Reality vs. Dream

Reality vs. Dream

September 14, 2004

> reflection on the two quotes used in the Visual project for The Lathe of Heaven

“Did you ever happen to think, Dr. Haber,” he said, quietly enough but stuttering a little, “that there, there might be other people who dream the way I do? That reality’s being changed out from under us, replaced, renewed, all the time – only we don’t know it? Only the dreamer knows it, and those who know his dream. If that is true, I guess we’re lucky not knowing it. This is confusing enough.” (p.71)

In The Lathe of Heaven, LeGuin does a great job of portraying the world in a very different yet probable situation. It could be that the world is just a canvas that can be altered through the dreams of a seemingly ordinary man. What should we believe? Which world is dream and which world is reality?

People living together generally tend to obtain the same kinds of moral codes and beliefs. In order to steer clear from confusion and fear most societies like to create answers to questions whether they reason using religious beliefs or create their own solution using the government. However when it comes to deeply understanding the concept of reality who should we believe? “A man who saw a miracle would reject his eyes’ witness, if those with him saw nothing” (66). Who should we trust in delivering the only true the answer to this mystery?

In The Lathe of Heaven, LeGuin uses a quote by Victor Hugo to support the acceptance of dreams as a reality in itself,

Sleep is in contact with the possible, which we also call improbably. The world of night is a world –V. Hugo Travailleurs de la Mer (89, LeGuin).

Victor Hugo addresses dreams as a world of the night: it is real and it follows the path of what could be possible, but what we think of in real life as improbable. I support this theory that the dream world is like another reality/world that we should recognize as a large part of our life because it is the world that we live in during the time that we are NOT awake.