In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

Borges once said, "Books are incantations uttered in the dreams."

He said this to me, in a dream; so take it with a grain of salt. Still, even as a figment of my own sleeping mind, when an artist of Borges' stature makes such a pronouncement, I take it seriously.

Dreams are certainly powerful and inscrutable psychic mechanisms of some sort. Think of how "Across the Universe" came to Lennon and "Scrambled Eggs"* to McCartney in dreams. Or the visionary fragment of "Kubla Khan" that Coleridge was able to snatch from a dream. I'm sure the night-mind has spawned countless works of art over the ages.

I've written a lot--entire books, actually-- in the midst of hypnagogic reveries. A vastly different version of Weird Thrills actually came to me in its entirety, pages speeding past my attention like a flip book, while I half-dozed in the grip of a fever. This has been an area of particular interest to me, thoughout my writing "career." Powerpop Comics was, in fact, originally called Hypnogogix.

I think of comics as being uniquely close to the the sub- and/or unconscious mind. I dunno if it's something to do with the right/left brain engagement required, or what. For some reason, the cognitive geography where comics are located seems very close to the region of dreams.

I think the content of comics has always reflected this. You have this improvised gallery of gods and demiurges, tricksters, monsters and grotesqueries of all kinds, seeming sprung fully formed from the collective unconscious. I mean--Superman! What could be more mythic and elemental than that?

I find this landscape peculiarly congenial to my tastes and preoccupations. This is where I stake my own ground, I suppose: in the wild, unmapped landscaped of the human mind as it dissolves itself in mythic reveries.

*I insist upon using the original title for the tune to honor the composer's unconscious intentions. Besides, I think if you really analyze the song, it is about scrambled eggs after all.