As a matter of fact, I do remember more of the dream, thanks for asking. But this part is not for the squeamish unless you want nightmares yourself, so be warned. At the farm where they stopped near the very end of the journey (in Washington State, after tramping to New York State and back, and where I arrived in the dream with a feeling of having skimmed parts of the middle of a longish book) were two Farm Boys about the age of the younger two Road Boys. One Farm Boy had two mother hens which laid a certain number of eggs. Farm Boy counted the number which hatched, saying he had to make sure it wasn't an odd one. Sure enough, it was 15 instead of 14 or whatever. He gave the leftover, runt chick to one of the two younger Road Boys, saying he could keep it, but with strict instructions not to let the mother hens see it, because they would attack and kill the odd one out. It wasn't totally clear whether this was supposed to be normal chicken behavior or just for the chickens on that one farm. Well, when oldest Road Boy decided they had to make a run for it, they had to run down a long flight of stone steps on a bare hillside, without much cover, and were spotted by Farm Family who they feared would try to detain or inform on them. So oldest Road Boy yelled at the younger two to create a distraction, they needed to lighten the load and escape at all costs, so one of these two younger boys thrust the chick, which he'd begun to treat as a pet, in front of one of the hens. In the confusion and upset of Farm Family witnessing this hen seizing and shredding the poor chick, (yes, very gory), Road Boys got away, with rather a feeling of having learned more than they might have wished to know about life on a farm.

So I awoke from all this thinking, WHY can't I be more like Robert Louis Stevenson? Did you know that man could not only dream stories he actually wanted to WRITE, but dream them in SEQUENCE? Not here a bit, there a bit, everywhere a bit bit....

Well, I think I've figured the hitchhiking to New York part. The local PBS station shows "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Saturdays. This week they showed an episode which appeared to date from the end of 1966, in which the Mamas and the Papas sang "Creeque Alley," their song about what they did before they met and how they met. It, of course, contains this verse:

When Cass was a sophomore, planned to go to Swathmore
But she changed her mind one day.
Standin' on the turnpike, thumb out to hitchhike,
"Take me to New York right away."

And, of course, the last line of the song is "And California Dreamin' is becomin' a reality," which explains the "extra" leg of the journey to California. I was wondering if the dream would pick up with this (their return to their Washington State hometown, then journey south to California by the same means) but of course I'm no Robert Louis Stevenson, and if I dreamed anything I don't remember it.

Pete:

In your case how could I be but heartless in saying the medicine was not needed or helpful. I know exactly how incensed you felt while reading my comments just for them being somehow connected with your child's situation. I am sorry for that. Tell me if I'm wrong, Celestial, but what we were reffering to is mass over-prescribing of the drugs. It is brought on by many factors most of them by a teacher's conference with the parents where Jimmy has been acting up in class. Now, many factors can cause the boy to be a disruption or uninvolved with his class. That is for the parents to decide what further steps should be taken. The easiest of steps would be, to the uncaring parent, to administer medicine. This is step one, Pete, for many parents. That is why I'm concerned.

On a more personal level, I believe I have the same sort of anxiety disorder that dandelion has. I have first hand experience here. And I know it to be extremely correct to say that too many people are prescribed the same medicine's that I'm taking because they have a particularly bad day. The doctor's basically flip the little start-up packages to these people because for one they do not have time to know the individual involved. For me personally it got to level that I absolutely had to take the medicine. I wanted nothing to do with it. I doubted that it would work. I'm leery of medicine in general. But just to spite me, I believe, the medicine worked It proved to me that the mind is like an entity in itself. A flaw in it worked to debilitate me. For a thing associated with reason, it is the most stubborn ass there is.

Much luck to you, Pete and your child.

[This message has been edited by Ought Not (edited 12-30-2003).]

dandelion:

I just read your dream. How I would like to live in it a while! The poor chick. That was horrible! Unlike the majority of my dreams it had a good narrative quality.

I had no idea Robert Louis Stevenson actually dreamt his stories. And in sequence. That would be nice I hold to my belief that writing out a dream for purposes of solid fiction would be difficult. Do you know of any other writers who use their dreams for fiction?

[This message has been edited by Ought Not (edited 12-30-2003).]

Dandelion,

First, I must say that if you can remember such details of your dreams, the machinery or the medication must be working.

Pete,

Please don't take personal offense at my statement about overmedicating our population or today's youth. Obviously, in some instances, the options simply aren't acceptable.

Ought Not,

You are correct in addressing the parent/teacher pow-wows that dictate many of these prescriptives. If these same kids were challenged to learn in creative ways that stimulated their minds, the medication might sometimes be avoided.

How many of us has walked into an elementary classroom and recognized the same lessons we were taught, being taught the exact same way in which we learned them? School needs to be stimulating and wonderful, or the system has failed. It's a known fact that our kids are smarter and quicker learners than we were. This rant is meant to address the prescribing of a pill to answer to society's inability to progress in accordance with the evolving spirit and mind of mankind.

Ought Not and Celestial,

Absolutely no apologies necessary. Just wanted to make the point that sometimes medication IS the answer.

Dandelion,

I'm sure many of us have been where you are. I know I have. My response to those who think you need to somehow buck up, take it on the chin, just get along etc. and not use your medication as a crutch is: Do they take medication for blood pressure/cholestrol/acid reflux etc.? Do they use a pace maker? Eyeglasses/contacts? Neosporin/band-aids for cuts? If so, why don't they just try to buck up, take it on the chin etc?

Now, back to our regularly scheduled postings.

Pete

Ought Not, what a wonderful compliment! Wanting to live in my dream for a while is one of the best things anyone could say! It was alternately like watching parts of a movie while leafing through pages of a book, just glimpsing a lot of great scenes not all of which had a chance to "play out." Not all my dreams are like this, but once in a while I have a particularly long vivid one. I had one just recently about time travel/trading places with a past person, but it wasn't near as "coherent" as far as narrative flow, so I couldn't/wouldn't attempt to write it down though certain feelings and images in it were vivid.

Only other thing I can offer as insight to a "travel dream" is I spent a LOT of time back and forth on all points of the Yellow Brick Road this fall and winter, as our musical was "The Wizard of Oz." If my dream had been Wiz-inspired, though, you'd think it would have featured FOUR characters traveling!

To get the discussion back to Ray Bradbury (oh, is THAT what we were talking about?) I've been so troubled by this inability of mine to BE Robert Louis Stevenson (or whatever great writer, past or present, I'm using as an example at the time) that a large part of the motivation of my visiting him was to ask him about this very question.

In so many words I told him I feel I have this terrific wealth of stories dammed up (as it were) in my mind (where else?) and something is keeping the machinery from working, but I don't call it "writer's block." (For one thing, he's said there's "no such thing." For another, it's not exactly descriptive of my state.) I also don't call it "lack of ideas." (I "do" have ideas, or parts of them, which I "could" write if I wanted. For some reason I just can't motivate myself to see the "use" in it.)

I'm very sorry, we weren't taping, so I can't give the conversation verbatim, only the gist of what was said. He said something using the term "genius" and I said, "Of COURSE I would not hold myself to your standard, because I would not hold anyone else to your standard either."

(I didn't tell him but this realization was an actual epiphany of mine. A "flashbulb moment" in that I can remember the exact place where it hit me. One day in 1982 I was standing in the hallway of the English Hall at college, where I was taking classes in which we read a lot of great literature, when it struck me that in seven years since beginning to read Bradbury, I'd never found a writer I liked as well, and I was never GOING to. There was a moment of disappointment, as there is when you realize you've reached the top and THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS. But then I thought, hey, what do you expect? I'm cool with that, and just went on.)

Before I'd even finished the above sentence, he said, "No, no, that's not what I mean by genius!" He absolutely rejected the idea of being intellectually superior to anyone else. True genius, he explained, lies in finding your intended subject matter and pursuing it to the best of your ability. He said when you're writing something which is not what you're meant to be writing, your subconscious says, "Hey, dummy, I don't like you," producing the state which has come (incorrectly in his view) to be called "writer's block."

