hell. Page 76.
(12)
William Blake. Introduction. Page xi.
(13)
William Blake. Jerusalem.
(14)
William Blake. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Page 77.
(15)
Wordsworth. Michael. Page 104.
(16)
Wordsworth. Lines – Tintern Abbey. Page 164.
(17)
Wordsworth. Lines – Tintern Abbey. Page 164.
Creative Uses of Your Dreams and Incubation
From all the dreams and information that have already been dealt with, an enormous number of conclusions can be drawn. It is hoped that many of these do not need to be enlarged upon; but because it may not be clear from what has been said, the subject of purposeful use of dreams will be explained in greater detail. For instance, it was mentioned at the very beginning that dreams have helped such varied fields of research and expression as science, literature, philosophy, psychology, and so on. It has to be admitted that most dreams that have given such service have been spontaneous, and often unsought, but in a few cases people have purposely set out to gain information from dreams that they could not easily get in waking consciousness. Businessmen, scientists, laymen, and doctors, have each looked to the dream for help in their various enquiries. In some cases they did not understand the process of dreaming, and so were handicapped.
Others had gained an understanding by analysing previous experience, and were better able to use dreams as tools in their research. How this is possible must be reasonably clear from the other features. The dream emerges as an expression of what is happening in all the departments of our being. The unconscious biological processes that have made us a living being – the physical and energetic processes of our body, with its digestion, circulation, metabolism, etc. – the relationships between different parts of our being, such as body and mind, sexual and ambitious drives, self and others, all are dealt with in dreams. Likewise, all that we have ever experienced, read, thought, studied, heard or seen, is all stored in the complete memory of our unconscious. Nothing is lost. This vast storehouse of learning and experience, coup led with the wisdom latent in our very cells, built in from millions of years of life experience, are all available to the dream. A later chapter will show that we are not limited even to our own vast memory, but can pick up thoughts from others through telepathy or expanded consciousness. Therefore, to have a question answered by a dream, is to receive a reply from the most advanced and best educated computer in the world. Even a new-born babe can rely upon the biological knowledge of its cells, which open to it, as instinct and intuitive response, the wisdom of the ages.
The examples of Robert Louis Stevenson gaining ideas for his writings, Kekule discovering the Benzene ring, the dreaming of Kubla Khan, and the dream foretelling the nationalisation of Iranian oil, illustrate a little of this. Another example is quoted in Dreams, The Language of the Unconscious by Hugh Lynn Cayce. The dream occurred to a member of the New York Stock Exchange, on March 5th. 1929. He says, ‘Dreamed we should sell all our stocks including box stock (one considered very good). I saw a bull following my wife, who was dressed in red.’ This dream was interpreted to mean that a crisis was approaching on the stock market, and all should be sold. Unfortunately the man did not heed this advice, and suffered the collapse of the stock market six months later.
The famous acrobat, Tito Gaona, stated in the April 8,1974, issue of Sports Illustrated:
I have sometimes dreamed my tricks at night … and then tried to master them from the dream. … I also do what I call a double-double…. It is a double forward somersault with a double full twist at the same time. It has never been done before. No one else does it. It is a trick I dreamed one night. (Quoted from Our Dreaming Mind by Robert Van de Castle.)
Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, gives details of a dream had by Jacopo, a son of Dante. After Dante’s death, it was discovered that the last thirteen cantos of the ‘Commedia’ were missing. This caused much debate as to whether they had been written, and all involved searched everywhere. Jacopo and his brother Piero were induced by others to try their hand at writing the missing cantos themselves, but before doing so Jacopo dreamt that ‘his father Dante had appeared to him, clothed in the purest white, and his face resplendent with an extraordinary light; Jacopo asked him if he lived, and Dante replied, “Yes, but in the true life, not your life.” Then Jacopo asked him if he had completed his work before passing into the true life; and if he had done so, what had become of that part which was missing, as none could find it. To this Dante seemed to answer: “Yes, I finished it”, and then took Jacopo by the hand and led him into that chamber Dante had been accustomed to sleep in when he was alive. Touching one of the walls, he said, “What you have sought so much is here.” Then Jacopo awoke and although still night, called upon a friend, who went with him to Dante’s old house. Waking the present owner, they were allowed in, and on coming to the bedroom and looking at the wall indicated in the dream ‘found a mat fixed to the wall. They lifted it gently up, when they found a little window in the wall, never before seen by any of them. In it they discovered several writings, all mouldy from the dampness of the walls,’ and found them to be the missing cantos.
