Dream Eater

Recently I saw the film Wonder Woman, which draws on ancient Greek mythology to depict an intersection of mortal and immortal dimensions in a World War I setting.  Like Wonder Woman, Koi, the main character of this 2017 novel by my daughter’s friend, K. Bird Lincoln, brings super-human powers into the human realm.  And they both pit female power against the male deities that would control them and the rest of humanity.

Unlike Wonder Woman, Koi, a Japanese American, has grown up in the human world of contemporary Portland, Oregon.  She is only partly aware of her paranormal/supernatural/mythological ancestry and lives in fear of human touch, which triggers her power to read people’s dreams. Also, while Wonder Woman invokes Western myth, Dream Eater draws on non-Western sources--Japanese, Middle Eastern and Native American. 

Because of her fear of human touch, Koi has isolated herself, even from her family.  In an effort to build a normal life, despite the continual flashes of other people’s dreams, she begins working toward an accounting degree at Portland Community College.  One day she crosses paths with a Japanese Kitsune (fox) shape-shifter, who, she later learns is on a mission from the mythic “Council” to retrieve her father.  At about the same time, Koi bumps into a professor and reads his dreams of murder.  Later, the professor enlists Koi’s help in translating her family’s obscure Japanese dialect.  Meanwhile, Koi’s sister, Marlin, who has a real job, calls on Koi to take over temporary care of their father, who apparently suffers from Alzheimer’s, so she can get some work done.  It seems the Kitsune, Ken, has experience with elder care, so he offers to help, not revealing his ulterior motive. 

From this point on the narrative resembles an action adventure, which is played out as much in Koi’s body as in external reality.  Her proximity to Ken stirs erotic sensations while the professor arouses fear and horror.  When the professor kidnaps Marlin, Koi and Ken, with Dad in tow, are off on an adventure involving rescue, encounters with such mythological powers as the Middle Eastern Ullikemi and Native American Thunderbird, deception, multiple battles, and eventually Koi’s discovery of her own superhuman powers.  Throughout it all, we vicariously experience Koi’s psychic drama, as well as the physical action.  There is constant turmoil, made all the more chaotic by the ambiguity of just who is good and who is evil, who is the ultimate power and who is the surrogate.

Allegorically speaking, this urban fantasy can be read as a coming of age narrative, in which Koi, innocent of her full power, encounters the evil in the world, discovers her true identity and learns that she can not only read dreams but eat them, that is, take their power into herself, and, if the dreams are evil, she can use that power to fight evil.  In other words, she discovers, not only the evil in the world, but also her own capacity for evil.  The moral allegory is thus no simple tale of good vs. evil, but a complicated interrogation of power, in which good must know evil in order to defeat it. 

The novel is also a budding love story, as, parallel to the action adventure, Koi also battles her increasing attraction to and attachment to Ken.  Her journey of self-discovery becomes a sexual awakening, as well as a lesson in the power of relationships and interdependence, thus overcoming her initial isolation.  And it is not only the relationship with Ken that ultimately breaks through Koi’s isolation, for her primary motive in the action adventure is to rescue her sister and protect her father.  Thus, as her relationship with Ken develops, her family relationships are restored.  She is able to honor both her Japanese Baku (dream eater) father and her human Hawaiian mother, and thus her own hybrid nature.

What is most striking about the novel, besides the blending of non-Western mythological traditions, is, as noted earlier, the way in which so much of the action takes place in Koi’s body and psyche.  Her sensations, including physical cravings for coffee and dark chocolate; distinctive smells, especially spices; powerful images and sounds; erotic attraction; emotional turmoil; and the non-human sensations of dream fragments, dream-eating, and ultimately the wielding of dream power.  Dream-eating is paralleled by human hunger for pizza, burritos, and her father's Bi Bim Bap. All this is conveyed in a language that juxtaposes contemporary vernacular with ancient traditions, just as Koi’s human self is juxtaposed with her mythic self.

At one point Ken makes specific reference to Joseph Campbell and his book The Power of Myth, based on the PBS documentary with Bill Moyers, and its theory of universal patterns that cross the boundaries of culture and society.  Thus, Japanese Baku are paralleled by Morpheus in Western myth, Ojibwe dream catchers, Slavic Nocnitsa, and medieval succubi.  Campbell would argue that universal cross-cultural images and narratives reflect shared human experience and a common human nature. 

