The Dream Issue

ZIN EΦM A G A

THE DREAM ISSUE

vol.8

Φ

MAGAZINE

THE DREAM ISSUE

VOLUME 8

Edgar Allan Poe once said that all that we see or seem is but a
dream within a dream; as if we are abstracted from reality, never
able to fully grasp anything, not even our own experience. Phi's
authors, poets, artists, and creators have challanged Poe in this
latest issue, suggesting that we can in fact grasp something, even if
it's just an imprint from a distant dream. So close the curtains, light
a candle, get under your covers and enjoy this journey into dreams,
dreams within dreams, and dreams within dreams within dreams....

CHIARA ZUCCHELLI
EDITOR IN CHIEF

The Dream Issue | Φ 2

CONTENTS

My Dream Selves 4 26A Dream, or a Dream Within a Dream?
by Hannah Banks
by Radomil Kessl, photography by Ghita Radu-Andrei

Master of the Pages 6 Dare to Dream 28
by Linda M Crate, art by Isabel Jacobs by Laura Kueng & Emanuel Oberle

A and B 8 Μορφή 30
by SG, art by Isabel Jacobs by Leonardo Geri, art by Maya Barter

Hesitation 11 Dreamscapes 32
by Katarina Galić Various Authors, art by Maya Twersky

The Tenth Muse 12 Photography 35
by Maria Payro, art by Renée Bertini by nancy

Sleep Cycles 14 An Interpretation of Us 37
by Antonia Kattos, art by Wayan Chan by Jack Verschoyle

Whitehead's Dream 16 Dreamy Songs for Dreamy Days 38
by Eoin Macnally, art by Teresa Satterthwaite by Rhys Woodwards

Ossuary 40An Interview with Philosophy in Prisons

18by Connor May, photography by Mercedes Lavin by Ariel De La Garza Davidoff, art by Katarina Galić

Your Part for Mine 20 44An Extract from 'Path'
by Viola Ugolini, art by Amelia Steane
by Gabriel Caruana, photography by Mercedes Lavinin

Wardian Case No.2 21 Purple Butterfly 47
by Claire Mc Dermott by Pdot

Inheriting Dreams from Négritude 22 48Body Talk
by Sohane Mousseid
by Fin Cousins, photography by Ghita Radu-Andrei

Le Sommeil de La Raison 25 Visions 50
by Myriam Cohenca by Phi Magazine

The front and back covers for this issue were created by Maha Zia. For enquiries, and
more of her work see @mahaziaphotography on Instagram.

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MY DREAM SELVES

by Hannah Banks

Away then to my home
(Crimson leaves falling

apart in our hands)

This one turns away

The words are gone then,
Another body formed.

Our jungle’s shadow:

Wild horses and machine fire
Sweeter than the moss
Fingers on glossy shrapnel pieces amid
Ruins of high old lemon trees.

Scared of this one like a tiger:

Scarred teeth and
The sensual voilà of the
New day rising like a breath
Of your uncanny orangey body.

But poly is a grace;
A psychedelic guitar solo
Of broken vending machines

And solitaire,

An origami party
Folded so nobody knows whose head is their own (and nobody cares).

Dreams of you slip through
The body like saltwater;
Feverish and seeping

(The sap drops in cahoots drops with the Macaws).

Your own splintered fingers in an oil spill
But you.

You really are the real thing, aren’t you.

5

MASTER OF THE PAGES

by Linda M Crate

i remember as a young girl
would spend hours dreaming
of being anywhere but where
i was,
because i wanted an adventure;
wanted to feel and taste and experience
things i never knew before—
dreamed of faeries,
mermaids, vampires, dwarves, elves,
werewolves, and whispers of things
i didn't know if i invented or were just part
of mythologies i did not yet know;
i always fantasised of worlds
no one else could see or imagine—
guess that's what i get for
dreaming of better worlds,
of seeing characters as people,
and learning wisdom from nature;
i have become a madman in this world they
say is reality
but i know that i have everything i need
inside of me because i am the master of the pages.

The Dream Issue | Φ 6 ART by Isabel Jacobs



The Dream Issue | Φ 8 ART by Isabel Jacobs

A AND B

by S G

In a daze, in summer, I felt something on my one (perhaps false) is saturated with implication.
leg. I looked down with not much interest to Be it dreams, or knowledge, or perception, your
see what it was. There was nothing on the area thoughts on them will be preempted (or those of
I was now scratching, but crawling nearby was a your grandchildren) partly because the statements
bumble bee—quite fat. I suppose the itch must've unite like parts of a Rolls-Royce engine. So, for
been that. Then—thankfully, for readers of this those strange people, that's my explanation.
paragraph no less—something did occur, which
I’ll now address. I saw the Φ call for submissions. See, A’s statements on dreams link to those
My phone pinged as the email hit my inbox. (Wow, on perception. When we perceive chairs or
a causal history of the essay’s construction... this tables, our sense organs take on their form. This
rocks). sounds quite beyond the norm, but A's motto is
"form and matter". So if you’re chomping on a
Plus, this is on Aristotle (it's a hot and lazy day, Mars bar in batter—or you’re, I don’t know,
I'll call him A). To me, it seems, there’s usually a daffodil, sucking up some mineral—you‘re
discussion of the meaning of dreams. And taking in matter. When I see an email pop up in
answers usually mention something about desires. my inbox, say, my eye becomes altered, in some
"You want so-and-so" some interpreter will say, way. Specifically, my sense organ becomes like
“deep below”. But A’s comments on dreams are the object. Again, strange. But then, you think,
sort of backward—rather than forward-facing. eyes have a retina populated with rod and cone
His comments on dreams are refreshing. There’s cells. These obviously become changed in some
no “it’s a desire” or “a blessing!”. way and then, frankly, whatever the details of the
anatomy, it's hard to imagine its relation to A's
Appearances—things which come before us account not being one of compatibility.
in sleep—are what we mean here by ‘dreams’.
Ancient Greeks aren't necessarily always talking of You need a sense organ and a sensible object
our 'events in streams' (experiences with narrative within range. The organ undergoes a material
structures). The appearances (phantasmata) are change, because of the object - its causal
the result of changes in our sense organs - deep interaction. Awareness is also crucial (…again,
murmurings and ruptures. They follow physical from lone statements you’ll get no satisfaction).
changes to our ears and our eyes. Well, dreaming is the same, minus the sensible
object – it’s like perception with a defect. Both
Here we go… and there’s Life on Mars. Well involve awareness and a material change (to, say,
I won’t provide a disguise. It is like wacky, a lens). Bar the material object, the same thing
historical twaddle (think phlogiston, the Plum happens. Yet the dreaming capacity is phantasia,
Pudding model); ideas which are merely cute, at A assumes. And (somewhat) like Mickey Mouse
a push. And extracting statements from ancients with magical brooms, A's Dreamer might be
does give a quick sugar rush. We want the truth: dealing with the lagging, causal consequences
the statement's false, you're outdated A. Now hush. from some previous stimulus.

Honey's fine in moderation. But if there were But A simply can’t be read without fuss, because
some explanation for the strange people who from his comments together we get something
devote their lives to studying A (or P), I think quite brittle. Not only does he use the word
their discovery would be the sheer extent to "phantasia" to describe the capacity of dreaming,
which A's statements interlock. When you realise but also things we encounter when awake. In the
this, a lurching, spluttering interest in A is given words of Schofield, it signals 'caution, doubt,
a firm but remedial knock. A's still studied today or non-committal'. We're aware of phantasmata
because of the pre-emptive power possessed by whenever we have a 'non-paradigmatic sensory
his statements—sort of, as an agglomeration. Each experience'. That covers quite a lot—think of

9

hallucinations, and things that are a blur. In fact, a
phantasma would be the sun, appearing as a ball
of light one foot in diame-ter. We don't believe the
sun to be a one-foot ball of light that's gleaming.
Nevertheless, this kind of appearance is—for
A—the same kind of thing we’re aware of when
dreaming.

Phantasia might, then, be at work all the time. After
all, in waking life, external objects cause change—
(unlike in dreams, I confess, but after that? Same
process). Furthermore, A used his phantasia for
memory, hallucination and all sorts of pseudo-
perceptual states. Thus, Martha Nussbaum said
phantasia and perception are mates. Sure, 'we are
always passively receiving perceptual stimuli' but
when we focus on something 'as a certain thing,
the faculty of phantasia... is called into play'. You
need more than a collection of coloured points
hitting your retina, as an array. You have to see it
as a table, say.. Phantasia does this conceptualising
job, beyond bare detection. For Nussbaum, it
works as a team with perception.

Twenty-four years ago, the philosopher Stephen
Everson argued against Nussbaum's teamwork
view, explaining that the phantasia capacity can’t
be integral to perception, it would seem. One of
the reasons? Bees cannot dream. A is clear that
phantasia 'is not found in ants or bees or grubs'.
And yet, being animals, bees have perception
(indeed, this marks them out from shrubs!). So it
deftly follows that phantasia can't be teammates
with perception.

