Hatrack River Forum: Waking From Fiction

This is topic Waking From Fiction in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Marek (Member # 5404) on :

Today I had some time between classes and was reading "The Call Of Earth" when suddenly I realized class was about to start and I needed to go to the room. It was like waking from a strange dream in a way.

It really does remind me of waking from a dream, not just any dream, but one of those dreams that I didn't realize was a dream at first, the ones I want to finish because the alarm went off before I knew what was going to happen. Maybe even the rare occassion where I didn't realize it was a dream until I woke from it.

This is not an isolated insident for me, often I get a strange feeling or mindset that the real world is some how less material, less important, or even makes less sense when I am suddenly forced to abandon vivid fiction and return to my boring reality. It even has a sort of disappointment as if I somehow expected to be a primary figure in Basilica's struggle when I put my book down, but instead I found myself in my normal life.

I'm guessing that it is not good to get this lost in books, but am I the only one who does? Have you ever thaught, or who cares about this meating I have to see if Quentin will beat the witch, yes great log as x aproaches 0 but will Bean and Petra be safe in Brazil, or I know how to use that computer program but what I don't know is if the bird children will get out of the hospital alive.

Just wondering if I am the only to ever get so into a book that it's events over shadow real ones, at least for a couple of minutes.

Posted by wieczorek (Member # 5565) on :

No, but I fell asleep once in third grade...ah, but now I remember that I wasn't really asleep, I just didn't want to take a math quiz! How the memories are flooding back!

Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :

Yep. Sometimes I expect the concerns and speech patterns and discourse markers of the current novel I'm reading (if it's a good novel) to be part of waking life. The sensation's only temporary, but it's there.

Posted by screechowl (Member # 2651) on :

Yes. I don't have it happen very often, in fact rarely. I do not know why it occurs other than to speculate it results from excellent writing and the perfect frame of mind needed to receive the author's meaning.

Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :

When I read a lot of novels by Barbara Kingsolver, I started thinking the way she writes... Stuff like that happens a lot to me. I get stuck in fiction.

Once, I was working on an anime music video, and the character the video was for (incidentally, he's insane) started appearing on the inside of my eyelids when I closed my eyes.

It scared the shit outta me. (pardon my French...)

So, I think sometimes the fact that I'm able to lose myself in fiction isn't good. Though sometimes it is, I suppose...

Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :

Yes, this has happened to me from time to time. Also, if I'm really involved in something I'm reading, I become convinced that when I'm not reading, the action of the book is still taking place somewhere I don't quite have access to until I return to the book. This also happens sometimes with something I'm writing.

Posted by Cecily (Member # 5675) on :

Yay. I'm not the only one! Sometimes I feel a ridiculous urgency to get back to whatever book it is I'm reading (like I'm missing the action). I'll have a constant undercurrent of thought and I'll even have dreams with the characters in them. It's like my life is the fictional part of the story and the story itself is the real thing.

Posted by Head Ditch Digger (Member # 5085) on :

I keep thinking that I need to get back before the commercial is over.

Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :

Sometimes, when I have to put a book down, I get the insane sensation that the action is gonna happen without me...like I'm gonna miss it!

I also get frustrated when a character does something blatantly, obviously stupid. It's especially annoying when, during the second or third reading, they don't change their ways. [Wall Bash]

<~~not entirely kidding in this post, either...

Posted by Yebor1 (Member # 1380) on :

speaking of dreams

I ve been having this one for years

And for the last few weeks i have been having serial dreams alnmost with cliffhangers and everything

Does that make me strange or just ready for the great american sci fi novel

on second thought dont answer that

go back to sleep weezy

this is a test and only a test

if this had been a real dream you would have scored a hundred and ten in staed of the measly 35 you are fixing to receive for sleeping through most of it

we now return you to your regularly schedulled nightmare

Posted by Yebor1 (Member # 1380) on :

no seriously folks I need a dream doctor and all the books at HAstings dont cover serial dreams.

How many years can I have a dream that never really ends but just picks up from some point either soon after the previous dream left off or suddenly jumps into the same area and same characters year after year after year.

[Hat]

Posted by wieczorek (Member # 5565) on :

If you're having these nightmares that also consist of cliff-hangers, you could be like the next Steven King [Wink]

Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :

Last year, my principal introduced a policy that severely lowered my average. It was called DEAR.

Drop Everything And Read.

This was murder. Every wednesday, at then end of first period for twenty minutes, we would read. I would take a book. I would read before DEAR, with the temptation of a book on my desk just too great to resist. That was math. I failed math with a 44%.

All through that day, I would read, unable to resist the call of a good story.

I read Ender's Game through physics. (Which, I argued, was curiously applicable.)

I read week after week in Chemistry, because Chemistry was so boring (teacher, not subject).

This year, I refuse to read. I will write, but I refuse to read. This makes me look like one of those who hates to read, but it is the exact opposite. Reading ruins my academics... I am a reading addict, giving me time to read is just compounding the problem. My teacher gets angry at what looks like open disobedience of my principal's "wonderful" idea. But what do I say?

"I can't read because I like to read too much."

Does that sound dumb or what? So I ignore what she says and pull out my notebook and I run through plot lines and story ideas. I figure writing is just like reading only what you're reading hasn't been written yet.

I cannot wake from fiction. I live the stories in my head, the characters distract me with their prescence, the ideas zip through my mind and I cannot concentrate.

Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :

I get really involved in the books I read. For on thing, I read it all at once, stopping barely long enough to eat. Then when I finish the book, I walk around dazed and confused, and I don't know what I'm doing for, like, the next two days. In fact, when I read Ender's Game, I actually forgot that gravity existed. You should have seen me try to walk [Blushing]

. Anyway, I like to read series of long novels so I can stay in that "world" as long as possible, and I can't stand short stories.