loveMELT Newsletter #024: Dream Music
Occasionally I dream music. These are my favorite dreams. I specifically dream about the creation of music as if I were the musicians or composer but also the fly on the wall. The genres and the environments are wide-ranging, which I love. What’s interesting is these dreams always happen at the tail end of my sleep. I’m somewhat conscious as they take place. I’m usually torn between finding the nearest notepad to write the lyrics down, if there are lyrics in the particular piece playing, or letting the music keep going so I can enjoy the fleeting moment and hear where it goes.
In my sleep-driven opinion, the songs are good. And I’m amazed what I’m able to produce musically in my sleep when I can’t play an instrument or write music any day of the week. As these dreams have popped up over time, I’ve learned to let the music play and try to remember as much possible once I’ve risen to reality. The song I dreamt this morning was in a church-like setting. There was a woman playing the organ leading a gospel choir behind her singing,
You all love New York City You all want the same things If you listened, you’d probably go home But you all want the same things I too love New York City I do want the same things If I listened, I’d probably go home But I know I want the same things We all love New York City We all want the same things If we listened, we’d probably go home But we all want the same things
There were more lyrics, but now they’re forgotten.
If I listened when I was young I wouldn’t currently live in NYC. I’m glad I didn’t listen to what norm had in store for me. I didn’t listen to a lot of things and I’m better off for it.
And now, I still have selective hearing. If I listened to American society, I’d work overtime every week to accelerate my career. I’d have a husband and kids to raise with even less time to make art. I wouldn’t understand what I’ve learned about life by pursuing it my way. I listen, however roundaboutl-ly, to myself. There are times I’ve gotten lost in the noise, but I tend to find my notes and make my way back.
There’s different sounds coming from the world too, coming from the earth, coming from us. They are sounds of distress and pain, hollow sounds, howling sounds. These are sounds I know I should hear. They are the same sounds that keep me up at night, contemplating if I should give up my personal belongings, leave the city, and truly live a self-sustainable life somewhere off the grid, putting back into the earth what I take. If I listened to these sounds more, I’d use more of my time and my youthfulness to take care of my community, not just me. I haven’t gotten there though. It’s hard to know how far I need to go. Or maybe I’m just too scared or too selfish.
But I am trying. Trying to play within tune of the sounds that speak to me.
Something spoke to me the other day that hasn’t left my head. I don’t believe we have souls and I don’t believe my soul will transcend physical death. But the other day I heard someone say “I am a soul, I have a body”. That struck a chord and reminded me of Douglas Hofstadter’s book, I Am A Strange Loop, where he examines the sense of “I”. I can cultivate and create a point of view, in what I do, in how I do it. I can use my body for it. What sounds get absorbed presently and remembered after I’m gone will contain remnants of my view, similar to my dreams.
‘The Floor’ by Russell Edson
The floor is something we must fight against.
Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human
stance, it is that place that men fall to.
I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse;
the pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face.
But should I go dizzy I crash down into the floor;
my face into the floor, my attention bleeding into
the cracks of the floor.
Dear horizontal place, I do not wish to be a rug.
Do not pull at the difficult head, this teetering
bulb of dread and dream . . .In these trying times, keep trying.
With love,
Sadie