With the rise of postmodernism in the later 20^th century, Campbell’s theories fell out of favor.  Postmodernists highlighted difference in human experience, culture, and society, even going so far in some cases as to deny human nature.  Human belief and behavior is individual, arising out of culturally specific influences, distinct social environments, and unique individual experience. 

Rather than reducing this debate to an either-or choice, I prefer a both-and approach.  While cultural, social, and individual differences are significant, they are not necessarily definitive, and it is our shared humanity that enables cross-cultural communication and understanding.  While we are always mired, to some extent, in our own history, experience, and culture, we are capable of transcending, to some extent, those limitations in order, not only to co-exist, but also to participate in a shared human community.

Whatever cultural limitations define Wonder Woman and Dream Eater, they both serve as images, not only of female power, but also of the intersection between the human realm and that of imagination, of history and myth, of time and infinity, society and vision.  They both participate in Joseph Campbell’s universal hero myth of trial and quest.  And they both interrogate, not only female power, but all power, using power-from-within and power-with to defeat power-over.

Dreams, like myth, exist in a borderland between human reality and mysteries beyond human comprehension.  In Dream Eater dreams are the gateway to self-discovery, empowerment, connectedness, and higher consciousness.  Eating becomes a trope for fully participating in both worlds.  As Koi says in the end, "That's what people did, wasn't it?  Eat evil, battle dragons, and then go home and make sushi."  So, as K. Bird says, “Dream without fear…”  And, when back in reality, “…drink coffee without limit."

Breaking the Spell V

In chapters six and seven, Daniel Dennett goes on to speculate on how folk religion developed into organized religion and became institutionalized , or, as he says, “domesticated,” complete with “stewards,” such as shamans, imams, rabbis, clergy, and other leaders who use their power to ensure the perpetuation of belief, religious practices, organizational structures, and, of course, their own positions.  These stewards use fear, deception, the promise of rewards, and organizational hierarchy, as well as, appeals to a Higher Power to maintain their positions and sustain the religion.  Religions act like corporations, developing a “brand,” competing in the “marketplace,” and selling “goods” to their “customers.”  A “God you can talk to,” who offers eternal life, is the ultimate consumer good.

In chapter eight Dennett discusses how “the stewardship of religious ideas creates a powerful phenomenon, belief in belief,” which reinforces the need, even the duty, to believe.  This belief in belief serves to deter rational questioning and disinterested investigation.  One form that it takes is the redefinition of religious terms to make them ever more resistant to empirical doubt.  Thus “God” develops from a supernatural, anthropomorphic being to an abstract concept, a concept, like infinity, which seems compatible with math and science. 

To say that Dennett casts religion in a cynical light would not be too strong a statement.  Repeatedly, often sarcastically, he inveighs against religious insistence on belief in “fictions.” 

As stated in a previous post (Jan., 2014), I continually find myself wondering if Dennett is capable of suspending his disbelief long enough to appreciate the power and, yes, the truth, of imagination.

Can fiction ever tell the truth?  Can religious “fictions,” understood figuratively or symbolically, embody an important truth of human experience?  Just because a story or belief is literally false, does that mean it cannot be true in a larger sense?

In the 18^th century there were a group of literary critics who argued that it was irrational and unrealistic for a play to move freely through time and space.  If a play takes three hours to perform, it should take place in three hours.  Similarly, since a play can only be performed in one place, the action on the stage should occur in one locale.  They also thought the action should be limited to one plot.  Otherwise, the spectators would not be able to suspend their disbelief enough to appreciate the performance.  Shakespeare, of course, broke all these rules of the “three unities,” as they were called.  And Samuel Johnson famously derided these critics, arguing that “the audience is always in its right mind” and can both believe and disbelieve at the same time.  That is, the audience is capable of knowing that a dramatic performance is both imaginary and “true” at the same time. 

Surely, even an atheist can appreciate the power and truth of religious myth.   Let’s take the story of Jesus Christ. 

Most Christians probably consider it to be a unique story, but actually it follows the familiar pattern of a hero/quest myth found in almost all, if not all, cultures: (1) mysterious or miraculous origin, (2) hiding, (3) initiation and divine signs or special powers, (4) preparation, meditation, withdrawal, refusal, (5) trial and quest, (6) death and the scapegoat, (7) descent to underworld, (8) resurrection and rebirth, (9) ascension, apotheosis, atonement.  Not all hero myths contain every element, but all roughly follow the same outline. (See David Leeming's *Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero,* 2nd ed.)