Nevertheless, A uses phantasmata both for
the things we encounter in dreams (this is not
perception), and things we can encounter while
we are perceiving (hallucinations and balls of light
one foot across). It's as if in these two contexts, his
term has an entirely different gloss. It’s confusing
to use phantasmata for both. Seriously, A, why?
Look me in the eye!

One reason: owing to either state I will [Φ]. Of
something I was aware, so I reached down to
[scratch my leg]. But in truth there was no bee
there - action can result from phantasmata. It can
also result from physical objects, whose form
our sense organs take on. Perception and dreams
(or hallucinations or balls of light) can give rise
to action. Perhaps A’s account of dream’s isn’t
completely backwards-looking, as said before.
Also, that intro, the great bore, did take a bizarre
event about which to remiss. Though in fairness
the email did cause me to [write this].

The Dream Issue | Φ 10

PHOTOGRAPHY by Katarina Galić

THE TENTH MUSE

by Maria Payro

The nascent de-mysogynisation of philosophy ‘Letter to Sister Filótea of the Cross, “in this way,
is not often accompanied by its decolonisation, I do not recall having written for my own pleasure
that is, the cannon has yet to embrace women if not for a slip they call The Dream.” Entitled
philosophers outside of the Western tradition. For The First Dream when published in Spain, the text
instance, the title “mother of feminism,” albeit has been considered her poetic masterpiece. In it,
an apocryphal one, continues to be attributed to she explores the intellectual potential of human
Mary Wollstonecraft, whose groundbreaking beings in relation to the oniric act, simulating the
argumentation paved the way for women’s rights happenings of the outside world with those of the
movements in the early 19th Century – in the dreamer’s internal world, and vice versa. When
Western world. Yet, writing a century before the sun goes down, a shadow descends within
Wollstonecraft, and in a context of substantially the dreamer as her soul unchains itself from the
stricter gender repressions, a witty, wordsmith body, seeking to formulate universal reason; then,
Mexican nun eloquently expostulated the absurd lucid sleep occurs. While dreaming is the poem’s
exclusion of women from education. “If Aristotle leading theme, Sor Juana employs it as a metaphor
had cooked,” wrote Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in for the acquisition of knowledge: intuition and
1691, “he would have written much more.” The deduction are central to the spiritual journey the
Tenth Muse, as she became known, famously dreamer embarks upon. In this vein, she follows in
underwent an exam at seventeen in which forty the paths of Neoplatonism and Stoicism, seeking,
wisemen questioned her thoroughly to find out but failing to attain total knowledge. The nine-
whether her intelligence was “human or divine.” hundred and seventy-five line poem is synthetic
Her responses were absolutely perfect. in its structure by being divided into three parts:
beginning with the rise of both the external and
Born Juana Ramírez de Asbaje to an aristocratic internal shadows, followed by the oniric act, after
family in the colony of New Spain (today which the sun rises, the dreamer awakens, and
Mexico) in the early 1650s, the philosopher, both the internal and external shadows fall. The
poet, and dramatist became a nun out of her total soul persists, unchained from the body. In a way,
aversion to marriage and her wish to have no the poem does not have an ending: it concludes
fixed occupation that would obstruct her ability to not with knowing, but with the desire to know.
study. The society of New Spain was divided first
and foremost into a caste system, meaning that In 1926, the American scholar Dorothy Schons,
ideas of purity, honour, and lineage were essential the first woman in Texas to get a PhD and the
to social dynamics. Moreover, the Church’s first modern Sorjuanista scholar, wrote that Sor
authority, absolute in colonial life, extended to Juana’s biography was “yet to be written.” Almost
knowledge, making theology the queen of all a century later, her statement still holds. Schons
sciences, controller of facts and ideas. Sor Juana made significant advances in popularising Sor
could not write sermons – the manifestations of Juana’s work, labelling her the “first feminist of
reason – given her gender, she could only criticise the New World.” Nevertheless, it was not until
them. In her work, she rejected the idea of women Octavio Paz, Mexican essayist, cultural critic,
as purely passionate and emotional, celebrating poet, and Nobel laureate wrote ‘Sor Juana, Or
her gender as a seat for knowledge and reason, The Traps of Faith’ in 1981, that she became
at times enraging the Church and the Spanish well-known. Paz – although his exceptional
Viceroy. mastery of words cannot be called into question
– did not credit Schons enough. He gave Sor
Sor Juana spent her life in a convent, which in New Juana the status of “first feminist,” ignoring
Spain, represented an intermediate space between Schons had done so decades earlier, and in his
the church and the royal court. As such, most of genealogy of the Sorjuanista scholarship argued
her known writing was commissioned by clergy that “the last to come were the women” – even
and royal representatives. “I have never written of though he constantly quotes and references
my own free will, only to fulfill requests and other Schons’s research. What is more, Paz’s book is
people’s perceptions,” she wrote in her renowned (in my view, at least) much to concerned with Sor

The Dream Issue | Φ 12

Juana’s illegitimate birth, attributing her love of taken out, and her image on the two-hundred peso
knowledge to a “substitution of her father.” Paz note was replaced with that of two independence
focused the majority of his piece on examining, insurrectionaries, needless to say, both men.
in an almost Freudian sense, the philosopher’s The denial of her agency, that is, the reduction
‘feminine condition’: framing her wit as “a of her brilliant mind to a manifestation of her
response to the carnal fertility of the mother and masculinity, is now paired with the obliteration
the aggressive sexuality of men.” ‘Sor Juana, Or of her feminist argumentation. Whilst I do not
The Traps of Faith’ remains the best-known piece, intend to frame Sor Juana as the first feminist,
perhaps even the most relevant one, in the small for this is a prevaricating claim, I believe her use
scholarship of Sor Juana: unfortunately, it is a text of satire in addressing misogyny and defending
that curtails the philosopher’s agency. the right of women to have intellectual interests
were, like her poetry, truly ingenious and original.
In 1999, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Chicana cultural Sor Juana’s cultivated mind is most evident
critic and writer, reimagined the life of Sor Juana in the lexically and metaphorically rich ‘First
as a symbolic foremother of lesbianism in her Dream’, which deals not only with the oniric
novel ‘Sor Juana’s Second Dream’. Drawing act, but also with questions of psychophysical
from what she calls “ample evidence” of the dualism, spirituality, and morality. In doing
nun’s lesbianism, Gaspar de Alba fictionalised the so, she offers the idea of dreaming as a way to
life of Sor Juana, exploring her close relationship escape the material world and tune in to a divine
to the Viceroy’s wife, who is said to have been one. It is unfortunate, as Schons argued, that the
“unable to live even an instant without her Juana unenlightened and commercial exploitation of
Inés”. When examining this relationship, Paz her image, especially by the government, has
points to the non-carnal intellectual closeness of sidelined her philosophical thought. Hence, one
souls: “like that of men.” In many ways, Gaspar thing is clear: Sor Juana’s brilliant mind has yet
de Alba’s brilliant novel likens Sor Juana to to be justly redeemed.
Sappho, the Ancient Greek poet from Lesbos
(after whom we have the terms saphic and
lesbian) who Plato had baptised the Tenth Muse.
However, as with Sappho, and most women
philosophers –especially non-heterosexual ones–
texts attempting to enshrine her as a sexual icon
run the risk of reducing Sor Juana’s work to her
gender. Nevertheless, this is a better outcome than
the total denial of her agency by attributing her
genius to supernatural causes or the imitation of
canonical male writers of the Spanish Golden
Age, or even her father’s absence, like Octavio
Paz does.

The first verse of Sor Juana’s best known poem,
often translated as ‘Foolish Men’ when perhaps
‘Stubborn Men’ is a more genuine translation,
was included in the two-hundred peso
bill celebrating her image. It goes:

You foolish men that accuse
women, without a reason
without seeing you’re the
cause of the very thing you
accuse

In 2020, the Mexican
Central Bank released a new
bill, of lesser value, with
her face on one side, and the
convent where she lived and
died on the other. The verse was

ART by Renée Bertini

SLEEP CYCLES

by Antonia Kattos

I meet the ghosts of people I used to know in my sleep.
It is the only way I seem to keep
Myself going
Even as life escapes me just as I grasp it
Like sand
Trickling down into a vast oceanic void
Slipping
Between the cosmic fingers of my consciousness.

It is a curse to want something,
Someone
You can no longer,
Never
Have.
I would get over it sooner had it not been for the dreams
That come to me at night
As my cheek touches the pillow
To torment me
Like restless sprites
To pry
To possess my otherwise
Self-possessed mind.

What a monstrous marvel.
The Danish prince was right,
‘A dream itself is but a shadow’
And I chase it
I chase the shadow I myself have created
How and for what
God only knows.
I chase it,
My fingers ache after the fleeting fake image
Of the people
I convince myself
I no longer long for
In the deceiving sunlight.

