Man from the dream: he's wearing a beaded collar intended to look like a donut, and a sweatshirt with Pho on it. (Yes, the Vietnamese noodle soup.)
A couple of mornings ago I woke up from a dream in which I’d organized a successful literary festival at some high school or college. It was a huge event, with every possible genre represented, and books everywhere — I remember seeing Wuthering Heights alongside Pride and Prejudice, with Tolkien in a different section. As the organizer, I didn’t attend any of the talks, but I walked around the grounds and observed how everything was going. I saw Mo sitting at a table with other people, Walter teaching a workshop, one of my grad school classmates in the parking lot, and two friends from middle school with bags of books in their hands — and while wandering around, I spotted people who looked like my old friends Melissa and Harlan, only when I got closer I saw that they weren’t.
Normally I don’t remember faces from my dreams, but this time — maybe because I woke up so soon after — I could recall many of the people I’d seen, even if they weren’t actual people I know. That got me wondering: who are the people who populate our dreams? Are they faces we’ve seen, or composites invented by our imagination? If I could review an archive of my dreams, would I recognize recurring individuals, or does my brain furnish an entirely different cast of characters each time? When I write fiction, could the stories I spin be the lives of some of those dream characters?
Unfortunately, I don’t see how there will ever be any answers to these questions. ;b
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
Thought provoking questions, Lisa…I have never thought about the cast of characters that people my dreams, rather like the extras in a movie. Hmmm.
I never thought about them either, until after this dream! Dreams fascinate me endlessly. I’ve figured out why, too, and am trying to put together a post about it sometime. It fits in with this whole other set of major creative thoughts I want to write about. 🙂 I have it in mind to do a weeklong series of posts sometime… trying to get to it next week, but we’ll see!
I’ve read more than once that many times the people we dream about are there because of what the dream’s about, like a shorthand we make up for ourselves in the dream state. They’re there to focus us on something specific we want or need to address, sometimes them specifically. Actually, I think I’m repeating myself. Having a little deja vu…
Someone told me that the people in our dreams represent parts of ourselves. I didn’t have déjà vu when I read your comment, but I did when I said that, so probably we did talk about this at some point in the past. 🙂 Not surprising, given my obsession with dreams!
[…] Dream: who are the actors in our dreams? (satsumabug.com) […]
This was a thinkable post indeed, never taught of that, thank you! 🙂
🙂 Thank you for reading!
Thank You 😉