The Mental Wasteland

Eliot’s ‘Wasteland’

A state of mind

For this modern man

When thoughts lead me down a labyrinth

When emotions set sail on dark course

Then I am in the Wasteland

Chemically and neuronally

So that the ‘Presence of God’

Has left my side

(I might have been a child in ‘His’ garden)

Here in the Wasteland

Cogs and spring lie at my feet

Remnants of that which unwove a rainbow

Nailed up here and there

Written on planks of wood

Are laws and statutes

Decreed from On High

(The ivory tower or the mountain)

You may peruse them at your leisure

(But expect no answers here

To slake your weary thirst)

‘I myself am Heaven and Hell’

Said the Sufi

(I say that Heaven is to think no more of Hell

And Hell is to think always of Heaven)

In the wasteland

Great millwheels turn

Sluiced through

By many a stream

Of foetid, brackish water

Ceaselessly turning

Yet yielding no wheat

As I walk

I perceive great scars

Riven ‘cross the ground

(The divided self)

Some are so wide

That you could be lost in them

(Though might a healing balm one day be dropped

From Heaven to seal the breach?)

The Anima is seen through a mirror

Inflected in a hundred guises

(Where she walks

The dry shrubs burst into flame)

Here is a door which has no lock

And may admit no key

You try to peer over the horizon

For sight of the promised land

But the Wasteland borders nothing

And in walking you get nowhere

Morpheus

Morpheus was the name of the ancient Greek god of dreams (literally the ‘Shaper of dreams’). From his name is derived that of Morphine, the famous analgesic. Prosaically, I use the word as the title of a playlist in iTunes. In it I keep all those ambient tracks which lack percussion or startlingly loud noises – those, essentially, that are suitable for drifting off to.

Hypnangogic

In the last few years I have become a habitual napper, and the practise of drifting off to music (‘Morpheus’, I’m simply calling it) is a favourite pastime of mine. Though I do not now consider myself depressed, I still have the tendency of depressives to seek sleep as a way of temporarily escaping the world. Throughout the course of even a good day my soul is prone to falling weary, and I frequently cannot resist the temptation to go ‘offline’. ‘Morpheus’, further, enriches the ‘hypnagogic’ experience between waking and sleeping, frequently associated with spontaneous image forming and semi dreams. Unfortunately, a really satisfactory experience is rare, as the slide into full unconsciousness is often so precipitous that this state is simply bypassed.

Transition point

Once, when I was in Religious Studies class at school, we were given the task of depicting the ‘Inner World’. Most of my classmates did a split comparison between the ‘Inner’ and ‘Outer’ worlds; the former was infrequently depicted as stereotypical unspoilt countryside, while the latter tended to represent industrialized civilisation. (Well, I guess they had good instincts.) However, it prides me to say that my response was somewhat different – in that I simply presented the inner world by itself in a circle, as one that was both good and bad (the world of the psyche, essentially). On one side of the circle a short flight of steps led in and down. It is these steps that have become the token image for me of the transition point between normal waking consciousness and the hypnagogic, a point of which I am always very sensible nowadays.

An Ending (Ascent)

The principle function of music that I find in this context is to act as a source of inspiration for conjuring a semi-narrative series of images, like that of a music video. One such experience that delighted and impressed itself upon to me was that spent listening to ‘An Ending (Ascent)’ by Brian Eno:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMXaE9NtQgg

The subtle shade of emotion present in this exquisite track (from an album of music originally recorded for a documentary about the Apollo moon missions) falls shy of melancholia or sadness, but instead seems to simply pay tribute to transience. The scene that it conjured for me was that of a pastel twilight on an alien planet; a lightly forested landscape of little peaks riven by plunging gorges. Constructed at, or even across, the point of one of these – and possibly with a small waterfall running underneath – is a large but simple dwelling place. In a portico behind one of the outlying walls are to be found at this moment the alien family who live there (not so very alien – think something like the Na'vi in the film ‘Avatar’). It is the eve of the day on which one of the eldest children, a daughter, will leave the familial home for a career of study at some prestigious academic institution, possibly off-world. The family members are all aware of the fact that a stage of their life together is ending and are marking the sombre occasion with a affirmation of their love for one another. Because of the more than human closeness that these aliens feel towards members of their kin, or simply because of their gravity and gentleness, the whole family – maybe even with their pet equivalent of a dog – are gathered together into a general embrace, where they have remained for untold minutes, possibly even hours.

