Re: OT: Conlangea Dreaming

On Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 09:12:17AM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
[snip]
> Not really.  :-(  Closest I've come is the rare dream in Korean instead
> of English.  (My mom tells me I used to speak Korean in my sleep when I
> was younger, so it must've been more frequent then--but I also used to be
> more fluent in Korean relative to my age.)  I've never actually dreamt
> even words in any of the other languages I've been acquainted with.
> English.  Boring.  (On an unrelated note, I do dream in vivid color--the
> only time I can visualize is apparently in my sleep!--and the water is
> never wet.)
"the water is never wet"...? *confused look*

> I have, however, had occasional dreams in which a made-up word is
> central.  I think the last one I remember clearly was some mixed-up
> incomprehensible dream about islands and oceans and "luave," whatever
> that meant; I combed four dictionaries upon waking and still have no idea
> how my brain came up with it.
Heh. I'm probably worse than you... usually, *any* conversation in my
dreams is completely nonsensical and unintelligible, even to myself,
except when I'm dreaming it. I have this tendency to mix up completely
unrelated things in my dreams -- eg., I can be solving a math problem in
order to carry out a conversation, or I can be solving a music composition
issue in order to fix a computer program I'm writing. And no, it doesn't
make any sense whatsoever, so don't ask! :-P

> I'd love to dream in conlang, or come up with conlanging stuff as I fall
> asleep, but I guess I'm too new at this.  I *have* come up with "aha!  so
> *that's* how you do that math proof I was stuck on!" as I was falling asleep.
Happens to me all the time :-)

> I've also composed in my sleep--or at least, come up with pervasive
> melodies, not terribly sophisticated but also not anything I can identify
> as something I heard by someone else (and I have a decent musical
> memory), that even today I could play back, pitch and all.  Alas, unless
> I come up with a *music* conlang that's not of much help.
[snip]

To tell you the truth, I wouldn't mind doing a conlang based on music...
or have a heavily tonal and pitch-accented language with a lot of musical
theory behind it. :-P

But as to composing in my sleep... I've done that, except that after I
wake up, I remember nothing! :-(  Sometimes I can compose the grandest
symphonies in my sleep, but as soon as I try to think about it after I
wake up, it vanishes. For some reason, the act of thinking about it (in
order to write it down) breaks the inspiration. Of course, it's
questionable whether I really *did* compose something grand in my sleep...
it might just be an illusory reflection of my secret hopes :-P


T