Schizotypic

Just stuff that I throw together whenever I feel it. Should be pretty rare that I post them in here, but when I get a feeling and go with it I'll share it with my favorite forum. -Schizo

VEGANGELICA

Hi Schizotypic,

Your dream sounds like one of peace as you are transformed and moved by life, which carries you along and with which you are one. The image of fire as tasting beautifully symbolizes for me an acceptance or appreciation of personal transformation, since the possibility for change is the foundation of hope. Both the ocean and fire are consuming and enveloping substances, so the poem makes the feeling described by the weightlessness/sinking seem very intense.

I have a couple questions and comments about the wording, which I'll put in parentheses in your text. Also, I am wondering if you want to have this new poem merged with your older, bigger songwriting thread?

"Tasted of beautiful fire" is an effective image, I feel, because it shows that the intense experience was wonderful and amazing more than scary. And yet the title is "Waves of Fear." Rather than fear, the emotion I get reading the poem is that the experience was awesome (causing you to be filled with awe). Is the fear due to the feeling of not being entirely in control of life?

--Erica

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Schizotypic

Thank you for reading Vegangelica! I'll try my best to asnwer your questions. I'll start off with this poem being merged with my others.

No, I wouldn't want to merge this thread with my other poems. Those poems, for me, were about exploring poetry and when they were being done I was obsessed with things I'm just not willing to put the time into anymore. So this is me making a separation from my old work, from this point on my work in poem shall be on the terms of wants and should have only as much effort as I have desire. Purely for the joy of expressing myself.

About my dream, I came to the conclusion that the dream could have meant one of two things; 1) I am finally learning to manage the ups and downs of life, and top of that, I am enjoying myself doing so. or 2) I am going out of my way to have ups and downs in life because i enjoy something i get out of them. I'm an optimist in this case and like to believe the former. There were many symbols in the dream I left completely out of the poem. Such as sand, 50ft slides, tall metal fences, and riding waves in rugged oceans like roller coasters in a theme park.

Yes, I rather like the imagery in "tastes of beautiful fire" as well. I did not spend much time at all thinking about it and It is my guess that I wrote it down so abruptly because some part of me knew how I was feeling more then my waking conscious did. I strongly believe the little snippets of things we put together in the very backs of our mind can answer even most baffling human struggles- even ones that we are not entirely aware of.

As far as the name of the poem, I completely agree with you, it makes no sense- even for my own interpretation of the work. I'm leaving it. =) I think it was much more consciously that I came-up with the name, there's a Lou Reed song I really like called 'Waves Of Fear'. Who knows, maybe there is a reason it is there unknown to both of us. Never the less, it is, and I feel I have as much right to change it at this point as I have in changing my own dreams.

Thank you again for the response,
-Sincerely, Adam.

Schizotypic

VEGANGELICA

Hi Schizotypic/Adam,

I've been meaning to mention for some time now that I felt your analysis of the two interpretations of your earlier dream shows a lot of wisdom. It can be scary to think that one may be the cause of one's own problems created perhaps for excitement, or perhaps to try to prove that one is never going to change. After reading your post I wanted to remind you that change is possible. People do change. That is easy to write but much harder to do, I know. I felt reminding you of it might be comforting. I think many people have some (2) times, even though they are mostly (1). Sometimes I stay up late on MB, for example, which is a little (2)ish!

I saw a great Nova show about dreams around 2 weeks ago and think you'd like it. The show said, basically, that the dreams during REM sleep are often very vivid, distinct, and bad...and that these dreams are beneficial because the human brain actually *does* learn things through dreams. People who don't have REM sleep are less creative afterwards, compared to people who have REM sleep. REM dreams in children tend to involve being stalked/chased by animals with large teeth.

The hypothesis is that early humans/primates who got to "rehearse" in REM dreams what they'd do in troubling situations might have better survived in real life, and we inherited this biological tendency to dream disturbing and odd REM dreams because it actually increases our survival chances. (An aside: When I was pregnant, I dreamt of my child dying in all sorts of troubling ways...fire, rolling in a tram off a cliff, dying as one of many eggs I gave birth to. My dreams even prepared me in case I gave birth to a wolf-baby with sharp teeth!)

Also interesting is that we do dream in the non-REM stages of dreams...and these dreams are usually positive and self-affirming rather than scary or disturbing. People who are depressed usually have more sleep time spent REM dreaming, which creates or reflects negative moods.

Why I mention all this is not just because of your poems based on dreams, but also because I find that *writing* poems is a lot like creating a dream while one is awake. Dreams usually involve memories and events that may not have occurred in close succession in real life but in dreams are being combined and processed in novel ways as the brain/mind sorts things out, looking for connection, meaning, understanding. Similarly, writing involves creatively linking together ideas and thoughts in a state of relaxed but intense concentration (I find), where you let the mind wander, searching, pulling bits and pieces of your life experiences together to make a point or figure out something or express a realization. So, there actually *is* value in thinking about your dreams *and* writing about them. Creative realizations about life apparently often *do* happen while thinking about dreams, just as you are doing.

The poem to me means that someone is self-abusive, represented by hurting himself by gouging out one eye as if it were the devil inside him, even as he is aware that the person to blame is himself, because he is the cause of the horror he sees in himself (the reflection in the mirror).

Adam, when was the relapse? Was this something that occurred in the past or recently?

Sincerely, too,

--Erica

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Schizotypic

Thank you, I will. I'll add something next time I get a muse.

darkcornerinthecloset

i really liked the "taste of beautiful fire" bit, however i could take or leave the rest of it; the ocean things been done alot, i hope you understand. really great last line though...really....and the last one is the one that sticks.

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

darkcornerinthecloset

...in poems in general, i mean, not just cause i like the line. thought id better specify.

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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

Schizotypic

I didn't know the ocean was an overused analogy for the ups and downs of life, and how we all have to guide our way through it. Also, take only part of the poem if you want but it's soul is really throughout the entire thing- it's not like the lines are separate idea's. Like, for example, what tasted of beautiful fire? If you didn't have the first half how could you know, and without knowing it's just a pretty line without anything to it but emotion.

And yeah, I can take criticism, I'm an adult- you don't need to "hope I understand", there's nothing to understand. If someone thinks a line in my poem is cliche, then that's cool with me. I wrote it to put out how I was feeling not to have people like every bit of it. It's only purpose to me now is to read over and feel the same thing I did when I wrote it, my hope in posting it would be so it does the same for others... but hey, if you don't like it, it still works for me.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by, sorry you didn't like it. I'd change it, but I can't change my poems for right now... their not really for working on their for "artistic fun".