In the case of Jesus Christ, (1) he is born of a virgin, (2) he is born in a kind of “hidden” place, a manger, (3) he shows a maturity beyond his years during his conversation with religious teachers, (4) he spends  forty days and forty nights in the wilderness resisting the temptations of Satan and preparing for his “quest,” (5) he calls his disciples and undertakes his ministry performing miracles and spreading his message, (6) he is crucified and dies as a scapegoat for human sin, (7) he is buried in a tomb, (8) he rises from the dead, and (9) he ascends into heaven and is deified.

So, if we dismiss the story as factually and literally false, on what basis can we affirm its truth value?  For one thing, we can affirm that, regardless of time and place, some individuals seem to acquire special status.  These individuals perform outstanding acts or make noteworthy contributions to their communities.  In turn, their communities elevate them and attribute unusual qualities to them in recognition of their accomplishments.  Hero myths thus represent the enduring human truth that some individuals rise above the rest of us and that the rest of us confer upon them a distinctive standing.  Likewise, these myths embody the truth that, as humans, we seek role models, mentors, and heroes, who inspire and lead us toward our own higher life.

From a psychological perspective, we can also view these myths as representing the universal story of each individual’s life journey.  As we grow, we become conscious of ourselves as having a distinct identity.  We often think of ourselves as having a special calling or mission in life.  We may face threats to our survival; we look for signs of our “destiny” or our unique goals in life; we seek success in one form or another and we prepare ourselves to achieve it; we encounter obstacles and trials that must be overcome in our life’s “quest.”  Not all “heroes” are successful, and we may experience a failed quest, perhaps more than one.  Regardless of success or failure, we must face death, but we take comfort that we will live on after death, even if it is only in the form of the memories of the living or the legacy we leave behind.   Psychologically, our apotheosis is the mark we leave on the world.

Thus, the literally false myth embodies the symbolic truth of our sense of unique identity, our individual life journey, and our shared human experience of trial and quest, success or failure, suffering, death, and the hope, if not the conviction, that our life was significant.

Stripped of its religious meaning, the story of Jesus Christ is the same story that we each live, and that is perhaps one reason the story can resonate powerfully even for an atheist, assuming the atheist has not rejected imagination along with religion.

Breaking the Spell IV

In Chapter Five, “Religion, the Early Days,” of Breaking the Spell (see previous posts Sept.-Nov. 2013), Daniel Dennett continues to speculate on how religion could have evolved from what he calls the “intentional stance” of early humans.  According to Dennett, our ancestors developed an instinctive attribution of agency to “anything complicated that moves” as a survival mechanism.  This instinct, he suggests, over developed into a “Hyperactive Agency Detection Device,” which in turn led to the population of “imaginary agents” (things, animals, and people with special powers).  This hypothesis can explain, not only superstitions, divination, shamanic healers, but also early religions such as animism, totemism, animal deities, etc. (see Nov. 2013 post).

Regardless of whether this is true, it’s a fascinating idea that does make a certain sense.  We also seem to have evolved as a species that is intent on understanding and controlling the world around us.   Not only do we seek explanations for phenomena we don’t understand, but we also seek explanations that are beneficial.

In the case of superstitions, if a repeated act on our part results in either a good or bad outcome more times than not, we may infer a cause and effect relationship.  We repeat the acts that have had a good outcome and avoid those that haven’t.  If our beneficent act doesn't work on occasion, it must be because we aren’t always doing it right or with the right attitude.  Psychological studies have shown that there is a kind of placebo effect to certain superstitions.  The athlete develops a ritualistic behavior before a game in order to ensure a good performance.  His or her belief in the efficacy of the act (or the “lucky charm”) actually does build confidence that contributes to enhanced performance. 

Similarly, as Dennett states, our belief in the healing power of some agent serves as a kind of “health insurance.”  Our belief in the efficacy of the agent actually contributes to our healing.

