What is the significance of dreaming to Athshean culture and/or to the events of the book more broadly?
You might consider:
–Lyubov’s view of the role of dreaming in Athshean culture and the difference between Terran sleeping and Ashthean dreaming.
–The relationship between Selver’s bad dreams and acts of violence.
–The relationship between dreaming and the non-violent, or ecologically-minded “roots” of Athshean culture.
–The relationship between “dream time” and “world time.”
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
The dreams are really omens. They guide the natives in their actions, and this causes distress because they are lucid dreams and they cannot separate dreams from reality. They float in and out of consciousness. These visions are considered spiritual guidance. The author seems to use the dreams as a foreshadow a great struggle. Selver’s dreams causes him grief because they are full of violence and the Ashtheans are pacifists by nature.
One of the many differences between the Athsheans and the Terrans is their sleep cycles. The Athsheans run on a “polycyclic” sleep cycle, sleeping in small bursts of time rather than overnight, which means they do not operate well during the Terran’s typical 9-5 workday. Some Athsheans learned to dream while wide awake, so they could do their work, but others became “groggy, confused, withdrawn, even catatonic”(99). As for the Terrans, it seems the only way they can dream is by inducing a dream-like state with drugs, such as “superduperhyper-analgesic”(51).
The Athsheans “dream time” is just as real to them as what they refer to as “world time”. In fact they do not sleep, rather they enter these conditions of being on their own consciousness. The dreams they have are a method of foreshadowing what is to come and perhaps even warning signs. Selver’s dreams are scary and terrifying for example, perhaps foreshadowing strife or conflict. This is seen in the text as the author states: “Selver, struggling with a sleep-dream beyond his control, cried out as if in great fear, and woke”. Athsheans have the ability to enter the dream state on their own, and their dreams not only mend and heal them but also guide and foreshadow their behavior. They are very much non violent and try to be at peace with the world.
Lyubov, Terran and Athsean have different perception of the dreams that they are in. Athsean dreams are very much realistic and is a true image of what he is familiar with. His dreams often change the sleep pattern that is different to what Terran has. Athsean dream can often make the person lose sanity. In the text it states “to balance your sanity not on the razor’s edge of reason but on the double support” which means the dreams that they are in can make them not be in touch with realty and possibly be insane. Lyubov role in the dreams is that he sees that it can make them go crazy without certain steps to balance what is going on in both characters mind. Terran is more induced with drugs for the dreams unlike Athsean who is not
The Athsheans and the Terrans have different sleep cycles, where the Athsheans sleep in short accruements throughout the day, while the Terrans sleep cycle is not like that. The Athsheans dream can occur while they are wide awake, as they have been taught to dream like that so they can work at the same time, but this causes them to feel loopy and go a little crazy. The Terrans can only dream if they are induced with a drug to make them feel as if they are in a dream like state. Lyubov’s view of the role of dreaming in Athshean culture is to be the balancer and make sure that they do not go crazy, as he balances what goes on in their minds.
To Athsheans dreams are seen as a way to guide and shape them. Contrast to how others sleep, when Athsheans sleep it is similar to entering a completely different world. It is in this way that they almost live two lives, the life in the dream world and the life in the real world. This dream time seems to have a correlation with world time as they work in a relationship to help form the correct path for the life of an Athshean. This makes it an extremely important aspect of their day to day life, and it is because of this relationship with one’s inner two worlds they were able to form this non violent and ecological culture.
Dreaming is signficant to Athseans because it affects their behavior when they are awake. When they are able to practice controlling their conscious mind while dreaming, they’re able to connect to their subconscious mind more readily during the times they are awake. This gives them a deeper connection to rational thinking and subconscious drives which are exemplified in the Terrans. A rational mind is what the Athshean’s believe keeps them interconnected with their world which is the forest. The word “dream” for them means “root”.
Athsheans have the ability to enter dream like states at will, and have become a way to foreshadow and anticipate future events. It’s almost perceived as reality to them, similar to lucid dreaming. Terrans on the other hand, need to take some sort of drugs to enter these states, presumably a form of hallucinogen. Selver has already dreamt of the destruction of Athshean culture and gets unsettling dreams, making him feel the need to protect themselves and their home. As pretty much all Athsheans take part in these dream like states throughout the day, it’s almost representative of the forest they live in, as the trees are interconnected in roots and have some form of consciousness of that which we cant normally see, just as the Athsheans dreams are in an external state of consciousness.
The significance of dreaming to Athshean culture is that their dreaming could be seen as a form of foreshadowing since their dreams are usually violent, which could foreshadow future battles that they are going to have to face. The dreams could also foreshadow the Athsheans’ society after the removal of humans being continously violent because of the exposure to violence they’ve all faced due to the human invasion. “Selver, struggling with a sleep-dream beyond his control, cried out as if in great fear, and woke”, shows how deeply their dreams affect them because of how Athsheans are pacifists by nature so violence makes them feel uncomfortable. However, the dreaming does symbolize future violence which strikes fears in their hearts.