The Mind Spins

This book is an exploration of how the mind fabricates a story. What are those real or subliminal influences that the mind works into a story? There are thirteen short stories, six written in a fully conscious state, in our “woke” reality, and seven that are based on dreams the author managed to capture by writing them down right after waking.

The first six offerings constitute Awake (Part I) and these stories retain much of reality as we experience it, but the mind still spins them in different directions. As the author puts himself in the shoes of the narrator or protagonist—in essence becoming one with them—the “spinning” is from his or her point of view, her or his experience. And, as say the stress level increases, or resolutions are sought for certain questions, the stories are shuffled sometimes along strange paths. Thus, in The Purple Bus, as the narrator becomes increasingly fraught with each step he takes, he is led to the next weird misstep in the story. Similarly, in the Veteran and the Passerby, as the veteran’s story is extracted by the passerby (the author protagonist)—like pulling teeth—the homeless man gets more and more agitated. The minds of both the vet and the narrator are “spinning” in directions that end up creating the story.

In these Awake stories, reality remains largely intact (this would clearly not be true for science fiction stories where the conscious distorting of reality is very much part of the story). The settings for short stories like these—unlike those of the more “experimental” kind in Part II, the Dreaming section—are not much changed from those in our normal, daily lives. Thus, the snowy forest or the vacation home in Vermont, the corner in San Francisco where the veteran hangs out, the wall with the niche in East Los Angeles, are all places or vistas we may easily encounter in our lives. What, though, provides the genesis for the story, what sets off the spinning of the mind of the narrator (and behind the narrator, the author)—is often something strange, something abnormal introduced into such a backdrop—a violet colored school bus, an abandoned bra, a pair of teddies in a niche in the wall. Also, in the Awake stories, the characters are contemporaneous with each other, physically generally plausible and usually not out of the ordinary.

The tales in the Dreaming section have a significantly different logic. The mind spins them often in unrelated directions, connects seemingly disparate “plots” together and introduces people or beings that may, on the face of it, have no reason to be in the story. The setting is frequently a totally concocted one, bringing elements from different experiences of the dreamer i.e. the author, together and the story often spins in a ninety-degree sideways direction with the introduction of a new element.

Most of the dreams that the stories in Part II are based on, were dreams the author had many years ago (except for The Poet and the Fencing Bag and Fire and Escape), while the stories in Part I are more recent. Several of the Part I stories were “spun” out of the author’s indignation at specific examples of social injustice (The Teddy Bears, The Veteran and the Passerby and The Phone Number) while others were instigated by direct experiences where a weird element was somewhat introduced into reality.

This discussion guide was created and shared by the author, Geza Tatrallyay.