Once when I was going through a difficult time, my dad visited me with great concern on his face. He asked me why I hadn’t turned to him for advice and counsel. I told him that he had died 14 years previously and thus was unavailable. I thought he would be taken aback by this news, but he just nodded sagely, holding onto my shoulder the way he always did when I was a youth. When he did that, I couldn’t always tell if he was trying to communicate something telepathically (he was a magician), or if he was just holding me up.
My dad directed plays, so he was practiced at solving problems; he has brought that same attitude to our conversations in my dreams. My mom has visited a few times since she died, but mostly just to check up on me. Mom loved the company of her sons, and she supported us unreservedly, but rarely did she advise us on solving problems or tell us what to do, unless it was to ask for another Schlitz from the refrigerator. We miss her kindness, humor and irreverence.
Most of these visits take place at around 4:00 a.m. Sometimes living people visit me, but more often the dead. My best friend Tito is always 26 when he visits me. When he first started visiting my dreams in 1993, I kept telling him that I would miss him so much. Even asleep, I could not fathom the loss. During our reunions these days, Tito just smiles.
Sometimes the discoveries are startlingly wonderful. My son Jukie sometimes talks to me in my dreams, as he did back at age two. By age three, he was done with words.
You see what stirs my 4:00 a.m. mind: visitation, memory, and whatever inward unrest keeps summoning both. Such visitations make a favorite Emily Dickinson poem feel not only metaphorical, but also diagnostic. The first couple stanzas of Dickinson’s “One Need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted” anticipate ideas that subsequent philosophers, psychologists and neurologists discuss with clients: anxiety, intrusive thoughts, memory loops, and psychological fragmentation.
One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain—has Corridors surpassing
Material Place—
Far safer, of a Midnight—meeting
External Ghost—
Than an Interior—confronting—
That cooler—Host—
Dickinson suggests that interior specters frighten us more than external ones, that we all carry around ghosts in our heads (or in our hearts).
Dana Gioia’s poem “Unsaid” also feels “haunted” to me, especially for those of us who have unfinished manuscripts. His poem concludes with these lines:
What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.
I have often heard Gioia tell the story behind this six-line poem (you can watch him share the story and the poem on YouTube) before reciting it, and its message continues to resonate with me.
Monday morning at 4:00 a.m. I traced these thoughts that you are reading now, imagining metaphors, picking out poems by Dickinson and Gioia. Sometimes I worry, relive regrettable narratives, revisit open loops, remember rejections, and ponder people who have ghosted me. Sometimes I think I hear actual ghosts, the ones Dickinson calls “External Ghosts,” different ones from the arguably interior conversational specters that want to get caught up.
Am I being rude to these visitors when I insist on going back to sleep? They know when I start counting my own deep breaths that the time has come for them to pack up and see themselves out. As a meditator, I have learned to slow my unhelpful obsessions and instead practice calm and composed noticing.
I also engage in cognitive shuffling, or what psychologist Luc Beaudoin calls “serial diverse imagining.” Are you familiar with this practice? I’m grateful to have found it. Instead of chatting with my departed childhood friend or wondering why a friend whom I supported steadfastly inexplicably ghosted me (I hope she’s happy, wherever she is), I start listing neutral nouns that start with the letters found in a random word. For the word “TABLE,” I think of taxicabs, aardvarks, banisters, lighthouses, and elbows. Then I start over with the word ELBOW.
I recognize the cold, necessary cruelty of cognitive shuffling. To get back to sleep, I choose a banister over my father. I prioritize the mental image of a neutral aardvark over the memory of Tito’s smile. This ghost-eviction exercise fills Dickinson’s “corridors” with so much clutter—lighthouses, taxicabs, elbows—that my mind leaves no room for the dead to stand.
During the day we might be reminded of the famous St. Augustine quotation: “The dead are not absent, they are only invisible.” Dreams manifest the invisible. At night, we may welcome visits from the dead, or, necessarily, we may bless them and send them on their way.
Summer has struck Davis even before spring has begun! Please join me tonight for an outdoor pub quiz (or you could sit inside). Come early to reserve a table. The regulars and irregulars will meet for the social event of the week featuring 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with questions on people who return to the arena. Today’s pub quiz comes in at a svelte 928 words, with 9/25 corresponding to the birthdate of Confucius, who said something that every pub quiz regular knows: “Is it not a pleasure, having learned something, to try it out at due intervals?”
In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: local fashions, PCs, Midwest geography, Nobels, health statistics, colonial controversies, successful albums, pitching records, atomic structures, royal meals, foster cares, everyday verbs, keyboard designs, island competitions, Irish notables, kitchen objects, empowered women, returning leaders, late novels, sports returns, calculations, rattled windows, thinking tools, famous singers of yesteryear, classical performances, church songs, Texas heroes, generous cowls, carnivorous comedy, Oscars, third place tallies, desert futures, woven traditions, American folk culture, hive minds, modernist names, notable feminists, nicknames and cities, Italian laws, pop charts, U.S. states, geography, current events, and Shakespeare.
For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.
We are almost to 100 Patreon members now, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Cathy, Christine, Bobby, Esther, James, Damian, Jim, and Meebles! Thanks also to new subscribers Prescott, Bill and Diane, Tamara, Megan, Michael, Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Hello to Bill and to Jude’s dad. Thanks in particular to my paid subscribers on Substack. Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Michael (thanks Michael!), Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.
Best,
Dr. Andy
Three questions from our last pub quiz:
- Books and Authors. Born in 1946, what recently discredited alternative medicine doctor and new age guru wrote the books Quantum Healing and Ageless Body, Timeless Mind?
- Film. What was the subtitle of the most recent Avatar film?
- Youth Culture. Actress Kathryn Hahn recently announced she is officially playing Mother Gothel in the live action version of the most expensive animated feature film ever made. What was the title of this 2010 Disney film?