I don’t remember the dream very clearly. It was one of my “university” dreams, with the added twist of my father showing up in the Model A – that is happening a lot in my dreams, because of my worry and preoccupation with my dad, lately. In my “university” dreams, I’m at the University (…of Minnesota, …of Pennsylvania, …of Mexico, …of Southern Chile – one of the various universities where I have spent far too much time in my life), and I’m trying to register for a class that either doesn’t exist or is for some bureaucratic reason is inaccessible – pretty common vaguely Kafkaian themes.
My dad showed up, and was giving me unsolicited (and frankly not very useful) advice. Then Michelle showed up, and she was telling me not to study so much. Then I was standing in line for some class registration, except all the other people standing in line were Korean farmers. So, I was beginning to suspect I was in the wrong line, when my father drove by in the Model A – with my aunt Freda and the Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee (assassinated 1979) riding with him – and that somehow confirmed I was in the wrong line.
So I walked off, looking for the right line. And suddenly I was in a lecture hall of the class I had so desperately been wanting to register for. I felt a warm, happy glow of bureaucratic conquest. Professor Lopez (University of Pennsylvania) was lecturing, but he was speaking English, not Spanish, and the topic was philosophy, not 19th century Spanish Literature (although you could see the connection, probably). And he looked around the lecture hall, and looked at me very directly and pointedly.
“Epistemic closure… what is this? What is epistemic closure?” he asked, rhetorically. And continued, “This dream you’re dreaming is an example of epistemic closure.“
And I woke up.
Here’s picture I took from inside the “closet” on the fourth floor at work, yesterday morning.
Is it sad that the best view at work is from inside the closet? Perhaps more importantly, what was I doing in the closet with a camera, anyway? These are deep mysteries of the human mind.
Well, with a view like that, I’d take the camera inside the closet.
What’s Phil doing driving around with folks who are dead? Is that why you’re concerned? Or is the U. just reminding you that no one lasts forever?
Janet,
That’s a thought, as far as interpretation – something like a reminder of mortality?
I was tending toward seeing it as a kind of anxiety marker – he’s with people that were sources of anxiety (in very different, unrelated ways) – either as remote members of my family or iconic historical figures of ambiguous legacy. It’s not a group membership that “fits” my dad – so neither is the anxiety I’m feeling lately about him.
Well, that’s psychoanalytic… anyway. Thanks for your comment! Take care