Dream Analysis:

 

Three Dreams From the Novel Slaughterhouse Chile

---

 

 

 

DREAM STORIES FROM THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE

 

                         Eric Lindblom

 

 

     Statement Of Purpose: Three dreams are taken from a novel by Eric Lindblom, Slaughterhouse Chile, which is to be submitted for partial fulfillment of the dissertation requirements at Saybrook Research and Graduate School in San Francisco, California. The purpose of this paper is a.) to describe the dreams and b.) include a statement about each dream from the dreamer (author) for analysis.

 

 

     Task: to determine if the written dreams are believable as dreams as they are fiction rather than reports of actual dreams.

 

     Major Question: Would additions/ corrections to the dream sequences help the flow of the dream stories?

 

 

 

     The Novel:  "This book, Slaughterhouse Chile, is about the military coup in Chile in September of 1973 and of one man, Victor Jara, who tried to bring equality to the society but met and death on the way." (Lindblom, 2000)

 

 

Table Of Contents:

 

I.   Pita's Dream

 

II.  Joan's Dream

 

III. Victor's Dream

 

IV.  Victor's Life Flashing Before His Eyes

 

 

 

 

I. Dream One:

 

 

Pita's Dream:

 

     The first dream was inspired by John Steinbeck in The Grapes Of Wrath. He interpolated "Inner Chapters" into the book. One such chapter was about a tortoise who was trying to cross a road. The description is amazing. The idea of using an animal figure was appealing. The animal selected  for Slaughterhouse Chile, a rat named Pita, was in the witness position on September 11th of 1973 and saw it all (the military coup in Santiago de Chile).

 

      The Set Up Piece: Pita the rat skittered and ran across the wide avenue, known as "The Alameda", in Santiago the morning of the coup. She had decided to visit the State Technical University (Technica) because the streets were so easy to cross due to military barricades. Just prior to the bombing of the Presidential Palace, Pita crossed the avenue and the wide University lawn sniffing the fresh grass. She scratched her tummy and licked her nose.

 

     (The following text is from Slaughterhouse Chile. It begins with the introduction to the dream and proceeds into the dream itself.)

 

     "Pita skittered across the patio and ducked into a hole in the masonry. She was almost safe but not quite. Pita could smell a snake. It never hurts to be careful, she thought. She didn't dare go all the way in the hole all at once. She remained still.

 

     The scream of a jet fighter plane flying too low broke her concentration. She had to go all the way in the hole snake or not. She hesitated.

 

 

     She, next, heard something directly outside the hole; she moved fast. She was ready for attack. The ground rumbled and shuddered from explosions. Pita was having second thoughts about university life. "I didn't know what it was like over here. I guess I do now," she said to herself. "It sounds dangerous." It was a good idea to stay in the hole for a while. Apparently, there was no snake. Pita was exhausted. Safe in the hollow wall, she snuggled. Her eyelids began to droop. She tucked her front paws under her belly fur. She drifted. She slept and was soon dreaming.

 

Pita's Dream:

 

"but the cat

wants only to be a cat."

Pablo Neruda [1]

 

     Pita grew up near railroad tracks of the central train station along Exposicion Street.[2] In her dream, she was there. The dream had a difference. Pita had transformed into a black cat or, perhaps, in the disguise of a cat. She felt the same but looked different. She licked her fur. It felt good. She licked her nose.

 

     She was attracted to something bright on the track. Perhaps it was something to eat: maybe a shiny, sea-lit fish. It wasn't. Instead, a coin lay there squashed by the train. Pita looked at it, decided it was nothing. If you can't eat it, there is no value; she thought. Being someone else, a cat, made no difference. An organ grinder passed beside the track.

 

     Pita's body began to morph back to a rat. She was satisfied to be herself. She was no one else. Quickly, simply, the dream ended and Pita began to wake. She became transparent for a second then returned to being solid.

 

     At first, she thought she was still home near the train station but realized quickly she had crossed the avenue to the University. Maybe it was a mistake, she thought. She chewed a piece of string. She stuck her nose outside the hole and sniffed. Everything seemed O.K."

 

Statement Of The Dreamer:

 

     As a child, I placed coins on the railroad track to be squashed by the train. Then, I'd forget about them. In a sense, Pita is one of the finders of my childhood coins.

 

     I am pleased at the simplicity of the rat: "If you can't eat it, there is no value." The dream is straightforward. The dream is short and to the point as is the rat. Pita turns into a cat but is satisfied being herself. The coin, also, is transformed back into it's primary metal. In a sense, coins are in a disguise because they represent something other than themselves: money. Squashed, they return to being just metal. I like that kind of transformation. Disguise is an issue for me as I, continually, balance my own persona against who I am. The object is that who I present myself to be is who I am. I admire Pita in that she is who she is naturally. I am reminded by a playlet by Firesign Theater where they comment that a dog knows who he is (He is from the Dog star!).

