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eftychia at 11:19am on 2004-07-22
eftychia at 11:19am on 2004-07-22Just had that "wake up because of cognitive dissonance (and/or failure of suspension-of-disbelief) in a dream" experience again. In this case I was aware that I was dreaming that I was reading that enjoyable book because a) I had not one lick of trouble reading the Greek and Latin parts, and b) I'm pretty sure the author would not have included allusions to and paraphrases from someone who lived centuries later. That is, I don't think Homer would have parodied Coleridge in a style one might expect from Plautus or possibly Benny Hill.
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The dream was mostly in English. Remember that English is Foreign for me. We get a lot of British and American tv programs in this country. We use subtitles, and the original soundtrack remains untouched.
My dream had Finnish subtitles for the English parts where the character was speaking a dialect I could not follow.
Subtitles. Wow...
Now I wonder if my foreign-language-speaking friends also dream in English from time to time. I can recall having several dreams in French, and I've had at least two dreams now that were partially in Hebrew. (I had one really creepy partially Hebrew dream where someone asked me something in Hebrew and I answered him -- but I didn't understand what I said, consciously, and had to look it up. I was very freaked out to find out that what I said made sense in context.)
Of course, my dreaming in foreign languages probably has something to do with the fact that I (am such a pervert that I) often do translation exercises and conversational role-playing in my head as a method of getting to sleep. (Counting sheep is math. ;-) ) Partly I do it because the imaginary scenaria are always pleasant and distract me from any bad thoughts that might be trying to creep in, and partly I do it for practice. :)
Re: Subtitles. Wow...
Counting is not math. Counting is arithmetic. Arithmetic is to math what reciting A-B-C's is to literature.
Arithmetic...math...it's all the reason why I'm translating instead...
Basically, if it involves numbers, it's going to give me fits. (Numbers dance too much.) I never found counting sheep to be relaxing; counting takes too much mental overhead to allow me to sleep (which is probably also why I use counting in all my languages as a method for defusing my temper -- I have to spend so much of my mental energy that I don't have any cycles left for being angry).
I hate being a "dual exceptionality." Besides being the type of person who hangs around with Glenn, I also have dyscalculia. So, I'm disproportionately good at some things and subnormal at others (ie. math etc.). I have a lot of the classic dyscalculic symptoms, including the inability to remember concepts and formulae for any significant period of time (I've been taught algebra from scratch by private tutors five times now *scowl*), poor visual memory for numbers and faces, poor mathematical problem solving skills (I often can't tell even how to begin solving something even when it's blatantly obvious to other people), and some spatial problems. Stupid messed-up brain wiring!
Don't even get me started on counting to large numbers in my other languages, even French (I'm Canadian)...
And they are speaking right to left, unless they're talking in numerals... (joke) I've never quite understood that tendency towards boustrophedonic alphanumerics in Hebrew. It's murder on the reading speed. :)
Re: Arithmetic...math...it's all the reason why I'm translating instead...
Your dyscalculia is interesting a phenomenon; I have had the impression that at least some forms of music talent (rhythm, perhaps) have positive correlation with some forms of math skills. The memory is faint and old, though.
Translating is an activity I don't do at all well. It appears that my languages are fairly strongly compartementalised. I can switch between languages very rapidly, but to translate on anything but the gisting level I need to think slow and hard.
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However, the mind that can come up with a concept of Homeric adaptation of Bennyhillian Coleridge is something to at least approach with caution.
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I did find out I can read greek aloud, when a friend happened to have a greek book at hand. My cognition was less than about 40%, though. Similar results would come with Latin, I expect.
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