Spirit Dreams is a branch of an earlier work, "riverdream through us," wherein the masks which function as guides for that River Sounding ceremony (and other masks) tell their individual dream stories as a further way to enter the mind(s) of the non-human realm. This work is for recited texts (live and/or recorded), sampled sounds of the Delaware River environs initiated by a real-time complex-dynamic (fractal) computer interface program, and the singing masks, set in a context of ceremonial dream time participation by all present.
Each of my masks has a voice and it is through that voice that they tell their stories. But the language that each speaks is different. They have dictated their dreams to me during ceremonial-time experiences and these form the basis for Spirit Dreams’ recited texts. The texts are mostly in English, but occasionally the actual language of a mask, as it is expressed in verbal form, emerges. During the ceremony of Spirit Dreams, the masks sound their dream stories “in the moment” as the texts are recited and the river sounds occur. There are 12 stories, plus brief introduction.
In Spirit Dreams you are invited to join the masks in their dreamings, to sleep even, and to otherwise enter your own and our collective Dream Time. You may not find all the texts to be intelligible all the time. There is no need to feel frustration on this account. You are encouraged attempt to understand the words and to listen to them as sounds, the
transliterations into speech of the masks’ imaginings having only the meaning of music and nature’s inner soundings. If you should drift toward any discomfort, your are invited to repeat this simple mantra to yourself: “This is a dream..., this is a dream..., this is a dream...”
