Seurat, Slightly Surreal
Robert E. Lewis
Tuesday/Wednesday 1/28-29/03
Two part dream, both parts had the feel of being a television program I was
at times watching and at times part of.
First Part: A documentary about a slave ship that traveled from Africa to
Cuba. A replica of the ship has been built, a huge three-hundred-foot wooden
vessel, unusual in that it did not have masts or sails - it was a galley,
rowed by the captured slaves. At the end of the program, a woman host of
the show explained that a volunteer crew were now going to row the ship to
Florida, and there's an aerial shot of this huge ship with dozens of men on
the deck and giant oars. The scene zooms in and now I am standing on the
gunwale near the stern, talking to the woman. We joke a little and she
tries to push me off into the water. I tell her that, if this was
historically accurate, and the navigator or captain fell in the water and
his pocket watch got wet, the ship would be in great danger because they did
not have waterproof pocket watches back then, and an accurate watch was
necessary for navigation.
Second Part: Still set in Cuba, except that it seems to be a typical
American residential neighborhood. The dream has the feel of a TV sitcom: I
am the younger brother of a teenager who is on his school soccer team. It's
Friday evening and the team has a big game on Saturday in Key West, Florida;
some of my brother's teammates have come by the house and told us we can all
get a free ride to Florida on the ship from the documentary in the first
part of the dream.
There's just one problem: our parents have left town for the weekend. And
our parents have just bought a very valuable painting by French
impressionist Georges Seurat; it's a small painting, about two feet square,
but our parents are very proud of it, telling everyone they know about their
acquisition, which is a bit out of place in this middle-class neighborhood.
But the insurance on the painting requires that a family member remain with
the painting at all times. Our parents are gone, so my brother tells me I
will have to stay at home with the painting and can't go with him to Florida
for the soccer game. I am very disappointed.
I look at the insurance contract and discover a loophole: the painting can
be removed from the house "in case of rain," as long as it remains in the
possession of a family member. The weather forecast for the weekend
includes a chance of rain, so I explain to my brother that we can just take
the painting with us to Florida, attend the game and return home and our
parents will never know the difference. He reluctantly agrees, as long as I
am responsible for the painting. He is leaving with his teammates to go to
another's house, and tells me to get ready and get the painting and join
them.
I get ready and leave the house, the painting tucked under my jacket. I don
't have a key for the front door; instead, I have small plastic or cloth bag
filled with something like lead shot or tiny rubber particles, and I push it
against the keyhole - the particles are supposed to flow into the keyhole
and act like a key, and then I can turn it and lock the door. Only it doesn
't seem to be working, though I try again and again. I finally open the
door slightly, try again and am able to get the deadbolt moving, and then I
pull it shut and get it partly locked. I think to myself that it's a good
thing I'm not leaving the painting in the house, since it's not locked very
well.
It is just after dusk when I am leaving the house, and a few doors up the
street a neighbor is having a party. New guests arrive and I can see in the
front door as they enter - the people inside are covered head-to-toe in
brightly colored blinking lights, like Christmas tree lights, as they move
around and dance. I can't see any of the person, just the blinking lights
in brilliant red and blue, and the lights of other people in the room not
directly visible. I think this is very strange and wonder if it is a new
fashion.
Scene shift: I am now with my brother and his soccer team in another part of
town, waiting for a ride to the docks to get on the ship for our trip to
Florida. I still have the painting under my jacket.
=END OF DREAM=
Notes:
The slave ship piece I think was influenced by my seeing a listing for a
television movie the night before about the African slave trade (I didn't
see the movie, just read the listing), but I don't know where the rowing
part came from, and I remember wondering as I was watching it: if the newly
captured slaves rowed the ship from Africa to Cuba, how did the captain get
the ship back to Africa once the slaves were unloaded?
The lock problem comes from a visit last week to a friend's house: the
friend was going to be late arriving and had told me where he kept a key to
the house - only the key wasn't there. The neighborhood in the dream also
looked very much like the neighborhood where my friend lives.
I don't know why I set this obviously American family and neighborhood in
Cuba, except that it ties to the first part of the dream. And I have
absolutely no idea why I was dreaming about the Seurat painting - I only
know vaguely who Seurat was, a French pointillist (sp?) painter of the late
19th century, best known for "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande
Jatte." I think I've seen just one of his paintings, at an exhibition of
impressionist works several months ago.
Interpretations welcome.
--
Robert