 

     At the point of realization, an organ grinder passes. He is a device to mark an event, a realization (by Pita). The organ grinders in Santiago de Chile are not just the kind who have a box and a monkey. The street organ, in Santiago, is large enough to fill a cart especially made for it. They are very old and very rare now. I was fortunate to see and hear one in the three months I was in Santiago (one in three months time!). The music was very romantic, quite well done and complex. It sounded like old Spanish ballads (corridos) from a bygone age. Hearing it transformed me.

Further, the organ grinder is identified later in the book, Slaughterhouse Chile, as being Frederico Garcia Lorca, Spain's most famous poet. He appears in the book at times of realization, and as the seemingly irrelevant piece of string Pita chews, Frederico appears at equivicocal times as well. (It is as relevant to mark an irrelevant time thus introducing a deconstructionist element.)

 

     Pita chewed a piece of string. I am reminded of a short story by Guy de Maupassant, "The Piece Of String" where a small thing like picking up a piece of string changes the protagonist's life. Not only is the dream a small thing but, also, so is the rat. (A small thing chews a small thing.) I like her comments about University life. She makes an error of attribution, as one could assume a rat could, that the Hunter Hawker jet fighter bomber of the coup is part of the life in a University. In a sense, she is correct! A University is a coup of ideas. (A University is smaller than the ideas it promulgates.) It is like bombs which are relatively small but make a big impact.

 

II. Dream Two: Joan's Dream

 

     The second dream, Chapter Seven in Slaughterhouse Chile, was not inspired by Steinbeck but is a resonation of Pita's dream thus continuing the poetic device. At times, in writing, the sense of it is a lot like "automatic writing" where one is not 100% aware, consciously, from where the material is coming. The protagonist in the second dream is Joan Jara, wife of Victor Jara, and is returning home with Victor after their first date. She is partially drunk on Pisco (Chilean brandy) and falls into a deep sleep. (An interesting question arises as to sleep plus alcohol which is not true sleep. Thereby, is Joan's dream a true dream?)

 

The Set Up Piece:

 

"It's time," Victor said.

"For?" Joan asked.

"It's time to go home. We work tomorrow," Victor said.

"What time is it?" Joan asked.

"Five," Victor said.

"Five in the morning?" Joan asked.

"No, five in the afternoon!" Victor said. Joan laughed. He hailed a taxi. They got into the car. Joan put her head on Victor's shoulder. Victor gave directions.[3]

 

     In seconds, it seemed, Joan was home. "It must be the Piscola," Joan thought. "It changes the nature of time." She looked out the window to the street. Victor waved from the taxi then they sped into the night. He was so quick. Joan's head spun.

 

"How did I get up stairs?" Joan asked herself. "Oh well, it doesn't matter, does it?"

 

     She flopped on the bed and was asleep immediately and dreaming.

 

Joan's Dream:

 

     In the dream, Joan was walking as a child along a railroad track. She was back home in Great Britain. Along the track, she found a coin which had been squashed by a passing tram. It was some kind of commemorative specie showing the head of Robin Hood. Some thought Robin was only a bandit but Joan thought of him as a clever man. She liked bandit stories. Robin, often, disguised himself to elude the military. The authorities seldom realized who he was. To Joan, Robin Hood was a good man who felt he must be disguised.

 

     Joan, sometimes, thought that her profession, dance, depended on disguise. To portray feeling, one must act as if someone else. In reality, there was no character but only the dancer. An audience, often, would see only the character. Technically, it was called 'suspension of disbelief.' Without that willingness, dance would lose communication. There would be artful form but no function.

 

     In the dream, Joan saw Robin Hood as both the dancer and the character. The guise made no difference in the hands of an honest person. He was no one else. The Robin Hood figure melted into Victor standing at Machu Picchu in a poncho. Somehow, especially as often in a dream, both figures were one and the same.

 

     Then, as Joan took another look at the squashed coin, it became reformed and whole again. It was Victor's profile on the coin.

 

     Just as fast as the dream came, it left and Joan sank into deep sleep. As Joan slept, the organist passed in the street. He paused, looked up at Joan's room and started his organ. It was Victor's romantic lullaby: "Luchin." (Lindblom, 2000)

 

Statement Of The Dreamer:

 

     Again, Frederico arrives. In the book, Slaughterhouse Chile, he often looks up to rooms. This time, Luchin, is the song selection. The song is about a very young castaway boy with pleurisy in Santiago whom Victor Jara befriends. (The song is about many lonely children who, essentially, raise themselves: "latchkey children.) Luchin is adopted by a friend of the Jara's, Quena and is raised.