Or take prayer.  How many of us, in a moment of panic, will utter a prayer to the universe, even if we don’t necessarily believe in a supernatural being who hears us?  Yet it can have a beneficial comforting effect, or reassure us that in a situation over which we have no control, at least we’ve done something!  I know atheists and agnostics who practice prayer, because they benefit from listening to themselves, akin perhaps to keeping a diary or journal.

Another tactic is to use divination, coin tosses, a roll of the dice, astrology, Tarot cards, fortune telling, or some other fictive device to help us make decisions.  I’ve done this myself.  Can’t make up my mind? Toss a coin.  If I’m disappointed in the outcome, then I take the opposite course.  It’s a way to determine my gut feeling when my mind is muddled.

The anthropologist and scholar of myth Claude Levi-Strauss theorizes that mythology serves to resolve contradictions we encounter in human experience, or at least create the illusion of resolution. Confronted with phenomena we don’t understand we seek, not only an explanation, but an explanation that is psychologically and emotionally satisfying. 

In Dennett’s terms, having attributed agency to “something complicated that moves” how do we explain it when the agent ceases to move and appears to lose its agency, in other words, when it dies?  Where does its animating spirit go?  The contradiction between life and death is no doubt the most overwhelming of all and perhaps the one that gives mythology, religion, and the arts their most enduring power.

The universal cycle of myth from creation to apocalypse to resurrection reassures us of life continually reemerging from death, surely as Spring follows Winter.  Religion offers the promise of our survival in spiritual form.  And the arts externalize the deepest dimensions of our lived experience, enabling us to enjoy the illusion of resolution, or, in some cases, to resign ourselves to our fate.

Agnosticism requires us to live with ambiguities and uncertainties, whether we hold out hope for the existence of an unseen spiritual reality or not.  Atheism requires us to accept the absence of such a reality.  Those who hold these beliefs take refuge in their conviction that they are not deceiving themselves, though, for all they KNOW, they may be missing something.

But for many, perhaps most, of us, neither of those alternatives can provide that psychologically and emotionally satisfying explanation for the mysteries of the universe, and certainly not for that ultimate contradiction between life and death. 

Such is the enduring power and appeal of religion.

And even the non-believers may find themselves benefiting from the placebo effect of harmless superstitions, faith in medical treatments, the practice of prayer, decision-making tricks, or that suspension of disbelief, which brings them to real tears in the presence of a powerful fictive illusion.  And do we really want to break those spells?

One wonders if Daniel Dennett has ever experienced the actual life enhancement, restoration, healing effect, or transformation that follows from the fabrications, deceptions, and “imaginary agents” of great art, music, or literature.   And does he really want to break those spells?

Beloved III: The Mythic Message

From a mythic perspective, Sethe, the mother who murders her own child, is the Earth Mother or Great Goddess. She is Mother Nature, who takes the lives of those to whom she has given life. A nursing mother of one child while pregnant with another, Sethe is the ultimate fertility symbol. Having arranged to send her three children ahead to their free grandmother’s house, Sethe escapes slavery on her own, giving birth in a rowboat on the banks of the Ohio River, across which she and her new baby are later ferried, like dead people crossing the River Styx, except they are reborn to freedom among the living instead of being taken to the Underworld.

After 28 days, the length of a moon/menstrual cycle, the slaveholder arrives to take Sethe and her children back to captivity, and the blood flows freely when Sethe cuts her third-born “already crawling” baby with a handsaw before she can be stopped from killing all four of her children.

Sethe’s quest to free herself and her children from slavery thus takes a twisted route, taking her back to captivity in prison for murder. Released after emancipation, she is restored to her family in her mother’s house followed by the ghost of that dead baby, Beloved, which is all Sethe could get carved on her gravestone (in return for ten minutes of sex with the engraver). Her two boys eventually flee the haunted house and her mother dies, leaving Sethe and her now grown born-in-a-boat baby, Denver, alone with the vengeful spirit of Beloved. Having finally achieved physical freedom, Sethe’s quest now becomes a psychological journey of healing and recovery.

Like Sethe, Denver has her own quest to fulfill. Like a mythic hero, she shows early signs of special powers and a special destiny. As an infant in jail with her mother, Sethe claims, “the rats bit everything in there but her.” Upon being asked by a schoolmate if her mother had been in jail for murder, and if she had been with her, Denver temporarily loses her hearing and develops an acute sense of sight. Living in fear of the Terrible Mother, Denver’s hearing is restored when Beloved is resurrected in fleshly form. Denver is the first to recognize who she is.