It can be argued, of course, that Jacopo must have noticed the mat before, even if he had never seen beneath it. Therefore it could possibly have concealed a hiding place; but what is important is not the question of whether or not he had seen this, but the fact that he had not consciously thought of it as the hiding place. Even if he had considered it as a hiding place and forgotten it with the passage of time, the dream still presented him with a new combination of ideas – the mat and the cantos. If this is the limit of dream perception, and I am not agreeing that it is, then it still puts the dream in the position of a competent computer. It still shows it as having entrance to our complete memory, and seeking deductive answers from it.
Here is another example of creative dreaming. “Dimitri Mendeleyev was born 8 February 1834 in Russia. In 1869 he was puzzling over the problem of chemical elements. They were the alphabet out of which the language of the universe was composed. Mendeleyev would frequently while away the time playing patience while waiting for a train. He had the cards in rows facing him and he had written chemical symbols of an element, its atomic weight and then a shortlist of its characteristic properties. Mendeleyev realized he was on to something, there was a pattern appearing but he couldn’t quite grasp it. Momentarily overcome by exhaustion he rested his head on his arms, almost immediately falling asleep and had a dream – the periodic table.
Having admitted this much, we are still faced by a problem, namely, how can we get the dream life to respond to a particular question? Suppose we are a scientist researching on cancer cure, or an archaeologist searching for an elusive clue in his studies, or a philosopher seeking to understand life; or just you or me trying to understand how best to use our abilities; how can we go about finding an answer to our problem? The two dreams quoted already help us towards an answer, even though they are not induced dreams in the sense that we are seeking. They help us because they are induced dreams in a different sense. They are induced by the dreamer’s interests. For the one dream is by a stock broker who recorded and attempted to analyse his dreams. The dream is induced because his interests in life are deeply bound up with the stock exchange. While Jacopo’s dream was induced by the search and by others urging him to finish the cantos.
From just these two dreams we can see that a dream response can be induced by being emotionally and intellectually involved in the question or problem answered. Therefore, if we are going to ask a specific question, it will have a greater likelihood of producing a helpful dream if we become as involved as possible in it. A person I once met had a mother much given to the study and practice of positive thinking. The man wished to take his wife for a holiday abroad, but did not have and could see no possibility of getting sufficient funds to finance this. His mother persuaded him to live positively, however, and told him to plan his holiday anyway. This he did, arranging all details. As time drew near he still did not have sufficient money, and began to get somewhat apprehensive as to how he was going to pay fares and hotel costs. This situation lasted right up to a week before the holiday began. Then he had a dream of a particular horse winning a race. Searching through the papers the following morning he found such a horse by the same name, and bet on it, which was something he never usually did. The horse won, and he had his holiday.
I mention this because here we see the man not only intellectually and emotionally involved to a large degree, but also financially as well. These really are the ideal conditions to provoke a dream to answer our question or problem. I have used this method myself with some success, one dream being a direct answer to a direct question. At the time of the dream I had been researching on the psychological effects of Yoga exercises or postures. I practised the postures and tried as far as was possible to discover consciously what they did to the emotions, instincts and mind. I then asked myself, just before going to sleep, if there were inner effects I was unconscious of. If so, what were they? In this way I hoped to induce a helpful dream. In fact, I had several, but one in particular helped a great deal. In it I was on an underground train. Two black men were standing in the aisle. The train was nearing my station and I passed them to get to the door. One would not stand aside, even after I said ‘Excuse me’, so I had to push past him. This annoyed him so much that he rushed at me with hands extended to strangle me, but I caught his hands in mine, and gradually forced them down from my throat. As I did so, I thought: ‘This is what Yoga has done’ (i.e. given me the strength to stand against the black man).
