THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERY

I stopped watching television in 1998, when Seinfeld ended its nine-year run. 

In the fall of 2021, I had a dream in which I was watching a BBC crime show. When I worked on the dream, and looked at the offerings on BBC, I found myself attracted to a program called Vera. Vera began broadcasting in 2011 and continues to the present time. The series is based on the Vera novels by British author Ann Cleeves. As I began watching, I also began reading. Something about the crime genre hooked me and since then I have watched numerous other crime shows and read the novels or screenplays they were based on. 

This activity also brought to mind that as a kid I read a lot of mysteries and would also write my own stories and scripts.. When we got our first TV (1950), it also housed a record making turntable. The whole family participated in performing the scripts I wrote. I felt I was reconnecting with some important piece of myself left behind.

A subsequent dream pictured the title page of either a novel or screenplay entitled, Rule of 3. It also showed that this was an "Arlan Condon Mystery." Arlan Condon is one of the main figures in my novel, DREAMS: The Final Heresy (not yet finished). 

The majority of dreams this year have involved the mystery genre in various ways. some seemingly influenced by the books I've read or programs I have watched. But never in any sense just repetitions—always adding a twist or turn or phrase or simply a word. And others with content that is wholly new and different from anything I have read or watched but still enveloped within this realm of crime and mystery. I do not experience the insistence and persistence of this theme as evidence that I am not “getting” the message. Instead, it feels like an essential collaboration with “the other” prodding me with ideas and elements to take seriously in this task.

I am used to experiencing dreams as tasks and most of the things I have written or published have had their origin in dreams. Still, I am an old man now with much “on my plate” as they say. Lots of things to finish. At this rate I will run out of days before running out of things to finish. For some time I fought this “pressure.” No longer. I now consider it a bounty and I am learning to enjoy it.