ART by Wayan Chan

I live between sleep cycles
In undecipherable truths
Returning
Returning
Wanting me to finally return
To myself
To who I could be but never will be;

Shadows can only be created in the sunshine, or the moonshine,
I try to focus on the edges,
To reach after the unclear borders that mark
The liberatory crossing from darkness
To enlightenment
Illumination.
But all I get is a salty aftertaste, a tinge in the air
Like that of a wind that has reached you from the sea.
A-not-quite failure.

Between sleep cycles, I chase
The dreams
Like a dog does its own tail
In playful savagery
Or stupidity,
A merry-go-round of
Misery
I am still ignorant of
And which therefore
Can haunt but never touch me,
Yet touches me enough to mark me -

Even one’s rest is restless.

15

WHITEHEAD’S DREAM

by Eoin Macnally

There was a philosopher named Alfred North his nature.” God is the result of movement, borne
Whitehead who had an idea about God. by the change from primordiality to consequence,
He thought that God, rather than being some in fact is this very change; God, Whitehead says,
Kingly figure situated outside of time, creator is both the beginning and the end. It is what occurs
of heaven and earth, or some Unmoved Mover, between and within these two points, how God
the enacting push of the falling dominos of the can be defined by opposition, that I will consider.
universe, consists of two distinct parts, termed
“primordial” and “consequent.” As primordial, God is both the initial concomitant and inevitable
God is unconscious and conceptual, these conclusion of Whitehead’s entire philosophical
conceptual operations being a “free creative undertaking. I related God’s primordial nature
act, untrammelled by reference to any particular to sleep, which relates his consequent nature to
course of things,” a position similar to that of “being awake.” The human movement from sleep
sleep. As consequent, he is actual and conscious, to waking constantly recurs, it is the rotating axle
“the realisation of the actual world in the unity of to which the wheel of human life is tethered.

The Dream Issue | Φ 16

God’s movement, however, does not bear this the dream as we approach a position of greater
aspect of repetition: it moves from one ultimate lucidity, a clarity that is both a result of the
position to the other. There is an aspect of God’s dream’s depth and a signal of its approaching end.
movement that we must turn to for greater insight Our dream is not the world, and as we fade into
into its nature, one similar to that which occurs consciousness, the conclusion we are approaching
before the end of waking and after the beginning is cut short; the burgeoning world is refuted, the
of sleep. It is a movement that acts as a unifying story unfinished, and the final entrails vanish in
substrate, bridging one form of existence to the the return to the different narrative of waking
other. It is the dream. existence. It is in our experience of a dream
dispelled that we measure the nature of an end;
The dream is the result of untrammelled freedom, all that has occurred is refuted, and the power
and the result of the dream is the world. It is the of memory fails in its task of preservation. We
enacting force of God’s passage from one point continue our day with a loss, until that too fades.
to the other. To call the world the result of God But not if we are attentive.
exhausts banality, and, for Whitehead, more than
lacking explanatory power, doesn’t sufficiently A dream, even if not recalled, can enter the
account for the intimate mutuality that exists world through the effect it has on the dreamer,
between the two. To call the world the dream of because what occurs in a dream is coloured by
God points to the world’s inherence in God, as the world, as the world can be coloured by the
well as to the animate fluidity that is evident in all dream. A dream is merely the world in its most
dreams and can be said to characterise the world. untrammelled aspect. A dream of sufficient power
There is a springing-forth, one that surpasses can affect one’s waking day, and one’s place in
God’s expectation and transcends his full the day. For God, the dream is the world he is
autonomy; every moment of existence is a facet of now fully conscious of; God and the dream are
God, without the creative occurrence of the world concomitant, so that the only aspect of the dream
being ascribed ultimately to God. Dreams, the that is dispelled upon waking is its unreality. God
“realisation of the absolute wealth of potentiality,” is the effect of the affecting power of the world.
often surprise us and get away from us. Though
the world begins as God’s dream, God’s initial It is only in a dream that the arbitrary is cast
passivity does not equate to separation: through in other than its native hue, where what is
the dream’s occurrence in God, the dream is also irrelevant is presented as imperative, burnished
the realisation of God, heightening the existence by the light of possibility. In his movement to
of that by which it is possible. The dream is the consequence, God scrupulously gathers the
cause of God’s existence, and its progression is an apparently inconsequential. He is now possessed
increase of God’s awareness of himself: “It is as of a perspicacity that is the result of immeasurable
true to say that God creates the World, as that the satisfaction, for God does not forget a single
World creates God.” moment of his dream. He sees the moments of
this dream – the unfolding of our life – as more
The dream, stemming from God, is the hook that than we are able to, because he is aware that
pulls God and itself forward into greater reality. these moments are tributaries of himself: “The
As the dream becomes increasingly rich, the consequent nature of God is his judgment on the
greater compulsion there is to continue, dragging world. He saves the world as it passes into the
the dreamer from deficiency and the world from immediacy of his own life. It is the judgment of a
indeterminacy. With God’s increasing awareness tenderness which loses nothing that can be saved.
of the world, the world increases in clarity; the It is also the judgment of a wisdom which uses
dipolarities of being and becoming, flux and stasis, what in the temporal world is mere wreckage.”
all other opposites defined by their separation
begin to converge as each becomes more familiar If we are such stuff as God’s dreams are made on,
to the other. What appeared as opposites bend we are rounded by a sleep that affects an ever-
their points into convergence; what seemed linear increasing wakefulness, a sleep that, even now,
reveals its circularity. It is a movement fuelled is increasingly delighted by our every action and
by familiarity of recognition of oneself in the renders their mundanity profound. Is the bud of
other, since elements of the other always existed the world refuted by the bloomed flower of God’s
in each. It was by this commonality that the waking? Or is it that, on waking, the dream that
opposition could initially exist, and it is through is our world reaches its greatest actuality in God,
this commonality that they converge. that the two, as Whitehead says, have passed into
the other, the circle complete? We can answer
It is at this point that we are invested in the only through our actions and the dreams that
dream; we will its continuance, pleased by our dictate them, through the part we choose to play
disinterested creativity. We are more aware of in the still-unfolding story of the dream.

17 ART by Teresa Satterthwaite

OSSUARY

by Connor May

These are my true bones:
moth’s trochanter,
the fox’s vomer, pelvis of
a whale and sheep’s patella.
In a dream I lay cooled
by the dripping rock,
the bare ground was sweet
when I placed my lips against it.
I woke to creation reversed.
I watched a lamb’s
skeleton knit muscle
and bright wool.
A whale crashed without warning
on my house and choked
for fourteen days
on the lack of ocean.
I traded seven of the sheep
for a palm of fresh mint
to stifle the smell of rotting
whale flesh. As for the moth,
it transmuted in thunder
into a cosmos of love.
Finally the fox, neither hide
nor hair, except for occasional
footprints in the snow, or feathers,
clean cut, found at dawn.

The Dream Issue | Φ 18

PHOTOGRAPHY by Mercedes Lavin

YOUR PART FOR MINE

by Viola Ugolini

Act One

Before the drawn curtains, ultramarine
I stand, open, under a silver beam.
I believe I don’t remember my lines
and that is your cue to enter the stage.
Barefoot, tip tapping your light feet on wood
you come from backstage and head for my hand
yet you don’t take it, you take the void script
Is it possible, darling, that you would
be so kind as to trade your part for mine?
Pardon me, my dear – soft and enthralling.

Act Two

I comply with your words, it’s a stage not a world.
What danger is there? None, if you do talk to me
and I follow your mandate without blinking twice.
Yes, love, I will wear your costumes if you ask to;
I am no player, but a liar I can be -
I am no speaker, but I can give an answer.
What strange soul would not listen to you anyway?
I am still malleable, and I can bluff a role
but you are a player, the fittest of liars -
whether upon badly-lit beds or whatnot words.

The Dream Issue | Φ 20

Act Three

It is no wonder that you wear a mask
you god-looking, sweet talking, drama king,
you boisterous speaker, truth filter, boy.
“Give a man a mask, he will tell the truth.”
But haven’t I said all that I could say?
Maybe I could elaborate, player.
You take my place in my dreamplay, you dreamboy
and give me the character faults you can’t bear.
My body’s fading and do I regret
giving you words I couldn’t remember?

Act Four

Swift, I feel I am starting to have hands again
and eyelids, still heavy, still drawn, and still deep blue.
When I get up I will hold this dream in my grip;
I can fold it up, and slide it in my pocket
not to mention, bring up, or open anymore -
if someone asks, which they won’t, I’ll act like you.
I am no player, but a liar I can be -
I am no speaker, but I can give an answer.
And I go about my day, I talk and I lie,
yet still I believe I don’t remember my lines.