Having ingested her dead sister’s blood when she nursed at her mother’s bloody breast immediately after the murder, Denver forms a close bond with Beloved, a bond that represents her own psychological attachment to that moment in their personal history. She jealously seeks to protect Beloved from both Sethe and Paul D., Sethe’s lover.

When Sethe submits to Beloved’s power, however, and deteriorates into psychosis, it becomes Denver’s quest to save her mother and their household from the succubus that Beloved has become. She ventures out on her own for the first time, finds work to support herself and her mother, and seeks help from the community, which results in a kind of exorcism ritual conducted by the neighborhood women as Sethe re-enacts the murder but this time directs her rage at the white man instead of her child. This purging of the past that Beloved represents frees both Sethe and Denver from its power. Thus Denver, like a mythic hero, achieves her quest for liberation of both herself and her mother.

Beloved herself plays many mythic roles. She is a ghost, a spirit, familiar, devil, witch, seductress, temptress, femme fatale, succubus, enchantress, sacrificial lamb, both destroyer and redeemer. If Sethe is the Terrible Mother, Beloved is the vengeful child, the memory of the painful past and the legacy of slavery, which must be suffered and purged before the next rebirth and resurrection can occur.

In one scene, during those 28 days of glory when Sethe and all four of her children were together, the family enjoys a treat of wild blackberries “tasting so good and happy that to eat them was like being in church. Just one of the berries and you felt anointed.” If there is a governing deity in the novel, it is nature, which, as in pagan mythology, brings both death and life, pain and pleasure, destruction and triumph, suffering and joy, guilt and redemption, illness and recovery, apocalypse and creation, sacrifice and resurrection.

Just as “anything coming back to life hurts,” so the vitality of nature cannot be separated from loss and suffering, life cannot be separated from death, and good cannot be separated from evil.

The mythic message of Beloved transcends the separations of race, class, gender, and politics to unify us all.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

I wish I knew more about Afghan mythology, literature, and history so that I could place this novel by Khaled Hosseini in the context of its own cultural heritage. The title comes from a poem in praise of Kabul by an Afghan poet I've never read. What struck me in reading the novel was how well it can be related to world mythology and Western literature, of which I do know something.

Structurally, the novel brilliantly interweaves the stories of two Afghan women characters from different generations trying to survive and thrive in a patriarchal, polygamous society torn by civil war and outside invasions, first by the Soviet Union in 1979 and later by the United States in 2001.

The two women's stories begin separately, intersect, then pivot away from each other in a violent murder, which leads to the older woman's execution and the younger one's liberation. At the heart of this divergence is the older woman's self-sacrifice, which re-enacts her own mother's suicide. When Mariam murders the husband that she shares with Laila, as he is beating the younger woman, Laila is freed from an oppressive marriage and reunited with her first love, whose child she has already borne. One story ends in tragedy, the other in renewal and redemption from an oppressive life.

The novel could be read as historical drama or feminist protest, but the theme of human sacrifice connects it to a universally recurring mythological, religious and human story of birth, quest and trial, sacrifice, and renewal. This pattern plays out in the cosmic story of creation, apocalypse, and re-creation; in the divine narrative of birth, mission, sacrifice, death, and resurrection; in the hero myth of youthful possibility, quest, trial, encounter with death, and apotheosis.

In religious traditions, sacrifice is the means of reconnection to divine origins. The cleansing flood restores the original divine purpose, the death of the god renews human history, the hero's sacrifice saves the human community. In A Thousand Splendid Suns Mariam's sacrifice raises her own tragic life to a higher purpose, that of saving Laila and freeing her to a higher life of authentic love, family, and belonging. Just as those thousand splendid suns were made possible by a thousand dark nights.

Similarly, Odysseus must descend into Hades before he can be restored to his home and family, the Shakespearean tragic hero must die before the corruption of his nation can be cleansed, Jane Austen's heroines must suffer loss and rejection before finding romantic fulfillment, Billy Budd's hanging is necessary to maintain the social order, and the American hero must experience deprivation before achieving the American dream.

Sacrifice is the necessary evil out of which springs human fulfillment. To what extent does our individual happiness depend upon the sacrifice of others? To what extent does the happiness of others depend upon our own self-sacrifice?