The meaning of this dream is not readily understood until it is realised that these black men had appeared in other dreams. In one. he got my throat and began to strangle me, and I could do nothing, but awoke in terror. Here we see the unconscious or black parts of my nature which I associated with my instinctive drives and fears, throttling my conscious life. The second dream is therefore saying that Yoga was developing the strength to face and deal with one’s unconscious fears and repressed urges. There is still a conflict, but at least my conscious self can meet its fears on equal terms, which is a very great part of the battle.
Becoming involved in a question is not all there is to inducing informative dreams. Earlier on I suggested that a baby, even though new born, can draw upon its biological past, the result of which is instinct, but the baby cannot ask the same sort of question as we do. Its questions are all associated with survival, feeding, sleeping, relating to its mother, and so on. Even if it could ask a more intellectual question, such as, ‘How can one make a better mousetrap?’ any dream that did give an answer would be quite incomprehensible to the baby. In short, while our dream producing mechanism may have entrance to infinite wisdom and resources, it nevertheless has the problem of explaining it to a very limited intelligence – namely us! In other words, we cannot ask a question that is beyond our present comprehension. If we did get an answer it would be meaningless. The question and answer are all bound up in each other. Dr Washington Carver, in seeking inner intuitive answers to scientific questions, had the same problem. He had before him the task of synthesising various products such as milk, glue, printer’s ink and oils, from peanuts and sweet potatoes. He had to modify his questions, however, to get understandable replies.
This faces us with fresh information as to how we must approach the effort to induce dreams. First of all we have to exhaust the limits of our conscious research into the question. We should read about it, study it, experiment with it, becoming involved as deeply as possible. If an answer to our problem is not forthcoming from these conscious efforts, then we have to realise that what we seek does not lie in the known areas of our knowledge. With the present information at our disposal, we are not able to arrive at a solution. Most breakthroughs in knowledge or understanding, however, are not explainable with the old facts. So we have to let go of our present conclusions, opinions, concepts and feelings, and admit that these present aspects of ourselves do not appear to hold the solution. Or if they do, we cannot see it. Then we have to sleep on it and watch our dreams.
The result of this might be that:
(a) We have no noticeable response at all.
(b) We have only a partial reply to our question.
(c) We have an amazing dream that reveals the answer.
If there seems to be no response, we have to keep trying, and record any dreams that occur. It might be that the dreams are not properly understood, or else we are more deeply involved in some other issue. If the reply is partial, then further dreams may enlarge upon it. It may be that a total reply would be beyond our present comprehension. This is very noticeable when watching a dream series. As it proceeds, and one has gained understanding of the broad outlines of something being revealed, the dreams begin to portray greater detail, which is understandable in the light of what has been learnt; or else our attitudes and concepts are so fixed in one direction of approach, that we have to be gradually led and introduced to new areas. Then the subject proper can be introduced. In this way, a researcher into the problem of migraine headaches might be directing his experiments along the line of a particular type of chemical, but the dream might hold information dealing with it under a physiological approach. Therefore a change of attitude would have to exist at the very start of gaining what the dream holds in store. We have to be willing to let ourselves be educated by the dream. This can take a long time; but then so does any research, for we need to grow in understanding and ability to the point where we can comprehend and make use of what we are seeking. Leonardo de Vinci designed the helicopter, the submarine and the bicycle chain, but it took technology three hundred years to be able to apply this man’s ‘dreams’.
Some of those whose insight into the hidden process of human life amount to genius, have claimed that intuition is based upon vast experience or education. This education or experience can have been forgotten, or be the result of years long past, or even, as some claim, from past lives. The point is, however, that this knowledge is tapped, not by remembering it, but in receiving a sort of summary of its entire comments in regard to a particular question. As an example, let us say that a doctor examines a young girl, and has an irrational feeling that she has a rare blood condition. He cannot for the life of him think why, but nevertheless sends her for a blood test to check his feelings. Much to his surprise the condition is confirmed. This makes him really sit down to ponder how he knew; and after a great deal of searching he discovers the reason. In college he had read a novel mentioning a strange mark on a man’s body, which turned out to be a symptom of a blood disease. Later, in medical school, he noticed in passing the colour of a person’s eyes with a blood condition. Both incidents were lost to consciousness, but his intuition signals the essence of his knowledge by making him ‘feel’ uneasy about the girl’s condition, and irrationally (i.e. without knowing for what reason) suspect a blood disease.
