eidola in the dark
Ξ Wednesday, 12 Nov 2008 at 16:49 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Normal |
I’m writing notes on secondary scholarship for my thesis today, as I did yesterday as well. We watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night (which I’d just as soon call Indy 4), and I was overall unimpressed but I thought it was worth seeing at least once. Too much about aliens (although I heard Lucas wanted even more, such as rayguns and shit), and it felt often like The Mummy Returns, well, returned. It wasn’t a waste of time, but it just fell short, and that’s easy to do given the span since the last movie, and up to that which it had to live (thanks Olbermann!).
I’m not writing strictly about any of that right now, though. Last night I had some interesting dreams, only fragments of which I remember, as is typical. I’m always happy when I actually remember what happened in a dream, though, and I think it’s significant if they carry over into my waking mind and the day. It was also a lucid dream as far as I remember, which is the best kind of dream if you ask me.
I was with my sister on some sort of train, which ended up in the middle of nowhere; I can remember the sea nearby and lots of power or utility poles around the area. There were a lot of them, I remember. We somehow ended up in an abandoned mansion, no doubt rundown and decrepit, but I only clearly remember one room of it. We were either going down a hallway, or the room was extremely long… but I suppose a long room ends up being almost a hallway at times.
The part of the floor we were on was a conveyor belt, and we travelled down it first straight then horizontally, changing directions at a corner and travelling along a right angle. I want to say that this place resembled the Haunted Mansion in some ways, although it had a genuinely spooky (and not pretend-spooky) atmosphere. Anna (my sister) was quite scared, alarmed at the very least, but I was calm.
As we went along the conveyor belts to who-knows-where, I gasped as silvery shades appeared alongside the belt, but at times directly in front of me as I went along. Many of them I passed directly through, and part of me was horrified, but another part of me thrilled to be witnessing such a spectacle. The ghosts were almost all children that I saw, and even as I watched in front of me they changed shapes and morphed into different children. One ghost’s hand I grabbed for, and I was shocked to feel substance there instead of air, and the little boy smiled up at me as I clasped his little hand.
The ghosts continued to swirl and swarm in front of us as we went along, changing faces and shapes every second. I wasn’t afraid, though, overall, but happy; I couldn’t say the same for Anna, who looked terrified. After we went along the belts I can’t remember anything, but seeing the ghosts in that disused, abandoned place was very interesting.
I woke up and remembered what I’ve said above, and that was about it of the dream; the rest was lost, or not worth remembering. I told Nicole about it, and I know she’s creeped out by children as ghosts, or dead children, so she frowned at me as I told her. I like having dreams that I remember, especially creepy ones such as this. It’s rare that it happens, but when it does I’m happy.
Forgive me, by the way, for I’ve realised that I was repeating myself somewhat in the last couple of posts — in regards to the ‘dark ambient’ I’ve been listening to. so I’ll not say more, at least not in the same vein as I have been doing.
A couple of nights ago I was trying to get to sleep, and I looked at the corner of the room nearest me and saw a shifting shadow upon the wall. It’s hard to tell in the deep darkness, but it looked like the silhouette of a bug almost. I turned away and continued to try to get to sleep, but I kept looking back at it, thinking it might have been one of the shadow people I’ve heard so much about. It wasn’t, actually: upon closer inspection, I found that the dim green ‘charge’ light that my cellphone gives off was casting a shadow upon my nightstand lamp and projecting it upon the wall. It would have been cool to have a shade in here though.
anyways, I need to get to taking notes for my thesis. I was writing this earlier on, and just came back to it after having some food and watching some TV with Nicole, which was nice. Wishing I didn’t have to work tomorrow, but hey, it’ll get me out of the house and it’ll be good to make some money. We have the “Student Forum” on Saturday morning, too, and it’s one at which I’ll only be spectating this time, which is somewhat of a relief. It’s on invective and blame literature, about which I know very little, so I’d like to watch and learn. I was happy to do my Vergil and Lysistrata papers at the last two forums, though, so I decided to sit this one out.
I’ve been looking at some interesting stuff for my thesis in the last day or so. Apparently there was a Syrian queen named Zenobia who lived around the 3rd century AD, not too far from when Quintus Smyrnaeus was writing in time. I’m going to try to make some sort of connexion between her and Penthesileia, as perhaps an inspiration for his portrayal of Penthesileia in addition to her portrayal in the Aithiopis post-Homeric epic. I’ve found some good stuff so far in the Historia Augusta – the “Augustan History,” written by the collection of scriptores historiae Augustae – “the writers of the Augustan history.” Her name is rendered as either Zenobia or Xenobia (Ζηνοβία or Ξενοβία), which respectively would mean “the might of Zeus” or “the might of a stranger” (Ζηνός βίη or ξεῖνου βίη).
I’d better get back to it and see what I can find.