21 ART by Amelia Steane

The Dream Issue | Φ 22 WARDIAN CASE NO.2 by Claire Mc Dermott

INHERITING DREAMS
FROM NÉGRITUDE

by Sohane Mousseid

It is on the day of his death, the 17th of April imagining building a utopia, there is still much to
2008, that I was first introduced to the writings inherit from it.
of Aimé Césaire. Even as a wide-eyed, shy, and
confused eight-year-old Martiniquan girl, I think The dreams of Négritude as I see them are dreams
I understood that I would have to come back to of emancipation, creativity, and connection. To
Notebook of A Return to My Native Land when I explore these dreams separately is possible, but
was older. Twelve years later, I can confirm that I it would be imprudent to not underline the bonds
have returned to this poem consistently as a source between them. These three dreams of Césairean
of political insight, an emotional appeasement, Négritude are weaved together like the braids of a
and as a homecoming every time I’m far from Martiniquan icon; without one of them, the others
home for a little too long. While Césaire wrote would necessarily unravel and find themselves
Notebook on his actual return to Martinique, I find lost.
myself returned to my grandmother’s house every
time I read it. There, I’m eating a slice of my With a snarky attitude, Césaire jokes about three
neighbor’s pain-au-beurre, I can hear the sound of figures of the history of colonization, all white.
crickets and feel the humidity puffing up my hair. A. James Arnold (2013) comments on this by
But reading Césaire is much more than a lucid underlining that Césaire considers these figures
daydream of what my life would’ve been like if I and their symbolism a "passive myth" (186) of
were always on holiday. colonialism, reducing the history of the Antilles
to Josephine, Scheolcher, and Esnambuc. Each
As racial violence becomes more and more visible, of these statues plays a role in the fabricated
especially following the brutal and inhumane narrative of the Antilles and the black people
death of George Floyd, I believe Césaire gives displaced to the islands. Josephine plays the role
us the tools to counter the pessimism that is easy of Marie-Antoinette in the history of Martinique,
to be absorbed into. In 2021, this pessimism more often than ever having her statue
doesn't only come from police and state violence, decapitated. Scheolcher is the all-important white
the very academic institutions that allow us to savior, granted with the title of liberator from
theorize racial trauma, too perpetuate it. Adam colonialism, and Esnambuc is the colonizer that
Habib at SOAS University of London, director of holds all of the colonist guilt on both his shoulders
the institution that claims to be working towards (as if he were the sole responsible for centuries of
decolonization, uses the n-word and proceeds exploitation). Regardless, in his famous Discourse
to undermine the student willing to confront on Colonialism, Césaire counters this myth
him about it. The tensions between theory and writing about the colonized as "societies drained
actuality seem to be increasing; theorizing about of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot,
racism has often become a new form of racism. institutions undermined, lands confiscated
This pessimism is heavy in the vacuum in which religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations
others like myself exist, being both a victim of this destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out."
racism and a participant in the intellectual work (1972, 43) For Césaire, and myself, the history of
of elucidating racial trauma. My fascination with the colonized does not begin with the Europeans.
Négritude lies in this ability to think and imagine Instead, their history was stolen from under them.
forward, to not remain stuck in this place of never- Emancipation as a dream of Négritude is not
ending trauma, without either weaponizing a form something that can be given by the "magnanimous
of white ignorance. Césaire's Négritude doesn't tell whites" (Arnold, 2013: 186); instead, it must be
us that the way forward needs us to accommodate taken and must have those gaining liberty as full
the vile state of racial inequality worldwide, but agents of their own liberation. As Césaire notes,
rather that what emerges from our struggle against "the nigger scum discovers in its spilled blood the
this inequality can be a source of inspiration for a bitter taste of freedom." (2013:147)
future world. It has been nearly 100 years since
Négritude as literature, philosophy, and political The second strand of the negritude braid is that
tradition was established, yet when it comes to of creativity. This strand Césaire honors through

23

form more than content. He writes poetry more This contact, Césaire believes, was stolen
than prose. He writes theatre rather than essays. through colonization. In Discourse, he writes that
Of the three strands, this is the birthplace of colonialism leaves us with "no human contact,
resistance; he names it The Creative Anger. In but relations of domination and submission which
Palcy's 1994 documentary, Césaire references turn the colonizing man into a classroom monitor,
the ten volcanoes "spitting their lava out to create an army sergeant, a prison guard, a slave driver,
Matinik" as an extraordinary display of what anger and the indigenous man into an instrument of
can do. With humor, he also contrasts this story production."(1972, 42) Connection and contact
to the nereids under the sleeping sea, poking fun are necessary for Négritude's project because only
at the idea that from sleep and acceptance could through contact can we reclaim our humanity and
come any creation. Only from Creative Anger can move from being thing-ified. To connect this to
"exasperated lands become land that spit out and a cross-cultural fight for equality, transnational
vomit life" (2014). In the context of Négritude, I protest, and the search for global emancipation,
take this as meaning that our anger must not just we must acknowledge the wisdom Césaire
exist, but create. For the braid to hold, we must displays as he writes, "there is place for everyone
not just be angry but outraged, and only when at the rendezvous of victory." (2013: 95)
we are rightfully outraged and enraged can we
forge our united voice of "fidelity, freedom and When the dreams of Négritude are interlaced into
identity."( Thébia-Melsan 2000, 28) I also take a tight and thick braid, we are provided with both
this as having a dual meaning because we must a methodology for resistance and a vision for the
create our identity by remaining angry. This anger future. As I inherit the ability to weave the dreams
with the system and the trauma forms our identity: of Négritude together, as a daughter of this island
we construct it out of resistance. This creative created from the synced vomiting of ten volcanoes,
anger creates us, creates the united voice, and I inherit the right to ask questions that make
defines us. But it is only from this anger that we philosophy uncomfortable. From emancipation, I
can begin to have the tools for creation in our own can ask about the Haitian revolution, the ultimate
hands. In an ouroboric sense, anger helps create symbol of anti-racist liberation; I can wonder
our identity, and our ability to create allows us to why it has been made invisible by political
maintain it, both the identity and the anger out of philosophy. From creativity, I can challenge
which it was formed. The creative anger acts as a existing knowledge, and I can ask what we have
trace to our identity, but it also becomes a tool of chosen not to learn about the Haitian revolt? And
it. Prometheus steals the fire from the gods, giving from connection, I can compare the treatment
man the ability to destroy and create. Like the fire of the French Revolution to that of the Haitian
of the gods, our creative anger allows us to burn Revolution. Only after braiding these dreams
to pieces the creation of an other and enable us can I ask if the hopes of the French Revolution
to create a warmth of our own. Thus, creation as were 'liberté, égalité and fraternité,' what were
a dream of Négritude refers to building identity, the hopes of the Haitian revolution? And I would
resistance, and resilience; and creating art and think that Négritude's united voice would respond
links that allow such voices to be united and resist to me with an echo of its own dreams.
the test of time. So that we never lose sight of the
origin of our anger.

This brings us nicely to the last strand of hair Bibliography
needed to complete and hold the braid of
Négritude: connection. The voice that comes out Césaire, A. (1972). Discours on colonialism
of Négritude cannot be singular, it must be plural, (Discourse sur le colonialisme, engl.). Monthly
and precisely, it must be united in its plurality. To Review Pr.
highlight this, Césaire uses imagery relating to Césaire, A., Arnold, A. J., Eshleman, C., Césaire,
nature. He writes, "I would rediscover the secret A., & Césaire, A. (2013). The original 1939
of great communications and great combustions. notebook of A return to the native land. Wesleyan
I would say storm. I would say river. I would University Press.
say tornado. I would say leaf. I would say tree.I Césaire, A., Eshleman, C., Smith, A., & Césaire,
would be drenched by all rains, moistened by all A. (2001). Notebook of a return to the native land.
dews."(Césaire, 1979: 12) As displayed by the Wesleyan University Press.
story of the creation of Matinik, the ten volcanoes Thébia-Melsan, A., & Lamoureux, G. (2000).
must be ten, but they must explode at the same Aimé Césaire: pour regarder le siècle en face:
time to create. They must be in sync with one Maisonneuve et Larose.
another for anything to come of their anger. YouTube. (2014). 'The Creative Anger' By Aimé
Connection as a dream of Négritude refers to Cesaire. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/
the human contact necessary to move forward. watch?v=f3Bois3wpCY.