That is an imaginary example, but there are plenty of real life ones. Seventy years ago, Morgan Robertson wrote a book called Futility. Robertson had been a seaman, and also had an inventive ability, having invented an improved type of periscope. The book he wrote was about a ship named ‘The Titan’. This had a displacement of 70,000 tons, 800 ft long, had triple screw propulsion, speed of 24 to 25 knots, was designed to carry 3,000 people, and had only a few lifeboats. In the book the Titan hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and went down.
To understand what I mean about intuition, I have only to explain that the ‘Titanic’ had a displacement of 66,000 tons, and was 852.5 ft long. Like the ‘Titan’, it also had triple screw, speed of 24 to 25 knots, carried 3,000 people and had few lifeboats. It too sunk in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.
Heinrich Schliemann not only believed his irrational feelings, he did something about them. The son of a poor German clergyman, he educated himself, worked his way into a monied business; then, at a time when all the world scoffed, he set out to discover the mythical city of Troy. Later, he unearthed one of the richest treasures in the world at the Mycenaean Palace in Greece. All this from believing his inner feelings about the ‘fairy stories’ of Troy and King Midas. Schliemann himself says it was due to a past life in ancient times, and his irrational feelings were memories from that time he could not explain with present facts. Whether we believe this or not, his intuition, from whatever source, proved correct.
The prophesies of H. G. Wells also stand in a similar light. Working from his knowledge of his day, he spoke of such things as an atomic war, aerial fighting craft, armoured tanks, air conditioning, intercontinental air travel and television. In a similar vein, as a great devourer of scientific information, Jules Verne prophesied many of the important scientific discoveries and applications that were to follow. One of the most interesting of these amazing intuitive insights into facts is displayed by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels. Written in 1726, the fictional Laputian scientists discover that the Planet Mars has two moons, and one of these travels around the planet twice as fast as the other. It was only in 1877, that Asaph Hall, an American scientist, was able to confirm the truth of this remarkable statement. How Swift came by this information is unknown.
Another interesting case is that of Rafael Scherman. As an infant In the nursery he started collecting envelopes because of the various hand writings displayed on them. From then on his consuming passion was a study and analysis of handwriting. As his knowledge of this subject grew, his ability to determine who wrote a particular sentence became more than just a reasoned conclusion; it became intuitive. Cornelius Tabor, a newspaper man who wrote of Scherman’s work with the police in crime investigation, said, ‘I was introduced to him (Scherman) by Dr E.K. I showed him an envelope addressed by a lady he certainly did not know. He glanced at it briefly and then set to work. He described in minute detail the lady’s appearance, her figure, the colour of her hair, her features and suddenly it seemed that she came to life in front of me – he imitated her manner of speech. He seemed to know everything of her character. He told me her life story as if he had suddenly become a part of her very existence.’ (From – My Occult Diary)
What has all this got to do with dreams? They are simply used as instances of the unusual knowledge, foresight, inventiveness, and powers of insight the human mind can exhibit, especially in its intuitive side. They are but a dewdrop in the sea of examples that could be given, but as long as they bring home one point, they are enough. The point being, that any thoroughgoing dream researcher will never discard ideas presented, just because they do not fit his or her present opinions. We are always enlarging our facts to fit increased human knowledge and experience. Let us not then cast away an idea because it will not fit the smallness of our conceptions, or because it seems ridiculous or irrational. Neither let us believe it without testing it. Once more, the balanced way.
If we approach the dream with an open mind, an involvement in our question, and the willingness to be educated, we are certainly on the right tracks. If we add to this the constant interest and enthusiasm in our subject that men like Rafael Scherman have shown, then we bring to the dream an ever widening sphere of experience and knowledge through which it can express itself.