 

     There is a reference to Piscola (Chilean Brandy plus Cola) changing the nature of time. It seems a number of Latin American drinks have possible hallucinogenic properties. In particular, Mescal (Mexico), Guaro (Costa Rica) and Pisco (Chile) seem to have that kind of effect. In any case, the mention creates a slight Transpersonal quality in the dream.

 

     As a child, I placed coins on railroad tracks. I was the one who placed the coins, not the one who found them. Coins have the faces of heroes. Robin Hood is a childhood hero for me. (I should mention that, for a child, squashing a coin improves it not destroys it! It's fun. I think squashed coins have the same childhood value as worms, and frogs. Slimy is good, squashed is good i.e. squishy and squished.) So, in a child's thinking, I placed hero visages on the tracks to get improved through squashing. (The concept, squashing, is a theme in Slaughterhouse Chile.) I imagine many of the coins I placed are still there marking time like some sort of a memory capsule. Many times in life, especially in childhood, I have left something in a place, marked a tree with a heart and our initials, placed a buried treasure somewhere.

 

     The dream is very much a regression (for Joan's character and for me). It IS childhood. In some sense, I see Victor's and Joan's relationship as a child experience. Joan Jara is a very serious ballerina and Victor was more light spirited. He liberated her I think. So often, it seems, relationships between two people are like a ball and chain. It is refreshing to see one which represents liberty and self actualization. The idea of liberation in the face of extreme oppression is profound to me.

 

     It seems natural for a coin image to melt into something else (i.e. Robin Hood to Victor Jara). In the act of being squashed, a coin will transform. In essence, it "melts" due to the physical pressure and resulting raising of the temperature thereby. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow have some comments about the ability to melt in terms of receptivity. "From construing experience in rigid ways which are perceived as external facts, the client moves toward developing changing, loosely held construings of meaning in experience, constructions which are modifiable by each new experience." (Rogers, 1961) Maslow reinforced the concept of true receptivity: "In the fullest experiencing a kind of melting together of the person experiencing with that which is experienced occurs." (Maslow, 1966) That concept, melting, is a theme running through Slaughterhouse Chile.

 

III. Third Dream: Victor's Dream

 

     The third dream, in Chapter Eleven in Slaughterhouse Chile, was not inspired by Steinbeck but is a resonation of both Pita's and Joan's dreams thus continuing the poetic device. The protagonist in the third dream is Victor Jara and is under arrest in Estadio Chile (The Chile Stadium) where he is being d and was, eventually, murdered by the Chilean military on or about September 16, 1973. They shot Victor Jara 44 times in the chest.

 

     The third dream was inspired by a trance state chapter (the scenario of one's life passing before one's eyes) in Slaughterhouse Chile (Chapter Three: "Chimeras")

 

Victor's Dream (starting with the set up piece):

 

     "The night passed at Estadio Chile with even more of the same. Victor was losing track of time. More people were arriving. There was such confusion that Victor could have slipped out of the building but he was concerned there were students inside. So far, he thought he saw several at a distance but it was so dark it was hard to tell. There was such a press of people. Victor estimated 5,000 people. He heard machine guns. He thought he got some sleep though, in this situation, it was only half-sleep really. He half remembered a dream about Lonquen.[4] It was the same one as in the theater at the University. How long ago had that been?

 

The Dream:

 

     The dream had a small difference. He had been walking along the railroad track at the back of the house. Trains didn't come often and it was a pretty safe walk. Kids would put things on the track to get squashed and then forget about them. Victor would look for those. He found a coin once which was squashed flat. He couldn't tell exactly which one it was but, in his dazed state, thought it was Manuel Rodriguez, a hero of history, on the coin.[5] Some thought Rodriguez had disguised himself as a monk to elude his pursuers. When the military came, Rodriguez met them, talked with them and they never knew who he was. To Victor, Rodriguez was like a Zorro figure, a good man in disguise.[6] Victor wondered: why does a man have to be in a disguise to be thought as good?" (Lindblom, 2000)

 

 

Statement By The Dreamer:

 

     I am hyper aware the dream of Victor Jara was interrupted as the guards came to him. He didn't live to see the resolution of his dream. It was interesting to see, though, in re- reading that I had Victor in half-sleep. My image is he was fully asleep. He wasn't. Rather, Victor was remembering a dream from a previous chapter in Slaughterhouse Chile but was changing it as he thought about it as he was in half-sleep during the time of remembering. (In the trance state, Victor Jara wasn't on the railroad track at all but was running for the creek instead.)