The Dream Issue | Φ 24

25 Art by Myriam Cohenca

A DREAM, OR A DREAM
WITHIN A DREAM?

by Radomil Kessl

Iwant to discuss the interesting but mysterious sitting at a restaurant on the opposite side of the
idea of a dream within a dream. I do not mean street. Something starts to feel a little weird and
goals or ambitions but rather what we perceive before long you wake up in your own bed with
and feel when we sleep. Perhaps most of us have the baffling realisation that not only being hit by
experienced waking up from a dreaming sleep a bus was a dream, but waking up in Los Angeles
only to realise that this waking up happened was one as well.
while we were asleep. You might have come to
this realisation while you were sleeping, in which The experience could be explained in three
case you would have found yourself in a dream apparent ways. To speak more generally, it
at the time, or after you really woke up, at which could be that you simply dreamt a dream whose
point you would remember having a dream and content was having a dream and waking up from
waking up inside of that dream. But both of these sleep which would all in all be one dream (albeit
options are puzzling. Did you really have a dream one about having a dream). Alternatively, you
that took place within another dream, or did you could have had a dream A with some content
only dream about dreaming something else? The X, directly followed by a dream B with content
difference may seem petty, but when we say we Y which happened to follow seamlessly from
had “a dream within a dream” we seem to imply exactly where dream A ended. Lastly, and perhaps
that there were two dreams and that one happened most interestingly, you could have had a dream
as part of another. But is that possible? as part of which you somehow began to dream
another dream. This would be a sort of Inception-
We dream when we go to sleep. That is to say that like scenario of having one dream during which
we cannot dream while we are awake, and when you entered another – deeper-level, if you like
we dream we are not awake. Let us suppose, for the – dream. Like with the previous possibility, this
purpose of our little thought experiment, that this would entail there being two distinct dreams. So
is true. When I wake up in the morning, I usually which one is it?
remember at least two distinct dreams from that
night. This I believe lines up well with a common Out of the three options, the idea of two subsequent
consensus that we do not dream all night, but that dreams is implausible, at least because what you
we experience distinct periods of dreaming, some experienced didn't feel like two distinct dreams,
of which we can later remember when we wake one following the other. It is the same reason
up. Therefore, there is nothing mysterious about why we talk about “a dream within a dream”
having two dreams. So far so good. But can one rather than of “two related, subsequent dreams”
dream happen as part of another? – it feels like a dream happening within a dream.
Additionally, if we agree to divide the experience
Suppose you wake up and remember having into two separate dreams, why just the two? What
had the experience I described above of a dream is to say that there weren’t three dreams, or four,
within a dream. While you were asleep, it seemed or seventeen? Perhaps one started when you were
to you as if you woke up in a dream. To illustrate, running from a criminal and another just before
imagine a scene in which you are being chased by you tried to cross the street, and yet another just
a criminal and while crossing a street you don’t when the bus hit you. We cannot know because
look both ways and get hit by a bus. Suddenly, dreams seem logically connected when we’re
you wake up sweating, on a bed in a hotel room dreaming.
somewhere in Los Angeles. You get up and go to
a nearby café to have breakfast, and while waiting Against the third option speaks the fact that we
for your avocado toast you notice that the same don’t wake up from a dream. We wake up from
criminal that was chasing you ten minutes ago is sleep. This implies that for one to wake up from a

The Dream Issue | Φ 26

dream, one must have fallen asleep first, since we have experienced a dream within a dream. It feels
assumed at the beginning that one cannot dream like one woke up in a dream (which is the content
while awake. The experience of a dream within of the dream that is actually happening) and then
a dream includes the feeling of waking up, while woke up from the actual sleep. Which involves
dreaming. One cannot wake up from one sleep only one dream.
twice, which suggests that to be able to wake
up twice, one would have to fall asleep twice. In reality, when we experience a dream within a
Thus, for one to have a dream within a dream, dream we only dream once. Although it feels like
one would have to fall asleep twice – once, to be one has dreamt and then woken up twice, one of
able to dream the first, base-level dream, from these wakings was actually a part of the content
which one eventually wakes up to reality; and for of a single dream. Perhaps instead of “a dream
a second time inside of the first dream, in order within a dream” we should call it “a dream of a
to be able to dream the deeper-level dream, from dream”.
which one wakes up back to the base-level dream.
This seems implausible since it is hard to imagine All this, of course, assumes that what we call
falling asleep while dreaming, which is to say reality is not already a dream. If all that we call
falling asleep while asleep. real is a dream, then every time we fall asleep
and dream, we dream a dream within a dream.
But hold on a second, you might say, it is not that And every time we experience a dream within a
we fall asleep and then fall asleep again. We only dream, we actually dream a dream within a dream
fell asleep once. After that, we started dreaming within a dream.
and in that dream we fell asleep which began a
new dream. However, this sounds a lot like the And if Edgar Alan Poe is right and all that we
first option which suggested that one really dreams experience is already a dream within a dream,
just one dream and its content involves waking up then if any reality exists which isn’t a dream, it
in a dream. So far, this possibility seems the most is so far away that it must be beyond our dreams.
plausible because it captures what it feels like to

27 PHOTOGRAPHY by Ghita Radu-Andrei

The Dream Issue | Φ 28

View the whole photoseries and read ART DIRECTION by Laura Kueng
the story behind the project at PHOTOGRAPHY by Emanuel Oberle
phimag.org/dare2dream

Μορφή

by Leonardo Geri

Bianche lenzuola appese White hanging sheets
sollevan ombre, cast shadows,
fantasmi di luce ghosts of lights

messeri con trombe. faithful trumpeters.

Laudano Morfeo, They praise Morpheus
dell’esistenza alleviatore reliever of the existence:

aspetto acqueo aqueous aspect
di forma produttore. shape creator.

Demiurgo maligno Evil demiurge
con materia impura with impure stuff
imposes beauty
fronte alla realtà
bellezza impone. facing reality.

Eppure, io Nonetheless, I
a rischiar l’aridità would rather risk the dryness
di quella grigia realtà
ne preferisco le sfumature. of that grey reality
and its shades.

The Dream Issue | Φ 30 ART by Maya Barter

PHOTOGRAPHY by Myriam Cohenca

DREAMSCAPES

with art by Maya Twersky

Dreams come in all states of wakefulness, in all WE’VE GOT A WHOLE
shapes and colours. We asked our contributors, WORLD IN OUR HANDS
long time and new, to send us two to four-hundred

word dreams. Here is what we received.

by Magnus Meretric

It’s not about escapism. Why witness the
inadequacies of the flabby concrete world when
a sumptuous self-authored one sits in our pocket?
We’re retreating from ironclad tedium and the long-
term inevitability of a meagre pension and broken
body. We have this swept away with the imminent
creation of our own world. It’s the pinnacle of
authenticity and identity manifestation, with
trends that plug you into the giga-consciousness.
Social media is the equilibrium point between
the self and others. It is the cerebellum spell
that integrates your experience into a shared
consciousness- whilst in body leaving you utterly
alone. We put the lingering squalor behind us with
Instagram; Twitter and Tik Tok. Graces! OnlyFans
is private stripping without the need to travel! The
caged mentalities of sagacious boomers talk of a
contemporary obsession; observing the “mindless
hordes drip fed dopamine for their tired eyes,
stunted fingers and lime pallor.” Listen: We do
not observe the pixels for the emotional release!
We tolerate the release to be part of a better world!
We choose a parallel dimension, bristling with
new ideas, sensations and art! We live in a better
world.

The Dream Issue | Φ 32

WHILE I SLEEP MEAT

by VitorAlmeida by Kevin Nolan

I enter a small house, it’s impossible to stand up. In the 1930s, meat was scarce and so many
The walls are mirrored and in the middle of the of us boys made our own using pieces of
room there is a statue made of something white cardboard coloured with nail varnish we stole
and gritty. I lick it. It tastes like sand being chewed. from rich women. We'd sell the meat in public
The statue has a rigid face. He holds a knife places and often would give it a special 'glaze'
threateningly with one hand, while the other hand by shining lights on it with torches lent to us
holds the first by the wrist. As if one hand wants by friendly policemen. The new meat was a
to attack and the other wants to ask time to turn great success and earned us plenty of money;
back. I am afraid. one man even told us that our steak was the
best thing he'd eaten all week. Then, one of
Then I realise that the house has grown. Now it is our regular customers died from shock and
huge, like the churches that make us touch the sky. the authorities tried to contact us. In any case,
I walk to the mirrored wall, haunted by the face there was a warning to the public that they
but enchanted by my reflection. When I finally should beware of imitation meat sold by boys.
arrive, I am at peace. I feel as if I am free from the Shortly after, our gang folded and several of
urge to see my face reflected. us joined the army – mostly for the food. On
postcards from the frontline we would read
But it is too late, I am already in front of the mirror of our old friends having a whale of a time,
and I see nothing but mist. My heart beats harder, but each and every one said how much they
like a drum. I step forward and when I finally see missed the old style, home-cooked meat that
my face, it is not pleasing: I have the same stone we had so ingeniously made from cardboard.
face as the statue. I tried sending the last of my supply to a friend
in Switzerland but it always got returned with
I run as fast as I can. I am exhausted, but I won't a note saying 'Pieces Missing'.
give up. I run away from myself. When I look, the
wooden floor has turned into wet grass. When I
look again, the wet grass has turned into a swamp.
Gasping for breath I stop running, afraid and
muddy to the knees. I look to the side and see a
Pitanga fruit tree, so strange and familiar. I think:
who am I anyway?

I open my eyes and nothing has changed.

Maybe I am nothing but someone weak when he
hopes to be strong and strong when he needs to
be.

