Word Gates

Gently rising from sleep into the grey morning, I saw what looked like a child's wooden alphabet block set within a frame. The front edge of the block had an ornamental red and green border. A word rather than a single letter was inscribed. I understood that when we could come up with an adequate story or definition for this word, the block will turn, and this will reveal another word requiring description. Each turn of the block would have tumbler effect on other blocks or components of the system.

    I cannot say how many words will come up before the block moves and provides an open portal to what all seekers aspire to know. I do not know whether there is only one block, or many, or an infinite number.
    I know that, behind the frame, the block is not a three-dimensional cube but extends into other dimensions. Despite its apparent wooden solidity, the face it presents may actually be a hologram projected from another reality. As I picture this I see the surface within the frame as one end of a structure, composed of many segments and flashing many colors, that somewhat resembles the Rosicrucian cross, in which the vertical shaft is longer than the arms, although in this case the structure is laid on its back.
   I cannot say the word that first appeared within the frame.
   I can give you two words, but I cannot say where they come up in the sequence:

     TIPU

     KARANDANSKY

   I can also say that at some level of this game, instead of defining unusual words, we are required to come up with the word that fits an unusual definition.
   Many of these words are not in the dictionaries of Earth.
   For example, there is a word that exactly defines the Tail of the Lion phenomenon, as described by Einstein in his famous analogy:

Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size.

   There is also a word that fits the definition "something that is much bigger inside than outside" (and it is not TARDIS, the name of the machine disguised as an old police box in which Dr Who travels).
    Unlike Scrabble players, Dream Word players can't appeal to a dictionary. A rare few among us may have glimpsed something in the Thesaurus of Tulun - from which Einstein appears to have borrowed his description of the Tail of the Lion - but such works are not available when you need to reach across the table. So we must judge words and definitions offered in our Dream Word games by three criteria:

- The LD [Laugh Decibel] Level

- The OU [Outrageously Unexpected] quotient

- Whether they move our blocks

A dream word puzzle on New Year's morning

I find that odd words and phrases in my dreams are often clues to fascinating things if I take time to do the puzzles (and this may take quite a while). In my early morning dreams on New Year's day, I was excited to discover an English translation of a story by a favorite author (Mircea Eliade), typeset but not yet published. Now lucid, I leaned into the dream, trying to retrieve some of the text. I got this:

His colleague had the voracity of a threshing sheave.

I understood that this was reference to a character's sexual appetites. The wording is doubly odd, in English. "Voracity"is an actual English word. Your spellcheck demons will try to substitute "veracity" but that is a different creature entirely. "Voracity" is rarely heard in English, but - as the quality of being voracious - it fits the context beautifully. But "threshing sheave"can't be right, surely. There is a threshing flail. And there are the sheaves of grain that are produced after the threshing is done. Has the translator conjoined two words that aren't meant to be spooning each other? Hmmm. I have learned never to step away from the first version of a word or phrase a dream gives me, however unlikely or resistant to translation it may seem to be. Time to go to the dictionary. I am now reminded that "sheave" (singular) is another good English word. A sheave is a pulley with a grooved wheel for holding a cable or rope (see photo above). The grooved wheel spins inside the frame of the sheave, allowing the rope or cable to move freely and smoothly. A sheave can be used to redirect a cable or rope, lift loads, and transmit power. Not hard to see a potential metaphor here, involving the sexual act, a grade above "screw". Was the author striving for some fresh metaphor here that has not quite managed to make itself at home in English? I may ask Mircea, if he is available..