(Those, incidentally, who are familiar with my views and tastes may be surprised at my happily entertaining such a vision of extreme family closeness. Maybe it is a reflection of my hidden Cancerian nature, which one website describes as “fundamentally conservative and home-loving, appreciating the nest-like quality of a secure base.”)

My review of Tangerine Dream’s album ‘Phaedra’ represents the culling together of similar visions (although in each case far less warm and soft). I also intend to post a similar account in respect of their follow-up album ‘Rubycon’. Indeed, it was my appreciation of their work (specifically that of their seminal period in the 1970s) that led me to formulate the practise of Morpheus in the first place: no other ambient group that I know takes one on such a journey as these German pioneers.

Notwithstanding the fact that I am perfectly capable of imagining visual accompaniments to music with two eyes open, the hypnagogic state affords a more fertile, expansive and above all delectable means of doing this. However, there is another aspect of Morpheus, which I sometimes experience as I edges closer towards sleep, that is truly peculiar to this way of listening to music. Thus it may be that the music starts to tell a tale in which definite characters and events are wholly absent; only the bare moral or emotional bones are present, with no need of the flesh that normally clothes them. Such an experience is beyond the ken of my normal consciousness at least, and it occasionally breaks through in perplexity and ruins the spell. I did fancy that it must be some particular genius of Tangerine Dream to effect this kind of experience, but it is clear to me now that the answer lies with the particular psychic state rather than the music itself.

Super experience

Beyond what I have described heretofore, there exists a qualitatively different variant of the experience of Morpheus – one that I have only ever been fortunate enough to experience very rarely. It is indeed curious that something as prosaic as dozing on the bus while listening to a personal stereo may in fact constitute a truly sublime experience. I fancy (without understanding quite why) that it is the sense of motion experienced on this form of transport – such as would not be experienced on a train or plane, nor in such comfort in a car – that is instrumental to this. The resulting sensation can be absolutely heavenly – comparable, indeed, to the best drug experiences (and better still for being completely ‘self-owned’). I remain ecstatically alert during the experience – much more acutely so than in what I have described above – and yet my sense of self is blissfully absent. My subconscious may therefore project in a wholly unfettered manner on to whatever music happens to be on the stereo at the time, which is I invariably feel to be wondrous.

Curious dream

Account of a dream I had several weeks ago

The dream is a long, rambling one. My recollection of it picks up while I am inside some kind of computer game set in an urban neighbourhood. In the game you play a superhero, but instead of performing the usual superhero feats you instead collaborate with other players and in game characters in fairly low key ways to police the neighbourhood against villains. I play Tarzan (who is evidently counted as a superhero for the purposes of the game). While this is going on (there being no break between game and ‘real life’), I have on my conscience the fact that my family have managed to misplace a sort of pet, and the burden has been laid upon me to find it. The creature is like a large eel, but if it has a body then it has been bunched into the cavity of its head (the reason being that it has been imprisoned in a globe of liquid big enough for the head alone). To make matters worse, despite its fishy appearance there is some doubt as to whether it is able to breathe in water at all. When I finally find it – in a drawer or behind a curtain – I know it has been there for days. Set close by there is a huge bowl of cloudy liquid in excess of a metre high and positioned on some kind of pedestal. I have by now freed the creature from its prison and set it on the surface of the water. Now it definitely only consists of a head and gills, but ironically it turns out to be an air-breather after all. I watch in some horror as the creature gasps and gulps air on the water’s surface. I marvel that it is still alive at all, but the spell is short-lived and it expires. It disintegrates almost instantly into the liquid, making it cloudier still. I manage to overlook the horrible event, however, by considering the globe itself and thinking how cool it would be if I were to purchase a smaller version and set up a diorama of miniatures inside. My friend Chris has joined me by this point, and he hints that I should even think about buying the big globe itself.

Now the dream changes gear, as Chris and I start rampaging around what appears to be a medley of Edinburgh and an imaginary North American city. Chris is on a bicycle and I am running, but we fairly fly up hills and hurtle round corners, upsetting many a pedestrian (about which I feel only slightly guilty). Intermittently we have to evade huge machines, which some malign intent has set in motion to destroy certain zones of the city. Later we pass through a serene area of lofty concrete architecture, with great connecting arches that range over our heads. I declare it to be ‘beautiful’ and ‘comforting’, somewhat to Chris’ amusement and bemusement. Afterwards, and still high up, we come abruptly, and incongruously, to a shoreline. Our mutual friends Simon and Gordon, besides others, have joined us by now. I stand by to watch as they all plunge recklessly into the sea, bordered as it is by huge blocks of rough concrete.