33

IT'S GENIUS PEAT

by Maria Payro by Ariel De La Garza Davidoff

Anyway, these steps have always been exhausting. Early every morning, he would wake in a cold
The ramp is a much faster way to get up there. room to a field of long grass made rugged by
Ah! But you’ll get detention. That’s it: any student frequent frosts, step into his boots and onto
caught using the ramp gets after school detention. the clay. His shoes were never clean, what
On Friday. So fuck that, its back to the steps. for? The clay wasn't filthy, it was ancient, it
There’s always rubble from the earthquake. Up was essential, it was an honour to be smeared
and down I go. I had art class, all the way down the in it. He would stand, spade in hand, before
hill. I’m half way up, and it’s Friday and I won’t the vast expanse his destiny had chosen for
risk detention. Not on Friday. I need to get out him. He would run his hands, coarsened by
of this place quick. I keep bumping into people work and salt, through his hair and over his
I haven’t seen in a long time. The most random eyes, in a ritual sacred only to him, and sink
people, though. I run into Miss Montenegro. I them into whetted clay. It was always cold,
don’t know whether I like her or not. But it's good but if ever it were hot he would know to leave,
to see her. “You forgot something?” she asks. I he would know this land was no longer dead
realise. One of my Airpods is gone. It must be and he would be superfluous. It would often
in the art room. Back down again. Through the rain while he harvested the peat, he would
rubble. I can see the library flooding; the librarian pay it no mind until he couldn't, every time
trying to save the books. She doesn’t know where pushing himself to stay out longer, to bear
to start. I have to help her. I jump into the water. the wind, the rain; someday he would have to
My phone! My Airpods! I hold them up above bear worse. A groan, then a hum rose in the
me. Always, phone into the water. The librarian is distance. It grew into a screech that tore the
gone. So is the library. There are books floating on sky, revealing soft ripples of black. Harold
the water as far as I can see. Where to start? What opened his eyes, his coffee was cold.
to save? Big fat book. Orange and white cover.
That’s what I forgot! I never returned it. Allen
Ginsberg’s Howl & Other Poems. But it's soaked
and the pages are unreadable. Is it the only copy
left? I must recite it. I can’t remember it. I need
to get the Airpod. Back down the stairs, find the
Airpod, back up. In front of the office, when Miss
Montenegro opens the door for me. “We’ve been
waiting for you” she says. I sit down at the table.
We’re in my mother’s kitchen. Me and a bunch of
men in suits. I’m out of breath. But they’ve come
to listen to me. I make sure no one’s around, and I
tell them. “When you go to Duck & Waffle, get the
Duck & Waffle without the duck: they’ll charge
you two quid for delicious waffles and eggs.” Its
genius.

The Dream Issue | Φ 34 ART by Maya Twersky

35 PHOTOGRAPHY by nancy



AN INTERPRETATION OF US

by Jack Verschoyle

I

Your milky porcelain fingers and palms
were praying, though I was not there,
The words arrived as a book; pageless,
Dicté. The contents an obscene mess
They cut the ball of my eye
and blessed cracks in my skull.
and yoked each cranial half
to reap some untended harvests.

Then, though not following,
parts were writhing, spasming;
Tide-like. The Day’s death-look drumming
Had reached into the hollow,
Quickening, turning frequency
And all solidity to a great crashing
threat to sleep. I denounce.

II

The kernel of a peach, my morning fruit,
Sat nested my teeth, rid of flesh.
Lowell and Plath cutting dead root
From belief; imperfection from the crèche.

Could four years of loving you
Have been a dream? After all
Our history is not now constituted
by space or time the admission
that must have checked the path
from one unit to the next
dissolved while I wrote this poem

37 PHOTOGRAPHY by nancy

DREAMY SONGS
FOR DREAMY DAYS

REFLECTIONS FROM

by Rhys Woodwards

Rhys Woodwards, a recent Philosophy Iris | What Kills You
graduate from King’s College London,
has been collecting records for years. This is by far the dreamiest record I own, two
His Instagram, @rhysxrecords, is a of my closest friends bought me this exact copy
consistent place for record and music for my birthday so it makes me quite nostalgic.
lovers to find something new. For this We were younger, money was harder and they
issue we asked Rhys to tell us about his travelled from Bristol to London on a megabus
top three dreamiest albums. In his own to visit for my birthday. After devouring the
words: best food we could find – What The Pitta in
Camden for those interested – we ended up in
In thinking about what makes music or my flat throwing two bags of spinach around my
a record dreamy I hit on a few different overpriced London room. Even now I don’t know
things. The first is the deep feeling how it happened, but I vaguely remember looking
of nostalgia attached to some of the at my spinach covered floors thinking “people
music, the memories and people they dream of having friends like this.” Four years
remind me of. I suppose that I relate on, every time I play the album I play it twice,
this to a sense of escapism and that’s the whole EP is printed on each side, once for the
what dreams are all about sometimes. music and once to remember the excellent time I
had with friends.
The second thing I thought about is the
impact and dynamic of the music. Most The record also reminds me of another time –
of the music I listen to is heavily reliant strangely enough it wouldn’t have even been out
on modular effects and this helps to then. It takes me back to walking down to Tesco
create a soundscape that I can only on Tooley street with my first year flat mates to
describe as dreamy. buy reduced cake.

As I’m sat here thinking about it, the only
connection I can make is that this EP
has major “streetlights, head down,
nowhere to be vibes'' and that’s
how I felt as a first year student in
London; lost in the grand scheme
of things, everyone rushing
about and then me, 19, young,
tired and nowhere to be.

For anybody interested the band
are re-releasing their material
under the name “bliss fields".

The Dream Issue | Φ 38

WMD | SAUDADE Turnover | Peripheral Vision

It was a long term dream of mine to This album is truly iconic, one of my most played
study at King’s College London but it records and definitely one that everyone can
wasn’t easy to get there. Even when I did enjoy. It turned every angry pop-punk sad boy
get there, I didn’t find it easy to thrive. emo kid into a chilled out hippie bro overnight,
London is a crazy busy place and even whether or not that’s a good thing I'll leave up
though I loved it, I never felt like that to you. The dream pop energy is unmistakable
love was reciprocated. I did it though, and behind all of the depressingly hyperbolic
and here I am having ticked something lyrics there’s a strange optimism. It’s summer,
off of my never-ending list of dreams. I’m things aren’t great like you imagined but hey
onto the next thing. Music like this, and that’s ok. All of this being said, I don’t have
particularly WMD’s music, has gotten
me through a lot of times when it felt any specific memories or connections to it. It
like things were going every way except doesn’t remind me of anyone or anything.
the way I wanted them to. From the 3 I drive to it a lot, and I've always liked
a.m.s writing essays on things I've now to drive, so I suppose there’s a sense
forgotten all about, the 6 p.m. walk home of escapism there that I don’t have
down Kingsway in winter, past Holborn, with any other album. All things
past Great Ormond Street Hospital and considered, from start to finish this
down to King’s cross. These ethereal thing will have you bopping.
soundscapes were an escape and they very
much still are. I often find myself daydreaming
or lying in bed at night listening to this kind of
stuff, it’s been integral to me achieving things I
never thought I could. Strangely enough it’s only
until now, while writing this that I appreciate the
mindset that music can create.

I don’t think there’s anything dreamier than
finding something or someone that can both
inspire you into productivity and into taking
fifteen minutes for yourself at the same time.