Anyway...and I didn't tell him this, just said thanks for the advice, so on and so forth...if I would have tried to say all this it would have been rambling, I guess...what frustrates me is his apparent ability to take ANY observation of a person, place, situation, or thing and produce a COMPLETE work of fiction, with character, plot, and (shudder, deep breath) theme, and my, at least so far, evident LACK of ability to do so. It's a sort of "Twilight Zone" syndrome--not of finding oneself in a situation which seems bizarre, but of frustration at failing to see the bizarre in the ordinary UNTIL it's pointed out by such great TZ writers as RB!

For years I've hung around people listening to things they say--some of which is quite interesting--thinking, if I were like Garrison Keillor or Thornton Wilder (whoa), this would all be material and I would produce a small town novel which would actually SAY something about the human condition and rival Lake Wobegon, Greentown, and Our Town, but in all these years I've heard plenty of interesting things and not written much about it.

My one published work was very structured. What I did was take all factual material known about certain historical events and write it in fictional form. It's a bigger leap than I imagined to enter an ENTIRELY fictional world, and I've been unable to find, as it says in "Look Homeward, Angel" "a stone, a leaf, a door" to provide entrance to those I'm meant to create. I was hoping Bradbury would give me A CLUE. He did make very insightful observations for me to ponder. I was not at all upset with him for not "slipping me the answer."

So I guess after all these years of somehow failing or being inadequate in the waking world, I've become sort of envious of the time spent in the sleeping world, thinking, hey! I should make this time somehow work for me, y'know? Like, my subconscious should provide the answer or at least a START in the DIRECTION of the answer! Which is perhaps not the proper attitude but it's the habit of thought I've gotten into. (Yes, I do dream about characters from my stories, too.)

In light of the diversity and direction of this string, I feel compelled to share my most favorite Bible verse and perhaps the one that has kept me truly alive and prepared for God's wisdom.


WISDOM FROM THE SPIRIT

"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived what
God has prepared for
those who love him" c___

but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the
deep things of God.
For who among men knows the thoughts
of a man except the man's spirit within him?"

1 Corinthians 2:6


Isn't it just possible that God reaches us through dreams when we stop listening to and seeing the obvious signs. This verse TELLS us

"God has revealed it to US by HIS Spirit."

Dreams and subconscious thoughts are our vast unexplored territory like the deep seas of earth or the infinity of space. Quite possibly it's the only parts that some of us can allow to receive such information sent by God's Spirit.

Others, like Ray, freely receive the messages and are able to share them with those of us that LISTEN to parts of the larger message. Artists, poets, sculptures and others receive and share in their unique way.

There is an interesting series of books about "The Indigo Child" that explains the special gifts that ADDHS possess and how THEY are superior on a spiritual level to other "Normal" kids. Pete, I highly recommend it, though the author's name escapes me for the moment.

And yes, Dandelion, you have proven with your dreams, that all of the above is quite possible.

Boy o' Boy...so much to read here. Will just have to catch-up later.

Tomorrow...it's OFF to Los Angeles...and hear Ray speak at the Planetary Society, in Pasadena, during the landing on Mars this Saturday. NASA. better land this one ...!!

Hope Ray is feeling well! If anything should bring back the whistle and the fun, this should be it! (This time I'm taking a 'digital camera', and see if I can manage to post a few pictures...)

Celestial,

Thanks for the advice.

A quick scan of Amazon.com and my local library confirms your statement. However, another quick scan of these titles leaves me a little doubtful about how they may assist me with my daughter. Her problem was clearly one of being incapapable of focusing for an extended period of time. The "hyper" portion of her ADHD manifested itself more in her brain functions rather than her physical actions. In other words, she appears perfectly calm and quiet while her beautiful brain if firing off in all kinds od directions. The medication has helped her with this whereas none of the other non-medication methods we tried did.

My first impression of these books was that medication should be tried as a last resort. I agree. But once a satisfactory resolution has been found, I'm loathe to attempt other solutions because, well, some people think children shouldn't be medicated. (Granted, medicated with powerful drugs.) Again, I return to my praise of medication in that most parents wouldn't hesitate to treat an infection with an antibiotic yet when it comes to something like ADHD, medication is looked upon as somehow suspect. I've no doubt that some of the techniques described in these books can be helpful. I'm just not sure I want to try to tweak the success we've already achieved. Perhaps I'll change my mind.

