"...[T]ruth is a matter of the imagination."
She wrote that as a commentary on fiction, but it applies to everything we've been talking about. The last few classes have really made me wonder about things. Not necessarily in a new way that hasn't already occurred to me, but in a way that simply furthered what I already believe in... or think I believe in, anyway. Le Guin wrote a book called The Lathe of Heaven, about a man whose dreams directly affected the reality of the entire universe. You should all read it, it's not too long and would probably only take up a day or two of your time.
Personally, I believe in the idea that the reality we all experience from day to day could possibly be an all-encompassing dream by one person, or maybe all of us. How do we know that yesterday it wasn't true that human beings lived underwater, or that dogs could talk? Only because that's what our memories tell us. But how do we know that we can even trust our own memories? Perhaps we're just in a new dream where everything is and always has been the way it is at this moment.
That's all I have to say for now.
I agree. I really enjoy the quote you put up and have thought often times about that same idea: am I really awake or am I dreaming? I think we can't truly trust our memories because they can lie to us. If you just look at a crime scene, there'll be more than one story based on who saw what and what they think happened.
ReplyDeleteI like to imagine that I'm awake and that this right now is as real as I can get. I feel that because this memories and these objects I interact with continuously are sturdy and happen all the time, that this area I'm occupying is the real area I'm in.
That being said, this could all be an elaborate dream.
Memory and reality is not really linked. I have a fun story:
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend grew up in England and Pakistan. He has an elaborate personal history but he is not very talkative. I am really interested in his life's story but he seems to not think that it is to interesting. He only really tells me bits and pieces at a time when ever it is directly pertinent to what we are talking about. I have just kind of connected the dot for myself not even realizing that I have not herd the whole story yet. So one day some one was asking me something about him and i was telling them about him and he walked in and just started listening to what I was saying. Later he asked me why I told them that story about him and that it was not true. I was confused because I thought that it was. He was like no this did not lead directly to that. Apparently being the creative person that I am I had just created a narrative that I thought was his life with out realizing that I was even missing chunks. This made me realize that people want to make sense of things and that we probably often fill in the blanks with out really knowing that we are even doing it. this experience gave me a new perspective on memory and knowledge about events and perception and knowing.