No one seems hurt. We are just retreating from the water’s edge through a cavernous stone tunnel, however, when a harsh voice instructs us to stop where we are and put our hands on our heads. We pause on a bridge as a group of gun-toting, black-clad policeman catch up with us. Although I believe at first that they are simply apprehending us ober the aforementioned ‘rampaging’, I am gripped by icy fear as the leading cop informs us that we have been charged with the murder of a fellow policeman. Smugly he asks us how we feel about dying; with some effort I control my horror and fear. He goes on to say that only one of us is to be charged with the actual murder and executed; the rest are ‘accomplices’ and, he hints darkly, will not be welcome in America again. Despite the seemingly foregone verdict, the policeman informs us the trial will last somewhere in the region of six weeks. Somebody explains that we are on holiday here for only a week; the policeman deliberately does not respond, so irrelevant is this fact evidently. We are still on tenterhooks regarding the identity of the murderer, but the police produce some rather clear underwater footage of Chris using a harpoon gun to shoot a policeman, who was in the act of menacing a girl in our party.

We are left to ponder our fate. I comfort Chris as his parents phone, at what has turned out to be just the wrong time, to tell him that they are back from holiday. With some difficulty he relays a significantly modified account of what has just happened. The picture is grim, but several things lead me to think that our story will have a happy outcome and that Chris and the rest of us will emerge victorious. Firstly, it now seems apparent that we are definitely in some kind of US crime drama. Although not usually associated with the genre, the dinosaurs and sea monsters that dwell on the coast – signifiers of good and wholesome nature – are outraged at our fate. Also, a figure twenty imposed on the ‘screen’ tells me that we are only twenty percent of the way through the story (it would be far too much of a ‘downer’ for the protagonists to be convicted one fifth of the way through only to be definitely sentenced at the end).

Chris is to be taken into custody and the rest of us each have to stump up bail money for ourselves. Amidst the curious architecture of this city, we are now standing on a large balcony at the top of an encircling flight of stairs, like that of an opulent hotel. A fresh detachment of police arrive and inform us that our bail will be eighteen dollars each – a fee which we will have to pay everyday as long as the case is ongoing. As I give my money to a helmeted police officer, he makes some fatuous taunts towards me. I respond by saying that his “comments are irrelevant”, and instruct him to hand over my parole pass straightaway (I can tell by the ensuing atmosphere that I have gained a small victory here).

Finally, Matt Smith [the actor who plays the current Doctor Who] appears at the top of the staircase, ahead of yet another detachment of sinister black-clad figures now occupying the substantial balcony one flight below opposite us. For the moment at any rate I am relieved to find anyone British in authority even if they are, as seems to be the case, in league with the detestable US police. The new arrivals represent an obvious cross section of some secret society of wicked ‘elves’ from the UK. Their leader, sprawled on a bed, is a curious fusion of patriarch and matriarch: bearded, but with breasts and a mermaid’s tail. What the elves have to with situation, beyond an evidently sinister intent, is unclear and unfortunately unrevealed as my recollection of the dream ends here.

Review of Tangerine Dream's 'Phaedra'

Phaedra (1974)

1) Phaedra (16:45)
2) Mysterious Semblance At The Strand of Nightmares (10:35)
3) Movements of a Visionary (7:55)
4) Sequent ‘C’ (2:17)

Along with both sides of the follow-up album, 'Rubycon', Phaedra's title track is Tangerine Dream at their standout best – before the insistent melodies and, later, beats became their stock-in trade. The salient features of their best works are the incredibly evocative washes of amorphous sound, the odd semi-melody played on the melllotron by lead member Edgar Froese, and the hypnotic pulse of Chris Franke's mutating `Berlin School' synthesizer lines. My own listening tastes where such music is involved are for literally drifting off in bed: I shut my eyes and picture a visual accompaniment in my head.

While the remaining three tracks on the album merely serve as an adjunct in the context there is a definite consistency of tone to this short album. Overridingly it is cold and sparse (whereas Rubycon is largely lush and warm). Turning to the individual tracks themselves, there seems to be much praise for `Mysterious Semblance At The Strand of Nightmares' in other reviews I have read, but for me it does not live up to the promise of its intriguing title and is the weak point of the album. It seems to be principally a Froese work, and consists essentially of a single mellotron line accompanied by slow whooshing noises; which is all well and good, but doesn’t go anywhere! Essentially, it’s not strong or varied enough to be successfully sustained over ten minutes.

