David's birthday dream

[Maria_Merriweather]

I had not seen this episode before today.  The dream of David's birthday was pretty creepy. The puppet did look like Minerva Trask. I wonder if this was on purpose. Maybe that was because she could be anyone's worst nightmare.

[Luciaphile]

If I'm not mistaken this episode is written by the incomparable Violet Welles. It's one of my favorites among the dream sequences--too many of them tend to be pretty straightforward and that's not how people seem to dream. This had enough bizarre flavor to be creepy and yet plausible at the same time.

Luciaphil

[Mysterious Benefactor]

If I'm not mistaken this episode is written by the incomparable Violet Welles.

Yes Violet Welles wrote both of today's episodes (as well as both of tomorrow's) ...

It's one of my favorites among the dream sequences--too many of them tend to be pretty straightforward and that's not how people seem to dream. This had enough bizarre flavor to be creepy and yet plausible at the same time.

... but it's unfortunate that we can't quite be sure how much of the premise of the dream we can attribute to her. It's my understanding that plot and sequences were developed during marathon group sessions between all the writers (often at Sam Hall's kitchen table), which were then presented to DC to either accept, contribute or shoot down, then Sam Hall and/or Gordon Russell would breakdown the episodes into act and scene outlines, which were then fleshed out by an individual writer. We can probably attribute every bit of dialogue to Ms. Welles - and isn't it funny how once you get accustomed to the different writers' styles, you can pretty much identify the writer of each episode solely based on the way they write their dialogue. It's just too bad that the surviving writers haven't gotten together to do their own book about the history of DS. Different ones have given us glimpses and tid bits over the years, but I think it would be absolutely fascinating to get a complete history from their perspectives, who came up with what, what sorts of ideas DC shot down, and so forth - particularly if it wasn't published and, consequently, filtered through the Fest or Pomegranate.

As far as this dream sequence goes, it's one of my favorites, too, Luciaphil, for the exact same reasons you mention. (However, in a specific case during Leviathans, I think they went WAY overboard on the bizarreness quotient in one dream because to this day I still have no idea how it supposedly accomplished what it was intended to. :-/ But maybe someone will come up with a theory once we've gotten to episode #904.)

[VictoriaWintersRox]

I loved the dream today. It was very interesting. I love some of the bizarre dreams on the series. It was also great seeing some of the characters from present time, even if some of them weren't acting like they normally do.

MB, do you know if that dream was included on the Nightmares & Dreams feature MPI put together? I watched it last week and there was a bizarre dream from that period that was so bizarre and didn't seem to have much of a point to it.

[Philippe Cordier]

David's birthday party dream is on today's episodes?!

I didn't think that came up for a long time ... one of the most memorable DS scenes.

Can't wait to watch it later tonight!

I don't think this sequence was in the dream compilation on the MPI tape -- I kept waiting for it since this is obviously (IMHO) one of the best if not the best of all of DS's dream sequences.  Incredible that they didn't include it.

[VictoriaWintersRox]

I don't think this sequence was in the dream compilation on the MPI tape -- I kept waiting for it since this is obviously (IMHO) one of the best if not the best of all of DS's dream sequences.  Incredible that they didn't include it.

I was expecting it to show up too. I had heard about it a little and was looking forward to seeing it - and then when the hour was up there was no scene. *sigh* Too bad they didn't include it.

[Philippe Cordier]

Jamison's dream was everything I remembered it to be.  I can't say it had quite the impact as it did the first time I saw it -- I'm not quite as involved or committed emotionally to the show now in my second viewing.

But the same "levels" of the dream were still there -- Jamison dreaming about his future alter-ego, David, in an Alice-in-Wonderland version of Collinwood ... death looming on the horizon, the emotional connection between the boy and his uncle, the prophecy uttered by the dead Quentin who has knowledge that the present -- or past -- Quentin doesn't yet have ...

The complexity and depth here are hallmarks of what we are to experience to an even greater degree in the 1840 sequence ...

[Philippe Cordier]

Not to mention that Barnabas added yet another layer with his psychoanalytic interpretation of Jamison's dream.

Not only did his interpretation sound convincing, it must have amazed Judith and Quentin -- this was more than a decade before Freud invented his psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams!