It is small, lifeless, cold, and rough. It is always windy, and if it is not raining then it is snowing. Or sleeting. Some kind of precipitation is constant, as is the roaring, cutting wind and the booming surf sending spray at times all the way over the tiny islet. The rock composing this place is black and rough, a froth of volcanic material frozen in mid-eruption and not yet worn smooth by the wind, the waves, the rain. It is jagged and cuts my hands and feet and knees as I try to navigate my little domain. Nothing grows here; not a single blade of grass, let alone a tree. My only food is whatever seaweed and fish wash onto the craggy rocks, to be eaten raw. I am always wet, and cold; my flesh is waxy and rigid; my muscles unresponsive so that I frequently trip, fall, and shred my skin on the rock.
There are, however, two variants on this dream.
The more common island forces me to live in a cold, damp cave – a deep tunnel in the rock. It is absolutely black within this void. There is not even driftwood with which to construct a fire, and as I’ve already said no trees. The boom of the surf echoes in and and out of the tunnel, but it is at least drier within than without, being subject only to the pervasive humidity and the occasional wind-driven spindrift. I sleep, or pretend to, on a bed of nearly-dry, not quite moldy seaweed. But of course, there is no way to get dry or warm, no way to produce light. And that is another aspect of this island I’ve failed heretofore to mention: it is seemingly perpetually winter. The clouds overhead are always of the heaviest, blackest kind, laden with rain and snow which drop upon the island without relent, and which permit no light to pass from the sun in even the few hours I suspect to be daylight. The nights are long and sleepless due to the surf and the cold. And so I seem destined to spend eternity on the edge of hypothermia – every sense dulled, my body aching and rigid. On and on. Endlessly. Forever. Not quite dead, but nowhere near alive.
The second version of this island differs only in my place of habitation. But what a difference. Whereas that first freezing rock leaves me only a cold, damp cave for shelter, the second, far less frequent dream gives me a tiny beehive of built stone for a hut. And this shelter has a fireplace which is somehow always burning in spite of the lack of any evidence of fuel upon the hearth. It has a snug door which I may pull shut against the elements, and a small window with real glass. I like to peer through this opening when the weather is particularly foul and reflect upon my gladness at about being safely out of it. The room is further furnished with a small wooden table and a chair. My bedding consists of a pile of furs and rugs against the wall near the fireplace – warm and dry and almost comfortable. The walls are thick enough that the boom of the surf is somewhat muted, the keening wind completely excluded, and I am able to sleep through the long subarctic nights. Here at least I am warm enough to be able to think, although I do not know what I think about in these dreams. It seems to me that I am…if not actually contented, then at least unmiserably tolerant of my situation. It is seemingly not a situation to inspire contemplation, but at least it does not seem to be trying to kill me.
Of course, the major difference between these freezing island dreams and the previously documented tropical island is not actually the physical facts of the place. No, in spite of the obvious physical dichotomy, the difference between the two dreams lies in where the mind is taken by exposure to them.
Where the tropical island seems almost to require contemplation of spiritual matters and a recognition of my otherness from the general mass of humanity, the cold island seems designed to suppress all mental faculty whatsoever through the expedient of extreme physical poverty. Even in the heated room of the second variation on the cold island, I still seem unable to think…anything. The island itself seems to want to keep my mind as divorced from function as the rock is itself.
It is usual when I have these freezing island dreams to awaken feeling that mental suppression is for the best. And on these mornings I do not even have the luxury of considering whether I am in fact contributing in even the smallest way to some tiny subset of society, and whether that is enough to justify my existence.
Or perhaps this sensation of suppression is the luxury. If ignorance is bliss, what is the suppression of consciousness?