`Movements of a Visionary' is more satisfying, with the reappearance of the pulsing synthesizers. Many of these are highly evocative of the quasi-elastic motion of water surfaces. My favoured vision for this track is therefore that of a floating clump of seaweed seen from below as it bobs in sun-flecked water. (Such flotsam can become a temporary haven for fish in open water.) In counterpoint, Froese's work on the mellotron suggests fiery lights, perceived dimly, emanating as from some mystic forge.

‘Sequent ‘C’’ is again a very simple track, consisting of few interweaving flute lines, which have been processed in a way that could best be described as ‘ethereal’. Unfortunately it is also exceptionally short for a TD track of this period; it seems to have so much more going for it than prolonged and unremarkable ‘Mysterious Semblance’. The image it invariably brings to my mind is that of a decimated woodland landscape, blurred and instinct, as if shrouded in an almost tangible fog. The unvarying colour is turquoise faded to grey, with all hues drained out of it: mournful, lost. Like the rest of the album, there is a powerful sense of fantasy here. For those who have seen Lucio Fulci's ‘From Beyond’, I also like to imagine that this would make the perfect accompaniment to its denouement scene of fossilised corpses half fused into another desolate and mist-shrouded landscape (though the rocky soundtrack also works in its own special way).

And so to the title track: it seems to matter not that Phaedra is a character of Greek legend (locating her in much warmer climes than the eponymous track or any other on the album bring to mind). The ‘Ph’ of the title recalls ‘phantom’ and ‘phantasmagoria’, and Phaedra sounds like ‘hydra’, the microscopic tentacular, water-dwelling creature . . .

. . . named after the many-headed water serpent, also of Greek legend.

The track is a rich source of evocation and like all best ambient tracks in my opinion takes us on a ‘journey’, best experienced while in a semi-dozing state. Fading in, the opening segment genuinely brings to my mind the process of condensation, as a mist of water on a pane becomes voluptuous globules. Very swiftly the scene shifts to that of a great lake in a crystalline mountain cavern. The pearly liquid is undulating with its own weird motion . . .

(my photo, 'Glass Water')

. . . and the whole scene is illumined by the clear white light put forth by the cavern walls themselves. (As a side note, I love the sense of unreality one gets in computer games, or say the kids show ‘Knightmare’, when underground scenes are illuminated without there being any light source present.)

Three and a half minutes in, a sinewy half melody of combined mellotron and synthesizer swoops veeringly into the piece, like a seam in rock or a twisting line of luminescence. Thereafter we return to the water’s surface, where the atmosphere grows steadily more aggravated and claustrophobic. When at last the frantic synthesizers expire, the piece hovers for a while in an icy void. A few icicle-like stabs are heard, before presently a new scene resolves. This is much like that which I described for ‘Sequent C’: alpine, but desolate – a cold and lonely world beset, this time, by strange, semi-earthly calls. Finally, another swooping, semi tuneful, yet more magisterial line is introduced to conclude the piece.

Body Horror Dream Films

The old title of this blog. It proved too narrow for me to have much ongoing success with: there are only so many recollectible dreams inspired by horror films that one person can have (even someone who at times goes by the title 'Dark Mystic'). The following, however, provides a guide to the previous posts.

Body Horror?
Body Horror is a loose sub-genre of mostly late 70s and 80s horror films, in which the horror in question lies in the fantastic and frequently surreal morphing, or else violation, of the body. See Body Horror, the genre (posted Sunday, 29 August 2010) for a slightly more detailed overview.

Dream Films?
This blog is intended primarily to be a record of my dreams with a body horror theme. The majority of these are typical of a particular kind of dream of mine in which I find myself 'watching' scenes from a film. I do not dream that I am sitting in the cinema or in front of a TV: the film is the dream, but I only experience it vicariously. Usually the 'dream-film' will be a version of a real-life film but, if not, it will tend to resemble a mishmash of other films. Those dream-films which feature body horror elements need not be based on real-life films of the genre, but may instead incorporate grotesque elements from elsewhere. Where there are specific visual influences I will show them next to the post. I also intend to include my musings on the subjects of dreams and horror, reviews of Body Horror films and other tangentially related subjects. Each post has a 'Severity' rating to reflect how gross and disturbing I think its contents are!

Early story (Severity **)

Proving that I had a taste for body horror even as a pre-teen, here is a short (unfinished) story from when I was that age.  It is simply titled ‘Nightmare’.

There was something very odd about my dad.  Every night, after supper, he went down to the old cellar, and never allowed me or my mum to come and see what he was doing.

