'A Dream Within A Dream'

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone? 

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

 

 

- Edgar Allen Poe

"True" Stories

I realised last night that the phrase "based on a true story" - I'd just seen the phrase appear at the beginning of the film 'The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher' - didn't make much sense.

It suggests that a story is either true or false (or, something in between?). "An account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment" was the first definition I found. But all stories exist, they're all true in that respect. Just because we know the events of one story occurred does not make it necessarily a better story than one that did not - as the dichotomy of "true" and "false" would suggest. "False" has the connotation of something being wrong with the subject. This shouldn't be the case.

If anything, an imaginary story has more truth to it, less false details, than a "true" story. In the telling of true stories we aim to recount an event accurately. But this is nearly impossible, especially orally - take a look at how myths change over time, details lost and invented in the telling. There's too many variations of just one myth - the Odyssey, Orpheus' descent, Theseus and the Minotaur - to count.

At least an imaginary story has integrity. It doesn't claim to be true, and because of that, none of its details are inaccurate ("false"), there's no reference point to judge these details as such. Besides, in my weird, nihilistic philosophy, at times I have a paradoxical frame of mind. I take everything as impossible to discern as truth, as real - see my other post on nihilism. But this means that the imaginary holds as much validity as the "true". So, somehow, sometimes, I end up believing in both everything, and nothing.

Weird.