Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I believed or thought I was disoriented and the victim of a bizarre dream and I believe I paced in and out of the room and possibly into one of the other rooms. I may have re-examined her, finally believing that this was true.
One of the things I learned, one of the strangest things, is how to think. There was nothing else to do. I couldn't see people, or go for a walk in the forest. All I had was my head and my books, and I thought a lot.
I used to be able to think. My brain's circuits were all connected, and I had spark, a quickness of mind that let me function well in the world.
I have kept journals at different times in my life. And a lot of my early notebooks became places where I would just think on the page, trying to parse what I was feeling, to find out what I was thinking.
I dream a lot, in colour and in sound and scent. Quite a few of my stories have come from dreams.
I thought a lot and I controlled my thoughts in my work - and I controlled my work through my thoughts.
I think it was when I ran into Kerouac and Burroughs - when I was 17 - that I realized I was talking through an empty skull... I wasn't thinking my own thoughts or saying my own thoughts.
I probably revisit in my work the moment at which I realised that dreams couldn't be reality.
For years, I thought I simply didn't dream. I felt left out. Everybody else had a thing I didn't have.
The impulse to dream was slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and I hungered for books, new ways of looking and seeing.