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Paul Pulls The Trigger

Dreamed 1969/12/16 by Paul Sharits

The context(s) of this dream segment are forgotten; what remains is this image:

'I' shoot myself with a hand pistol but then, thinking 'One shot in the head is undramatic', 'I' start over again, this time pulling the trigger a half dozen times in rapid succession--as if 'I' were watching a film of 'myself' but also feeling as if 'I' were there, in 'myself'. Observing and experiencing, as two levels of 'dream-self' . Another level of 'self' was simultaneously involved--feeling as if I, 'me', the real but sleeping 'Paul' were directing, directly, the dream development.

I felt no pain; I do not know if I 'died' (as the dream went on--but I cannot now remember if I went on in the dream; if 'I' didn't go on, in any of the above senses, how was 'I' locating my perspective to the ongoing dream action? Had I freed myself from subjectivity in dreaming? That is hardly likely; what is more likely is that 'I' (or is 'it' the 'real' I) had shifted to a more remote perspective--I am stunned that this is possible, since my dream life is presumably mine; on the other hand, one often transcends the feeling of selfhood, in conscious life, usually when one is in the action-of-creation; but can 'pure subjectivity' also transcend itself?... ignore itself?

Perhaps I have experienced this no-perspective, no-self before and now I am realizing it only because of the suicidal imagery which preceded that 'state of mind'...

SOURCE: Dreamworks: an Interdisciplinary Quarterly (v.2, no.1, fall 1981, p.51)

EDITOR'S COMMENT

I think Sharits is right to distinguish at least three kinds of self in dreaming: actor, watcher and director. And maybe he had to shoot one facet of himself to clear the way so he could see others (if that's what he's saying in his last sentence above; not too clear). But... Sharits goes on for another full page, all abstract, like his "can 'pure subjectivity' also transcend itself?... ignore itself?" Whatever that means. (But then spacy speculation like this was routine in the 1960s & 70s. All that acid...)

If I dreamed this, I'd be worried. Not just suicide, but violent suicide repeated, more thoroughly & emphatically. And the motive? Not dying to escape physical pain, emotional loss, or a moral dilemma, but purely to wow an audience! The very definition of a drama queen.

I'd feel warned I might be acting, in my real life, as if it were a movie--maximizing drama. With my body, and quite possibly my friends, paying the price.

--Chris Wayan


LISTS AND LINKS: suicide - guns - time-forks and alternate worlds - doubles & alter egos - Wayan dreams of having No "I" - Robert MacNish dreams there are Twenty of Me - more from Dreamworks Quarterly

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