39

The Dream Issue | Φ 40 PHOTOGRAPHY by Katarina Galić

DARE TO LISTEN:
AN INTERVIEW WITH
PHILOSOPHY IN PRISONS

by Ariel De La Garza Davidoff

When and how did you start the project? “In are, they have a very specific audience in mind,
2015, through a series of coincidences. namely those who are educationally inclined
I was in Princeton at the time, and in Princeton and with enough formal education enough to
they have a big working in prison initiative.” MM undertake a philosophy degree from a demanding
McCabe, the eminent ancient greek philosophy college. This leaves a significant part of the prison
professor tells me from her study via Zoom, a population ineligible, and underserved. Some will
bookcase in heavy use behind her. “My graduate still never want to enrol in a philosophy class at
students, for the semester I was there, had been all, and others will want to take a more formal
doing philosophy in prison, and I was very taken one but MM McCabe noticed that “there is a
by it” she tells me. “And then one of my students, chunk in the middle who are intellectually able
who was working on Aristotle on knowledge but educationally desperately disadvantaged. The
happened to be coming through New York while I disadvantage goes hand in hand with economic
was there, and he was saying, it’s all very well my disadvantage, and often, in prisons, race.”
work about Aristotle on knowledge but it doesn’t
mean anything.” Philosophy in Prisons is thus a prison education
program that seeks to do things a little differently,
That student was Dr. Mike Coxhead, now a British rather than provide the same level of demanding
Society for the History of Philosophy Postdoctoral course as a full undergraduate education would
Fellow and Visiting Research Fellow at King’s require, they aim to philosophize with prisoners
College London. “I guess I was getting a bit who would otherwise have no such contact.
dissatisfied with academic philosophy. You know,
you’re writing a PhD thesis, which definitely your Their courses are ten-week long seminars
two examiners will read and your supervisor will covering a broad range of philosophical questions.
read and of course you will have to read. But it's But unlike undergraduate seminars, the sessions
not, like, a high impact activity.” He tells me on are based around a problem or prompt rather
a sunny day in London, also over Zoom. “And I than a series of texts. “I know we always tell
guess I started to kind of have doubts. You know, our students you’ve got to read Plato’s Republic
what's the point of doing all this? Because they're and I dunno, the Critique of Pure Reason. You
also hard, right, PhDs are hard!” go off and read all this stuff and that’s what
makes you a philosopher. And actually that’s
So, like most philosophical projects, Philosophy not what makes you a philosopher! What makes
in Prisons began with a worry. It just so happened you a philosopher is learning how to think in a
that Mike coincided with Professor McCabe’s straight line about difficult things.” She says with
renewed interest in prisons and their resident’s infectious excitement, knowingly absolving the
welfare. sins of countless undergraduates, myself included.
In fact, Philosophy in Prisons isn’t entirely an
In America there were then, and are now, several educational initiative in the conventional sense
initiatives to bring university level education to – they don’t mean to fill their student’s minds
prisoners: Princeton, Wesleyan, and Northwestern with facts – rather they endeavour to enter into a
University to name only a few, all have them. special kind of contact, one meant to educate yes,
These programs are full-blown undergraduate but above all, one meant to humanise.
seminars. In April, for instance, three incarcerated
philosophers graduated from Wesleyan’s Mike ran his first course in HMP Belmarsh, a high
prison education program, the students had to security men’s prison in London, with the support
complete the same number of credits as regular of M.M. McCabe and Bill Brewer, then head of
undergraduates but under the incredibly difficult the philosophy department at KCL. To figure out a
conditions inherent in incarceration, a remarkable way to run it, he was put in touch with Andy West
achievement. As wonderful as these programs who had been doing work for The Philosophy

41

stories. Such as a thought experiment
about separating conjoined twins despite
the certainty that one of the two will
die – in a scenario where, without the
operation, both would perish – as a
means of discussing deontological versus
utilitarian approaches to moral theory. Or
the case of an Australian high-powered,
amnesiac solicitor meant to evince
intuitions about either physical-continuity
or psychological-continuity in debates about
the metaphysics of personal identity.

Foundation’s Unsurprisingly, external world scepticism is
initiatives that often one of the harder topics to motivate: “We
employ philosophy had one class where people said something along
students and graduates to run the lines: ‘Do you think we're idiots? Is this some
philosophical discussions with children and kind of, like, baby-baby stuff?” Mike tells me
adults in schools and other settings. This first gleefully, like a man who has oftentimes tried to
course, and others like it, proved the idea could explain what he does to family members or people
work and inspired the founding of Philosophy in on airplanes who ask the tree falling in the lonely
Prisons in 2018. woods question on first mention that you study
philosophy. The approaches that often do have
The two, with the help of Andrea Fassolas, began the most purchase are normative: the ethics of
developing a curriculum and method. They belief, norms of belief and pragmatist notions of
borrowed from The Philosophy Foundation, truth; their slightly more practical nature grounds
and various other discussion based education the discussion in more common experiences. I
models but had to adapt them to suit the new, got the impression from Mike that the sessions
unusual environment. Since they wanted the also force one to reevaluate the importance of
program to reach prisoners of varying educational some philosophical debates, or at least see the
backgrounds, the sessions are exercise and prompt contextual nature of the hold they can have on us.
based, rather than relying on extensive reading,
this is especially important for ESOL speakers, And yet abstract topics can have their benefits.
who form a significant portion of the prison “You can't start a course by talking about
population in the UK. In non-COVID times, the freedom. It's not a good entry point, freedom and
group would meet in person and the discussion responsibility,” says MM Mcabe. Rather they
would begin with an exercise, like talking about a chose the more abstract questions mentioned
common turn of phrase such as “time stood still” above precisely because they are more detached
or “time flies when you’re having fun,” to get “it's not about immediate questions, you know,
the creativity flowing, before moving on to the what's for lunch or, is the person I'm sharing a cell
main discussion topic, in that case St. Augustine’s with going to snore in the night. It’s not about that.
philosophy of time. The philosophers leading the It's about something that's completely separate
session don’t lecture, rather they gently guide the from everything. You can kind of freewheel,” she
seminar, make sure everyone speaks and move the says.
discussion along. The topics are often canonical,
exactly the types of things you would expect “And do you tackle the freedom and responsibility
in an intro to philosophy class in university: questions later on?” I press.
skepticism, personal identity, time – incidentally
a very popular topic, especially St Augustin’s “It’s not that we're not noticing that they're in a
idealism about time – personal responsibility and prison.” She says after a pause and a laugh. “It’s
ethics. The angle the topics are approached from obvious to everybody that they're in a prison.
does differ from an intro to philosophy class. And it isn't that it's embarrassing to talk about
Unlike in a university lecture where the professor it, but you need quite a lot of philosophical, not
relies on texts to motivate the topics and get the background exactly, but experience to tackle
discussion moving, in a Philosophy in Prisons those particular questions. So that usually comes
seminar, the burden falls on novel exercises and quite late on.”

The sessions do sometimes deviate from the set
curriculum. On one occasion in HMP Belmarsh
two men had made a series of racist remarks.
It was an ongoing issue, and many other
participants were getting fed up, the situation

The Dream Issue | Φ 42

was coming to a head, some people had even left themselves and in their intellectual capacity. And
the class. After some deliberation with many of these are people who do feel confident in lots of
those who had left, Mike settled on confronting different scenarios.”
the issue. And that’s exactly what they did, “the
class were just really, really good at talking about Since COVID struck, the activities of Philosophy
this in a constructive way,” Mike tells me. They In Prisons have been severely curtailed. Prisons
were acknowledging the problematic nature of the are tightly packed places and citing the safety
comments and articulating and discussing what it of the inmates the Ministry of Justice, which
means for something to be racist, even exploring manages the prisons, locked them down and, as
notions of structural racism, a notoriously difficult of March this year, held the prisoners in their cells
discussion to have. for 23 hours a day. Nonetheless, according to a
UCL study, COVID death rates in prisons have
“But I don't want to say this happened because we been 3 times higher than in the general population.
were doing philosophy,” Mike says emphatically. Unable to travel to prisons, the team have taken
“I think what deserves the most merit in this are to other means: sending worksheets through
the people having the discussions. On the other the mail, broadcasting videos via WayOutTV,
hand, I think the fact that this happened in this using prison educational software, and reading
environment is because it set up certain ways of philosophical short stories over the radio.
talking, such that there was a clear avenue for how
to deal with this.” The environment allowed the When we spoke, Professor McCabe was practicing
group to stay together and complete the course. reciting Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk
Away From Omelas. A short story about the city of
“I don't think it's a panacea and we don't claim Omelas, “bright towered by the sea.” Its citizens
that it is.” Says MM McCabe, despite their life- are happy, not banally so, but truly happy. They
long devotion to philosophy, neither she nor Mike sing and love and work, they learn and think, they
seem to think tackling its problems is the most lead fulfilling lives. But it comes at a cost. They
important part of the program. “We don't even have a secret which children learn of at a certain
claim that it is rehabilitative, although it might be, age: It is a child grovelling in pain. The only rule
but we do claim that it takes people seriously.” is that no one may touch the child or acknowledge
She pauses. “It's that right. It's that these are it, no matter what it may do. To live in Omelas
not just bodies behind bars, they're being taken you must know of the child and follow the rule.
seriously. And it’s that, that I think matters more But despite the beauty, and harmony of Omelas,
than anything else.” not all those who learn the secret stay, some walk
away.
Moreover, many are people who have seldom
had good experiences with education. And over Our world is much less perfect than Omelas, yet
the course of ten weeks many gain confidence we seem to be making the same bargain. But do
in themselves and in their intellectual abilities, we have to? Dare break the silence and listen, dare
abilities questioned by the very system that now take people seriously.
confines them. “It feels great to people who said
they started reading again for the first time after If you are an ECR philosopher or just very
10, 20 years.” Mike tells me. “And they were interested and would like to participate, visit
really enjoying it, people just talk about feeling www.philosophyinprison.com and get in touch.
like they have developed a sense of confidence in