One night, he rushed downstairs to the cellar.  A moment later, he dashed back up again.  “Where’s your rabbit?” said my dad hastily.

“He’s up in my bedroom,” I said, “but what do you want him for?”

“He’s the last ingredient for my experiment,” shouted my dad.  Puzzled, I and my mum followed him.  We saw him pick up my rabbit.

“You can’t take him,” I said.

“Oh yes I can,” he said, running back down to the cellar.

I was determined to find out what he was doing, and I sprinted down after him.  I turned the handle – and saw that it was a huge laboratory.  Tubes and containers filled the room, and bloody limbs, heads and legs lay strewn on the floor.

“You’re not allowed in here!” thundered my dad.

I stood my ground, and said firmly, “where is my rabbit?”

“He’s here,” said my dad, holding up a blob of foul red ooze; a rabbit’s head was just visible underneath the disgusting stuff.

“You can’t do that!” I shouted.

“I can,” he said calmly.  “It’s simple – all you need is a jellyfish, a rabbit, and blood.”

I was about to go insane; but I decided to hide behind a table to watch him.  My dad flung my now hideous rabbit into a machine.  It whirred for a moment

Seriously dark dream (Severity *****)

This is the most unpleasant dream-film I have ever experienced.  I never fail to enjoy the memory of my visions, but this one genuinely stunned me.  I had it while napping one early afternoon about a year ago, just after watching scenes from the early Eighties horror film The Keep (1) on YouTube.  The Keep has the interesting premise of having a bunch of Nazis encounter a manifestation of ultimate evil – a demon, imprisoned in the Romanian keep of the title which they are occupying.  The dream was only partially influenced by this film, however; it seemed to have more to do with the 80s sci-fi adventure Salute of the Jugger, which I had also watched recently at that time.  Salute of the Jugger (2) is set in a post apocalyptic desert world, in which teams of warriors known as ‘Juggers’ battle for goods and prestige by playing games of what is essentially a debased and highly violent version of American football.  The dream was also heavily resonant of that most downright bizarre of body horror movies Society (3).  In its final act our hero discovers that his entire life as an LA rich kid has been a build up to becoming something worse than a meal for the shape shifting moneyed classes of Beverly Hills.

~

The VHS box art for the film is misleading.  It correctly locates the film in the desert, but the presence of a giant warrior robot on the cover is at best only partially accurate.   The story concerns a barbaric society living in a post apocalyptic desert world, ruled by a savage, priest-like aristocracy.  The film’s protagonist has been captured by this eminently cruel band and remains imprisoned inside the walls of their desert compound for the best part of the film, wherein he is tormented by threats of a horrible fate!  Meanwhile there are some frighteningly intense scenes as the youth of the aristocracy perform their initiation rites by way of sporting feats.  They wear huge baroque suits of armour, in which they resemble manga style robots (which is as close to actual robots as the film gets) (4).

As I watch the film I become aware that I have seen it before.  Indeed I am familiar with it – right up, that is, till just before the very last scene.  If I have watched this scene I have done so only once.  Hazy half memories of intensely harrowing and horrible imagery have led me to avoid it ever since.  Now, without quite knowing why, I am going to sit it through!

It is night-time in the desert.  Surrounded by his relations and other members of the ruling caste, the chief of the society stands on the ramparts of the compound, facing inward.  He is going to open up a portal to the ‘Other World’, and thus precipitate the destruction of the hero (and presumably great ill for the rest of the world!).  The ritual involves an act of obscene transformation.  The head of the chief gorges madly with blood and turns a liver red.  It distends and the boggling eyes, vividly white by contrast and with no irises, protrude halfway out of the distorted face (5).  Inexorably the swelling continues and as it does so the crown of the head expands toweringly out of all proportion (6).  Before the gathered ensemble the portal begins to open – a disc of dancing primary colours.  But something is wrong with the chief!  He cannot sustain the transformation and the portal is wavering.  The last shot I see is a close-up of his face.  The balloon of his head has sagged completely and flattened out, so that his features are now over twice as wide as before.  Bathed in the fading light of the portal and wreathed in wisps of sickly smoke (7), his now livid and ghostly visage is disintegrating into folds of skin.  The eyes have shrunken into pearly red orbs, glowing dimly before they fade like dying embers.

(1) The Keep (1983)
(2) Salute of the Jugger (1989)
(3) Society (1989)
(4) A manga robot
(5) Concept art for the Vogons in the film version of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
(6) A real-life exceptionally serious facial deformity
(7) From the logo of the film Big Trouble in Little China (1986)