Saturday 6 June 2020

Dreams

Operation Luna, 36.

Balawahdiwa, the Zuni priest, differentiates medicine dreams from nonsensical dreams (p. 322) and acts on a warning from one of the former.

For information about the Classical mythology and literature of dreams, this blog consults Neil Gaiman's  The Sandman, which confirms the distinction between true and false dreams.

Today has been uninspired with fewer posts than usual although I particularly liked the "Three Moons" and the comparison between Wells' The Time Machine (1895) and Poul Anderson's Genesis (2000). For both, see WALB. We hope that speculative fiction will still be written in 2095, now only seventy five years away so that some people young now should be old then.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I do believe there are sometimes true, prophetic dreams. Such as the dreams where an angel appeared to Joseph in the Infancy narratives of Christ. Or the dream given to St. Peter in Acts.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I do not regard either of those dreams as a historical event, though. The Infancy stories, in particular, are just the kinds of stories that get told about major figures, as in "Brave To Be A King." How many heroes had to be hidden because their lives were threatened in infancy? And Luke contradicts Matthew with Joseph and Mary not fleeing into Egypt but presenting Jesus in the Temple.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

On some matters, I fear, we are not going to be able to agree! I'm reminded of this bit from Anderson's story "A Chapter of Revelation" (DIALOGUE WITH DARKNESS, February 1985, page 41): "First Corinthians," Dick said. "By now I have the passage memorized. He [St. Paul] that the Resurrection is the central fact of Christianity. If you can believe that a corpse rose from its tomb, walked and talked, ate and drank and lived for forty days, why, then you can swallow anything, ancient prophecies, virgin birth, wedding at Cana, instant cures of leprosy--those are mere detail. The Resurrection is what matters." Given the Resurrection, things like angels appearing in dreams are mere details.

I have also argued in the past, arguing as minimally as possible, that the evidence given us by the Shroud of Turin strongly indicates SOMETHING very strange happened with or to the body of Christ.

Ad astra! Sean