43

PATH

AN EXTRACT

by Gabriel Caruana

The Dream Issue | Φ 44 PHOTOGRAPHY by Mercedes Lavin

Life is simple for the feet. A step forward. I must walk.
Every time. All the time. All the feet need to
do is walk. Forward. Do you think that they want We keep on walking, always in the company of
to do that, after all? That is, after all, what I think dead-souls-always-dying-but-never-dead. Down
my feet need to do from the perspective of my the valleys and up the hills. Valleys and hills, the
eyes. When I elevate my eyes from off the ground, troughs and crests of life, the shape of an eyelash
my feet dissipate from perceptive existence. And buffeted by the pale desert sand. Blinking won’t
yet, they live, and function, without our conscious straighten it out. Every blink is a rebirth, not of the
awareness of their doing so. Everything functions self, but of the world. On and off – the world is our
as it should function because each function experience, a hologram projected and respawning
functions according to the way it must function. from whatever stuff we’re made of and blinking
A malfunction is a malfunction because it is not won’t straighten us out. On and off – Every blink
functioning according to the function we have is a rebirth without death, a perennial state of
assigned to it. Perhaps all of life is functional, and constantly dying to another state of constantly
yet we have made it malfunctional because of our birthing. On – Dying is constant. Off – Death never
limited understanding of functionality. is. All death is, is an objective representation of
the functionality of the universe, which we have
My feet are tired, and yet they still pound the wrenched into a wretched malfunction through
ground, smelting the bleached desert sands with our perverted experience.
acid raining overhead. My feet are out of sight,
and all I can see are immeasurable existences. Ash falls, splitting free from its acidic counterpart,
and fertilizes the land. Twigs and leaves snap off
I must arrive at the horizon and it will all be over. of trees, and become a temple for the ants to usher
All shall be well. All shall be well. These are the in. The ash we walk on, the cool spots of ash –
echoes that we hear, that we think we hear over a reprieve from the desert sands – is the ash of
our unconscious muttering. Nothing is – but what those who reached their horizons, and the cool air
it is. Nothing is – but what is it? Footprints stretch which wafts out of the ash, cooling our feet, are
beyond the horizon, beyond the limits of our sight, the splashes from the tears of lamentation which
and yet we keep paddling forward. We should live strew their paths. But what are these few spots of
all of life looking down at our feet, licking the ash to this desert we have hurled ourselves into?
ground we trudge upon. We must lament our journeys to make the path
bearable for those who follow in our footsteps.
Wretched. We must atone for our unmindfulness.

Everything becomes complicated when we tilt Where have I been marching? I thought that we
our heads up to the beyond, to boundless space were on the summit of a hill without realizing
containing vistas of endless miasmas, endless that we were in the belly of a valley all along.
everydayness which wears out our features into a From one valley, we descend into another valley.
faded-out canvas, smothered by a smudgy scream. Summits aren’t real, they are short, intense,
Everything is perplexed by perception. Once we flickering stretches of inexperientiality. The body
spot the horizon, we forget what we are. Where of a yawning valley is deep, dense, and every
we are. Daydreaming towards an infinite collapse step sends echoes shooting across the faces of
into relapse. What is life for the eyes? What is its our former selves. What is that echo we hear? A
story? The feet walk. The heart beats. The eyes murmur reverberating against a still-slumbering
see – is that it? The eyes are not important. What conscience. Who was here before? What have
is life for the mind? For the soul? they taken? What have I taken from myself?

Damage – my feet refuse to walk. I refuse to make Beheaded and served upon a platter across the
my feet walk – But did I tell my feet to walk? seas to be a spectacle for my captors. Here, I do
They walk without my telling them to walk. Who not walk, but I walk on myself, defiling my body
is controlling all of these synchronous parts which with my body for the enjoyment of everybody,
make up Myself? Can I be Myself when I am not for the enjoyment of my fragments who laugh at
in control of Who I am? What makes me walk, what they do not recognize as their whole. We are
and move, and keep moving forward, always the scalpel and the plater, slicing bits of ourselves
forward, all the time? to present to the world, as if we know what we

45

are made of. This is a rib, bent and broken, this, to be alone. But no, you come back, uncalled for,
a lacerated breast, pulsating black-blood through and I must say that I love you unconditionally for
the eye of a mangled nipple, this, an eyeball, you to leave me alone and for me to enjoy your
scooped and seasoned with dusty eyelashes. qualities later. I love you, dear.
Yes, we even have them labelled in Latin, we
can trace their genealogies and etymologies, I always love stones, though. I love these concrete
their functions, their DNA. Isolated, detached – anchors in our artificial simulation. Always so
everything is always so simple. Together, living, hard and cold, and, like us, made featureless by
breathing, a whole fragment larger than the entire the acid. All stones look the same. We are all
sum of fragments in the universe. Here, we are stones, and I love it when I pick myself up, and I
lost. All we do, all I do, is walk forward, anxious love to pretend that I am fate or God or The Acid,
to arrive at whatever I think I must arrive at, and throwing stones towards a new destiny, towards
when I arrive I must then arrive elsewhere. We a new eternity. I love it when I’m so strong that I
strive to arrive, we think, not knowing, or perhaps manage to throw a stone into the sea. I wish I was
knowing but neglecting and ignoring the knowing that stone. I wish I was that stone and whatever
and the not knowing, that it is the prospect of threw me here would throw me there, to erode
arrival which creates the concept of the Arrive. I and become pitted with the salt and scales of
must Arrive. I must. I see? There! The horizon is experience. But how could I ever think anything
within sight, within reach, I must arrive. to the contrary? Yes, we would always prefer to
be there rather than here but that is because we are
I reach out to clasp the taunting horizon, speaking from the perspective of here rather than
always visible, always one-step within reach, there and one always loathes one’s condition and
but it dissipates in my hand in the form of acid yearns for that of another. I wish I never existed.
smouldering into a soup of bubbling battery fluid. Of course I do, why did someone have to wake
I burn my hands and remember my purpose. I me up for a blinking moment between eternities
must walk, up another hill, down another valley, only in order to return to eternity after such a
always looking down at my feet, always looking rude awakening? This is our eternity. Yes, we
down at the dust which is my doing. have all been naïve and thought such a thought.
From the perspective of existence, non-existence
Sometimes, whilst walking, I like to pick up a is always preferable. Suppose I was hurled into
stone. I like to feel something which is very real. the sea. Would I then not struggle to gasp for air?
Concrete, and cool, and real in the hands of a Would I then not loathe my company and dream
floating phantasm. of another? Would I not, too, hate my features
there, pitted, eroded with acneic, salty scabs and
Yes, there is always someone by our side, but smeared with a coat of gelatinous fish batter?
they are not real enough for my liking. They are Every toss is a toss into us. Every toss lands upon
nothing. They are only a collection of qualities, the same path. Toss-off and consecrate the path
qualities which I have attached to them. I don’t with potentiality.
like staring into mirrors, but here, there is always
one by my side. I love you unconditionally, the Last I heard, someone was calling. From behind,
wind sings to me, and mechanically, I repeat it, from afar, from beyond. Someone cried. Someone
without telling it that I only love it when it blows knocked. But I did not open. This is the road we
against my back and not against my face. I hate were made to take. This is the road we paved for
how it dries out my eyes. But that would kill it, ourselves. We cannot stop. We cannot turn. Our
and I’d have to walk without a wind against my feet must walk forward – or else, what?
back. So many days without a wind at our backs.
No. I don’t love you unconditionally. I love you You can read the rest of 'Path' on our website at
on the condition that you satisfy me. On the phimag.org/blog/path
condition that you are soft and soothing and on
the condition that you leave me alone when I want

The Dream Issue | Φ 46

PURPLE BUTTERFLY

by Pdot

swallow it all like daydreams when you
wake up it’s just soft dust hush hush
you’re so tiny and this place just m igh
t sw a llow you whole holes in my mind
like swollen butterflies eyes half closed
bugs biting behind all the fickle kisses
never find their way up up up to this night
so take every part of me parts and parting
is what it becomes like waves pushing
up against the doors but there’s no room
for it only consumes I see only a window
outside this room it finds my bittersweet
lies like lines drawn and curved slow and
steady never shake and crippled can’t
count 3 4 7 and he’s back, lost doors lost
my eyelids when you placed the stars on
top and I stared too long at the sun now I
see it everywhere just shadows dancing in
my heart of hearts and you looked groovy
you looked through me so endearing
it is cute like the cutters we take the
shapes and find the matching ones then
join hands again and close my eyes you
covered them and I look to the holes you
created so beautiful like it’s the last time
last night
lasting

nights

lost nights

l ights
l ie

47

BODY TALK

by Fin Cousins

I floated for miles
without ever
touching the ground
wading through
crustaceans, pearls
casting honey tones,
looking for some
place shallow
enough to stand.

*

Diet tonic and gin – sunburn – nose peeling – planetarium
– concave faces – teeth stretched – floorboards.
Diet tonic and gin – heads like two globes – where warmth
makes you feel like you’re in orbit – and you stop
breathing – as long as it takes.

*

I found a landscape
here, applying adhesive
to whatever needed it
and breathing in
all the asbestos.
Soot, mortar, brick,
soot and hot coals
lining the spaces

The Dream Issue | Φ 48