Finally, I'm not sure I accept the premise that my wonderful daughter is somehow more spiritual than "normal" children. (I understand that this is the view of these books and not necessarily yours.) She's the best Christian she can be but when her little sister crosses her, look out. I wonder, too, about the wisdom of putting my daughter on any more of a pedestal than I already have. By insisting our children are something that reality cleary proves they aren't - and I'm talking something like a world-class athlete or premier ballerina or the next Einstein, all of which, of course, I believe my daughters are - are we doing them any kind of service?

Thanks for giving me much to think about. I always enjoy your postings.

Pete

I know exactly what you're talking about, dandelion. As of recent it has happened to me, meaning I, like you, have the ideas and motive of what I want to write but it is the stuff in the middle that takes the fervor out of me. I see the beginning and the end, yet I cannot get to the end to write it. You get me?

I did find some quotes concerning Mr Bradbury and dreams.

From http://www.writingschool.com/timperrin/articles/bradbury.htm :

He writes first thing in the morning, just after waking. "I don�t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me." Characters come and speak to him, like the fire chief from Fahrenheit 451 who came to Bradbury one morning recently and said, "You never asked my why I burned books?"....

"Before I got to sleep at night, I may think of what I might be doing the next day, but the important time is the waking-up time, when you are in and out of the subconscious. You post questions and they are answered in that half-dream state.

"When I was finishing my new novel, I put myself on that kind of emotional routine. I made a conscious effort to think about the novel before I went to sleep so that my subconscious would give me answers when I woke up. Then, when I was lying in bed in the morning, I would say: �What was it that I was working on yesterday in the novel? What is the emotional problem today?� I wait for myself to get into an emotional state, not an intellectual state, then jump up and write it." Revision, polish can come later. Now, he wants the guts.

from
http://members.tripod.com/more_couteau/bradbury.htm :

Couteau: Have you had similar experiences with what might be termed non-ego influences on the creative imagination? I mean there are others: drugs or meditation or whatever. Or dreams.

Bradbury: No, dreams don�t work. And I don�t know of anyone that ever wrote anything based on dreams constantly. You may get inspiration once every ten years. But dreams are supposed to function to cure you of some problem that you have, so you leave those alone. That�s a different process. But the morning process when you�re waking up, and you�re half-asleep and half-awake: that�s the perfect time. Because then you�re relaxed and the brain is floating between your ears. It�s not attached. Or getting in the shower first thing in the morning, when your body is totally relaxed and mind is totally relaxed. You�re not thinking; you�re intuiting. And then the little explosions, the little revelations come. Or taking a nap in the afternoon. It�s the same state. But you can�t force things. People try to force things. It�s disastrous. Just leave your mind alone; your intuition knows what it wants to write, so get out of the way.

just wanted to throw in my two cents... i believe, pterran, that the problem with ADHD is not the over-medicating of our children, but the over-diagnosis of ADHD. We have turned to this as a way to control unruly children when all else fails. i have no doubt that ADHD exists, or that it can be a problem for many children, but too many children are being drugged for the wrong reasons. your child sounds like one of the few who actually have the disease.

Food for thought, however. How many of history's greatest artists would have been lost due to over medication? How many of History's greatest minds? Einstein? probably. Van Gogh? Dali? yes, and most undoubtably yes! Sylvia Plath? sure! Jim Morrison? of course! How about Poe? Lovecraft? Bierce? and, god-forbid, Mr. Bradbury? The list is endless...

i do not intend to say that Ritalin, or other ADHD meds for that matter, are a bad thing. i am not sure that one of these children, left unmedicated, would become one of our time's greatest minds/artists. But i do know that had i taken such drugs, i wouldn't have much of the life experiences which compel me to write today. life is a very fragile thing... we need to be careful how we affect it.

Have you read "The Giver," by Lois Lowry? I hereby assign you all to read it.