The Blue Deer: And Other Dreamtales

A collection of over 60 short-short stories inspired by dreams. This gathering of dream-influenced "sudde fictions" engages a variety of themes: Vietnam war experience, voyages to other times and other lands; the poetry and mythic dimensions of childhood-all told with intense visual imagery and striking metaphor. Acknowledging those master of brief enigmatic fiction such as Kafka, Borges, and Calvino, these tales of imagination and "dream sharing" will surprise with their mysteriousness. But beyond the entertainment value of the stories lies their potential usefulness as explorations of "self" through creative dreamwork-as such they can be of great worth to anyone interested in pursuing similar avenues of discover and revelation.

FOREWORD The genesis of these stories begins in dream journals kept over two decades. Thus, as with the nature of the brevity and enigmatic quality of dreams, there's minimal plot and character development possible in such a quick tale; nor is there an internal attempt at analysis or interpretation by the characters or author, who stays close to what the dream says and does. Each brief narrative operates more like a fable or zen koan than the more familiar short story. These "sudden fictions" have been inspired by the prose poems of Max Jacob, the "palm-of-the-hand" stories of Kawabata, tales of Nasrudin, that Sufi "fool," the work of Italo Calvino and Julio Cortzar, and those parables of Kafka-to list just a few progenitors.

Dreams are stories, but by and for whom? And to what purpose? Who is the "teller"? Who are these strange or familiar characters populating bizarre or ordinary scenes? Where and when does the action take place? It should be clear that attempts to answer these questions with a psychoanalytical "overlay," be it Jungian or Freudian, has nothing whatever to do with the stories-as-stories themselves. They exist as received, in awe and wonder, and it is in that spirit they are passed along. If there is a collective unconscious, as I imagine there is, it's up to the individual reader to ascertain. For myself, I regard these dreamtales as gifts, as adventures not only received, as a radio is a receiver, but also actively experienced, and as praxis-remembered, used, related. They may be "healing" but not therapy. The distinction lies between art and science, objective and subjective points of view. Of course, these boundaries are blurring these days, where physicists and mystics convene, but a dualistic way of describing the world is the heritage of our language. (No need to get into all that.)

It should be emphasized that the "I" is not the author's I. This may be obvious, but for some it is not always so. The preponderance of first person singular functions to enhance and facilitate, hopefully, an immediacy, a direct entrance into such a brief tale. If the story "works," the I becomes a reader's I, who completes each story with a psychical experience, be it of marginal interest or something more, dare I say, spiritually profound, a catharsis. Of course, this is how art comes into being and operates. I regard The Blue Deer as a primitive form of dream sharing, not so much to communicate a "message," but to say, "Here I am. This is what's happening with me. (Or us!) What can we learn here?"

That said, dreams aren't the sole material in the crucible. The stories aren't all verbatim transcriptions of dreams, yet the majority are close. The bones are dream, the rest is fleshed out with waking experiences, especially from Vietnam, which feels like a dream to me now, as well as other contemporary, domestic events. The use of Jungian-style active imagination, as well as "shamanic journeying" as taught by Michael Harner, are two essential methods of operation, expanding on the lead of the dream itself and following its contours.

The axiom that the truer something is the falser it sounds is an interesting paradox when dealing with dreams and fiction. I direct the reader to the work of Jorge Luis Borges, whose modus operandi was exactly in that twilight zone where the real, the fictional, the mythic, and the dream overlap and nourish each other. He's the maestro, and I've dedicated this work to him; as well as to Octavio Paz, because of his recent passing and my debt to the limpid freedom of his surrealist vision-its elemental eroticism and trail-blazing prescience.

Another facet of dreams as "reflecting the stories of our lives" is my conviction they are also "about" our deaths-through dreamwork, paying attention to dreams, we familiarize ourselves with the "beyond," if you will, allowing the transition through stages from life to death, from the known to the unknown, to be more easeful, less a traumatic shock. This process is found in many ancient teachings, including bardo journeys of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Egyptian thanatologies, as well as native oral traditions around the world. I am sympathetic such practical instructions in conscious dying are indeed valid and useful, and that it isn't necessary to wait until one's death bed to begin "dying practice," which is what dreamwork can imply. Elisabeth Kbler-Ross, Stanislav Grof, and E. J. Gold have pioneered a way for us in these matters. Another theme alongside the "death journey" throughout The Blue Deer are the scenes of borderlands, crossroads, or labyrinths, where anything is possible, where magic and mystery abound, where the living and the dead make contact, where transformations of body and spirit occur.

I also refer the reader to the work of James Hillman, especially The Dream and the Underworld, for a most appropriate and relevant approach to dreams. Many fine books are available on creative dreaming and active imagination as means of understanding self and world (anima mundi). A few authors found helpful: Henry Corbin, Robert Bosnak, Patricia Garfield, Carlos Castaneda, Gaston Bachelard, Marie-Louise von Franz, and Carl Jung, especially his autobiography and Mysterium Coniunctionis. Joseph Campbell's The Hero with A Thousand Faces was the one book I carried with me to Vietnam. For the shamanic aspect, I recommend Harner's The Way of the Shaman, and Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives compiled by Joan Halifax. Both have excellent bibliographies. The field is wide open, with numerous ways available. It may seem exotic, but shamanism is the root of religious experience, as Mircea Eliade masterfully demonstrates in his groundbreaking Shamanism: Archaic Methods of Ecstasy. Dreams and storytelling are not simply potential "methods" but are catalysts in the revelation of the meaning of our lives.