Breakfast in America -or- America's Moveable Feast

Menu of Dream Vision -or- On the Road, In Search of the American Dream

"Fieldnotes of a Dream Researcher: 1001 Night in the Global Village", represents my own grand tour of visual culture for you the reader, a place that Marshall McLuhan called the "global village". As Veronica's dream discussed below will show us, life can be poetically viewed as a "road movie", the film "Easy Rider" is one such Hollywood dream factory story. The poetic idea of the journey and the adventure of life, dates back to the ancient Greeks, and further. 

On my many stops on my own dream vision road of life, one was as a "student" at the University of Zurich (1975-83). The dream interpretation "Das Auto in Zurich", which talks about the dream of another student at the University, was a "Volkswagen" dream (the car in Veronica's dream below, also has a VW in it), it is a dream I have no difficulty to identify with. In another dream interpretation, "Menu of Dream Vision" posted at the IIDR website, it provides you the reader with my experience and ideas about the literary "phantasmagoria" of Dream Vision. 

Ernest Hemingway, would call this phantasmagoria "A Moveable Feast". This Menu of Dream Vision, is intended to show the next generation of dreamers, the literary road of choices they have in the creative writing and building of their own dream visions. The dream interpretation, "E-mail to a Young Dream Researcher" underscores this message. 

Last year I had a dream where the 20 something daughters (of a friend) and their friends all piled into my car. I interpreted the dream as symbolizing the next generation's "rites of passage", meaning that they were starting their own poetic journey, on their own oneiric road, to the realization of their own dreams. This idea of self-realization, can also be applied to the 20 something young woman's (Veronica) dream below, where instead of having dinner, we can travel the highways and byways of the American Dream by having "Breakfast in America". 

Veronica, 21 American Student 

"This dream , left me with so many questions, and most of mine do, even with all the details, but this one starts out with me driving down a long gravel driveway with someone i feel i know in the passenger seat, but I'm not sure if I've ever actually met them, we were talking about what kind of car it was that i was driving, they told me it was a Volkswagen touring, and it was silver and that it was also a hatchback, the driveway is surrounded by lush woods, i finally get to a very large house, with cream colored brick and a black gate that me and this individual go through ,we are greeted by a very tall man, and taken to a dinning room, where an elderly man is sitting, we sit, and he tells us to look at his dinner menu, i choose some beef dish and then the tall man takes the menu and leaves, then out of nowhere i look to my right on the table and there is a camera i start to look at the pictures." 

Mr Hagen's Reply: Follow the Yellow Brick Road -or- Boulevard of Broken Dreams 

From this dream, one might conclude that your dream vision "forte", is poetic and artistic description and visualization. The Americana "Kodak moment" of the American "tableau vivant" of the American Dream, can be found in a variety of American cultural media channel venues like; Look, Life, Good Housekeeping, TV Guide, Rolling Stone, Playboy and Cosmopolitan to name a few. This cultural tableau of media images is also found in everyday American dreams, many of which have already been described in a variety of dream interpretations posted at the IIDR website. 

"Breakfast in America" (watch music video) by Supertramp provides us with the lyrical idea and musical vehicle to tour American visual culture and its dreams. We can follow the poetic light of American Dream and its' "Yellow Brick Road" (read dream interpretation "I'm Just a Girl Who Had a Dream"). Or, we can also follow the road of the noir like American Nightmare and its "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (read dream interpretation "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"). This borderpoetic of dream and nightmare is discussed in the dream interpretation American "Birth Trauma".

Touring the "Anatomy of the American Dream and Nightmare" from a "first person perspective" provides "A People's History of America" (read dream interpretation "A People's History") and their visual cultural role in the global village. Much of the American Dream is about conspicuous consumption and "Keeping up with the Joneses" (read dream interpretation). Following our dream vision roadmap and journey, we can read about the dreams of those living in American cities like; 

Perhaps on a final note, as a lyrical segue into the musical Americana postscript, the song that seems to fit Veronica's dream description and the Kodak iconic Americana pictures of "memory lane" best, is Doris Day's "Sentimental Journey".

Postscript: Magic Carpet Ride-or-Runnin' Down the Musical Menu of American Dreams 

Much like Veronica's own dream and "coming of age story" , the Hollywood dream factory film "American Graffiti" shows the audience the poetic American road of "cruising", rock and roll, and visual culture of the baby boom generation who grew up during the early 1960's. Elvis is conspicuously absent from the film music compilation. Using this lyrical compilation perspective, we can travel down the musical road of memory lane, and hear some of the songs sung since that time. In no lyrical order except the ending, we could begin the music compilation with Tom Petty, and end it with Elvis having the final word; 

We can give Elvis "the King of Rock and Roll", the last words and final song, he once reportedly said: "Ambition Is A Dream With A V8 Engine." In Veronica's dream, she travels down a "gravel driveway", an allusion to "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" sung by Elvis? 

Elvis has left the building.

 

 

Back to Interpretations
All material Copyright 2006 International Institute for Dream Research. All rights reserved.