On Dream Logic

Writing dreams is tricky, especially if you're trying to capture 'dream logic.'  But what exactly is dream logic anyway?  I was trying to figure this out, when I remembered part of a quote (whose source I don't remember) stating that dreams are completely logical while you're dreaming them and only become illogical when you apply the logic of waking life.  So, if I thought I'd flip that around, and figure out what dream logic was by applying it to waking life.  And that's when I realized that there is no such thing as dream logic, that the entire concept is a misnomer.  'Logic' is rooted in consistency.  Logic doesn't just dictate that 2 + 2 = 4, but that 2 + 2 will always equal 4.  This is not so in dreams.  It's easy to forget that the logic of the waking world is a result of that world.  That is to say, it is consistent because our experiences of it are consistent, and from those experiences we derive logic.  There is no consistency in dreams.   A single dream can contain contradictions, not to mention the contradictions between different dreams.  So what, then is dream logic?   

I think it's first and foremost a sense of credulity.  Within a dream, we may question why or how something is happening, but that it's happening at all, is never questioned.  Perhaps the greatest piece of dream-writing is Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.  Alice questions why and how things happen to her, her changes in size, for example, but she never doubts its possibility.  One incident from the novel that comes to mind is the baby that she rescues from the duchess.  The duchess is filling the house with pepper, and this baby won't stop sneezing.  Alice takes the baby from the house, only to discover that, a ways down the road, it has turned into a pig.  She is surprised that the baby turns into a pig, but she takes it in stride whereas you or I would freak out.  And we'd freak out because it's impossible, because it runs contradictory to everything we know about the universe.  It is, in the simplest sense, illogical.  But, as I mentioned, we derive logic from experience, and we enter each dream, for lack of a less loaded word, in a state of pure innocence, which is to say, zero experience. We derive dream logic from the contents of the dream, and each dream starts from scratch.  Which is all to say that there is no dream logic outside the dream.

Judging More Books by Their Covers

Several months ago, I made a post about the particularly bizarre and awful book covers of Tutis Publishing.  If you thought that was the limit of the company's hilarious ineptitude, well, you know as little about Tutis as Tutis knows about literature.    
     
But literature isn't the only area in which Tutis Publishing is fantastically unknowledgeable.  They also have no understanding of history.  For example, Theodore Roosevelt's book about his experiences in the Spanish American War, The Rough Riders:

Fun Fact: Cuba used to be populated primarily by dwarves

Here, we see Teddy Roosevelt depicted as a pantsless Viking.  If you think that's anachronistic, you may be interested in how they depict Stephen Crane's Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage:   

Sparta was only fighting for City-State rights!  

I guess they got the "red" part right.  Still, it's surprising how many American history novels don't have anything on the cover relating to American history.  How would Europe feel if this happened to them?    

The Renaissance generally refers to a period between the 14th and 17th centuries in Europe.  I have a feeling that Tutis's cover design department (i.e. a hungover intern who speaks only in riddles) simply confused the words "renaissance" and "revolution."  But really, three down, and they haven't even managed to get on the right continent once.  Could it get any worse?

Holy crap!  Did anyone else know cyborgs fought in World War One!?!?   Based on the coloration, I think this actually takes place on Mars.  Not only did Tutis choose a random anachronistic image, but they set it on the wrong planet!  This makes sense, I guess.  If there's one thing they are as clueless about as literature and history, it's geography.  I'd like to introduce Tutis's new travel program, why not visit the marvelous deserts?

When you're done basking in the hot Illinois sun, why not visit New England's House of Parliament?

But now it's time to play our favorite game!  Tutis word-association!  Let's try to follow the reasoning behind each of these covers:     

A Stradivarius is a kind of violin. Violins and guitars have strings.  Sting sounds like green. A guitar with a green filter!

Airplanes!  Explosions!  Texas!!!!

I'm not sure if there's enough clarity of purpose for this to be racist.

Scarlet is red!

The real treasure is magic bicycles that can ride on water.

A hound is a dog.  Dogs are nice.

I can't really blame them for that last one though, because if there's one thing Tutis is as clueless about as literature and history and geography, it's animals.  There's nothing I can say about these next two:   

Goddamnit Tutis!  That's not a horse; that's a stack of poorly photoshopped books on a poorly photoshopped desk next to one of John Tenniel's illustrations from Alice in Wonderland on an entirely separate background.  That looks nothing like a horse!