Dream readers and Raven shamans

 

I always scratch my head when I see dream researchers reporting that reading is a rare activity in dreams, or that if you start to read in a dream the text will blur and you won't be able to bring anything away. Perhaps these conclusions are based on the fact that the typical survey group is college kids, who may be less enthusiastic about reading than other sections of the population. Anyway, for as long as I can recall I have read at least as much in dreams as in ordinary reality and this have given me extraordinary leads for my own research, mystery words that prove to be keys to previously unsuspected cultural treasuries, and paragraphs - sometimes pages - of fresh material for my books.

Opening an old journal at random, as I often do., I found an entry from 1996 that put me on the trail of an ancient Hellenic shaman who was reputed to be able to take flight from his own mouth in the form of a raven. Here is my journal entry, edited only for length:

January 28, 1996

Dream Archaeology: Keys from Mantis

I am greatly excited because I have discovered several relief carvings from Mantis, an Egyptian site. Their images were separated in an exhibition or catalog. When brought together, they hold the key to an ancient mystery. Some are fragmentary.
    I go through dictionaries and reference books, working out the connections. I look up meanings for the words Diva (or Deva), Divina and Drostic (“to do with defense of lost causes”). One of the reference books contains verses and a heroic genealogy derived from the Arimaspea.

Waking, I recognize the last reference. The Arimaspea is a lost epic poem attributed to Aristeas of Proconnesus. It describes a people of the north, the Arimaspi, who live in mountains that may be the Carpathians and battled with griffins for access to gold. We know the work through fragments preserved by Herodotus, who says that Aristeas journeyed to fierce northern peoples, “possessed by Apollo”.

 Aristeas was a Greek shaman, living on an island near modern Istanbul, who projected a second body from his mouth in the form of a raven, and was credited with the power of bilocation. I own a book about him by an English classical scholar.

Aristeas was said to have dropped down dead in a fuller’s shop in Proconnesus, on the Sea of Marmara. At the same time, he was seen alive and well at Cyzicus, four hours away by boat, on the mainland. When the news reaches his town, his body – already prepared for burial – is found to have disappeared. 

 In book IV of  the Histories, Herodotus reported of "the birthplace of Aristeas, the poet who sung of these things", 

I will now relate a tale which I heard concerning him both at Proconnesus and at Cyzicus. Aristeas, they said, who belonged to one of the noblest families in the island, had entered one day into a fuller's shop, when he suddenly dropped down dead. Hereupon the fuller shut up his shop, and went to tell Aristeas' kindred what had happened. The report of the death had just spread through the town, when a certain Cyzicenian, lately arrived from Artaca, contradicted the rumor, affirming that he had met Aristeas on his road to Cyzicus, and had spoken with him. This man, therefore, strenuously denied the rumor; the relations, however, proceeded to the fuller's shop with all things necessary for the funeral, intending to carry the body away. But on the shop being opened, no Aristeas was found, either dead or alive. Seven years afterwards he reappeared, they told me, in Proconnesus, and wrote the poem called by the Greeks The Arimaspeia, after which he disappeared a second time. This is the tale current in the two cities above-mentioned. [trans. George Rawlinson]

Two centuries after his death, Aristeas appeared in Metapontum in southern Italy. He commanded that a statue of himself be set up and a new altar dedicated to Apollo, declaring that since his death he had been travelling with Apollo in the form of a sacred raven.

Other details from the dream remain obscure or mysterious. Mantis is a familiar word. In Greek, a mantis is "one who divines, a seer, prophet,"(from mainesthai "be inspired," related to menos "passion, spirit"). But does this correspond to a site in Egypt? Seventeen years after I journaled my report, I have not found confirmation of the meaning of "drostic" (not drastic) that was given in the dream. 

Illustration: "From the Mouth of Aristeas" by Robert Moss

Bookish clues to creative life

In Manhattan, I enter a rare bookshop. It’s an unusual step; I know such places are likely to be blindingly expensive. On a large table, I see a book devoted to Yeats. It seems to be a handsome version of a scrapbook or album, with many pictures and excerpts, including sections of manuscript, on each of the heavy stock, creamy pages. I doubt that it has new content, but I’m attracted by its beauty. I look at the penciled price. $610. Too rich for my blood.
    A store assistant leans over and says, “It was last sold for $210.” I’m surprised he would confess to the huge markup. Then he says, “I could let you have it for $150.”
    “Really!”
    “We get large consignments, usually from estates, and we have to keep the stock moving. Otherwise we have to let books go, and they just revert to paper.”
     I agree that I’ll buy the Yeats album for $150. I notice that there seems to be a second copy underneath.
    “Hold it for me for now.”
    “Are you looking for something else?”
    “Aubrey de Sélincourt.” I name the writer without hesitation.
    The store assistant makes a quick search and returns with a book with a yellow dust jacket without illustrations. It looks like an old scholarly edition. I glance at the list of contents. Each part of the book has a title involving a Greek word; part 3 or 4 is titled KTISIS, or KTHISIAS. The work seems rather rarefied, philosophy or theology. I’m not sure it’s what I want.
     I explain to the store assistant that I am interested in de Sélincourt as a writer who managed to enter the heart of the Ottoman empire, at its foundation.

Feelings: I woke from this dream this morning curious, intrigued

Reality check: I was in Manhattan yesterday. I know rare bookshops of this type in the city, and usually give them a wide berth. I love Yeats, and write in depth about our relationship in The Dreamer's Book of the Dead and The Boy Who Died and Came Back. I would probably buy a Yeats album like that, at the reduced price.
     I know Aubrey de Sélincourt as the translator of Herodotus, whose Histories describe the sweep of peoples across Anatolia, later the heartland of the Ottoman empire. I see that de Sélincourt wrote two dozen books. The son of the owner of the Swan & Edgar department store, he was an Oxford classics scholar, an athlete and yachtsman. He was an officer at Gallipoli, later a pilot for the Royal Air Force, shot down by the crack German aviator Voss and held as a POW for the last part of World War I.
    A little research suggests that ktisis means creation in the sense of founding from nothing, from Homer to the New Testament.
    I have read a little about Ottoman dreams, and have taught Active Dreaming in Turkey.
    As for books that "revert to paper" unless acquired - ah, well, I think of all my unfinished or abandoned drafts of books and stories from several decades, including a novella involving Yeats.

My intention last night was for insight into defining my present creative life purpose…

Action: Look again at de Sélincourt’s translation of Herodotus, and at his book The World of Herodotus. Venture in to one of those rare bookshops in Manhattan on a future visit. Accept the assignment of life creation. Stick my head back inside the dream, if I can, and bring back more of the book with the difficult Greek terms.

Bumper sticker: My creative purpose involves books of rare quality.