It has to be pointed out, however, that the past ‘knowledge and experience’ explanation of intuition in dreams and waking does not fully account for it. Scherman’s abilities, for one, do not entirely fit into this. If we read the lives of Andrew Jackson Davis, or Edgar Cayce – Man of Miracles – Neville Spearman, we shall soon see this. A study of their lives does show one interesting fact that furthers our knowledge of dream research. To state it briefly, the question asked, and how it is asked, has enormous influence on the answer received.
This has already been hinted at when mention was made of Dr George Washington Carver and his discoveries. When studying Edgar Cayce’s life, we find that several of the important aspects of his intuitive knowledge were not displayed until someone asked him the right questions. For instance, Cayce eventually began to give personal information on people’s latent capabilities, talents and problems, but this did not begin until a man named Lammers asked him questions on subjects he had not considered before, and so had never bothered to ask himself about.
I once made the experiment of asking a young man of very unphilosophical nature, a series of questions, rather like the Socratic method. Within fifteen minutes, as the questions awoke a realisation of his own experiences, he was talking pure philosophy, but he could not repeat this alone, without the questions.
The issues that arise from this are probably not of importance to the average person interested in dreams, but for the serious investigator they pose a very real problem; for one may have certain information that cannot be elicited because we do not know what questions to ask, or how to ask it. While this may seem of little importance at present, with very little stretch of imagination, a time can be foreseen when the present scientific method will attempt to incorporate the intuitive type of research into its sphere. Then, those found capable of dreaming or intuiting answers, will be as much a part of a research establishment as laboratory workers are today. Therefore, the framing of the question will be a serious undertaking. Basically, it has to elicit a response that remains understandable, but is not bound by preconceptions and already known facts. It must be more in the line of ‘What do I need to know? ‘What is best to consider?’ rather than a too pointed question arising from already held opinions. In this way we may discover that another intelligence other than our conscious self is working within us, and we can make contact. Of this, Shane Miller tells the amusing story of the little boy who took a pole to measure the depth of the pool at the bottom of the garden. Each day he measured it, and each day it seemed to show a different depth. He pondered on this, and one day found the thrilling answer. There is Someone, or Something, at the bottom of the pool, moving the stick up and down. The boy realises he is not alone!
Working along similar lines, Professor James Bonner of the California Institute of Technology tried to analyse scientific creativeness. He questioned a number of researchers and scientists about intuitive knowledge gained in their work. He then set down his findings as follows:
(1) Define the question. This may itself be a creative act, since to recognise a question that has not been asked before may take great creativity.
(2) Stuff with facts. Once the question has been defined the potential scientific creator must have all the information he can get. He may have to do some experiments; he reads the literature, he gets together all the information that he can imagine bears upon the subject.
(3) Wait. The scientist may mull the facts over; he may worry; but in principle what he has to do now is wait.
(4) A solution pops out. Perhaps many solutions pop out. Often solutions emerge when one is half asleep, or perhaps during a day dream.
(5) Assess the solution. The scientist must now ask himself whether his new creative idea is a useful one or not. Is it good or bad? Does it unify everything that is present to be unified?
Getting down to methods, these should now be reasonably clear to understand. Having worked and worried over the problem, having looked to see what other people have said about it, or what other people have done along similar lines, we now approach the bed, but before actually climbing in, it is best to sit awhile, and consciously go over what you have thought, what you plan, what you hope, concerning the question. Cover the doubts, ideas, difficulties. Try to pierce the veil that hides the answer. If it is a personal problem ask ‘What shall I do? What is the best course of action? Or, how should it be approached ?’ If the question relates to work we plan to do, such as starting a business, investing in a venture, or beginning some undertaking; run through the plans, and ask, ‘Have I missed anything? Are there factors I have not considered? Is this for my best interests? Any suggestions?’ Then drop thought of the subject, get into bed, and go to sleep. When you wake, whatever the time if you remember a dream whether it seems like an answer or not, set it down lest it be forgotten. If you wake and cannot remember any dreams, lie quietly for a while, trying to remember as explained earlier, and ‘Good Luck!’