I have had that experience too, Patrick. Having also, quite a few
times, wished that particular poems written by others had been written
by me, I have been cautious before I claim That's mine. Once it's
typed, one cannot be sure if there isn't a name typed in; and I often
don't.

	I make Alzheimer's jokes, too; but forgetting and not knowing need
not be anything like that. I have seen someone fairly close up
suffering from Alzheimer's and also someone losing their memory and
other abilities from short ischaemic attacks. My forgetfulness is not
like that.

	This was something else that I dreamt -- some bit of my thinking that
my conscious mind doesn't readily access giving me access.

	The idea of someone not recognising his wife was from my experience.
He was an interesting man who liked joking and drinking and it was
only when he had to stop drinking because of physical side effects
that it became obvious he had other problems. It was thought that he
had Alzheimer's.

	But here, as Max Miller said, is a funny thing. He had lived and
worked for many years in Sweden and was fluent in the language.
Knowing I had spent time there, he would sometimes address me in
Swedish and I'd have to say Slow up! What? & Why are we not speaking
English? And sometimes it was obvious that he thought I had been one
of his friends in Stockholm in the 50s; and his wife would patiently
point out I had been there first decades later.  One day he woke up
not knowing anything but English.

	As an experiment one day we were in his garden and a propos of
nothing I said to him Just look at that; isn't that beautiful? that
being St Ives Bay, views over to Hayle and more distantly the high
land south of Camborne and Redruth. It was a fine day and the view was
beautiful by any reckoning. But I said it as well as I could, in
Swedish

	And he answered me in Swedish, apparently unaware that we had
switched languages; and we went on call and response for some time,
until we crashed either because he lost the thread or I ran out of
language, I don't recall; but I think of it as a crash, like an early
aeroplane flight It was all there.

	Maybe that means the diagnosis was wrong. I don't know enough to say.
I do know that it had been accepted he had lost large bits of his mind
 -- his French had gone too; but by ignoring that, asking him
something that politeness required him to answer, and which was so
colloquial and simple that it would be understood completely if he was
capable of understanding it, one found he knew it all or much of it.
He just needed an environment reinforcing it to make it accessible.

	As I have been typing this, I have made a number of typos and had to
hesitate sometimes, I think because of spell checks that monitor my
typing. As sophisticated word processors have replaced my use of
typewriters and hand-writing for large stretches of the day, holding
my hand, I have softened up. I used to have excellent spelling. Now
it's a little shaky in places. Lack of exercise.

	I was in West Cornwall a few weeks ago and found that I had forgotten
some names and quite where some places are yet ten years ago a friend
said I could probably make a living showing walkers around.

	But this dream, I say, is something else, undoubtedly related, but
showing that we know things we don't know that we know. It has
occurred to me since posting it that I have been doing some rather
hard thinking about the modelling, including visual illusions, of 3d
on 2d etc etc; and maybe this is what has come back to me from the bit
of my mind that has been listening in: I have been rewriting intensely
and that seems to have encouraged invention.
L

----- Original Message -----
From: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics" 
To:
Cc:
Sent:Wed, 3 Apr 2013 16:13:19 +0100
Subject:Re: Dream

 Cheers L reminds me of a poem I read a while ago and was surprised
that it was my name at the bottom -then it gradually came back -roll
on Alzheimer's

 -----Original Message-----
 From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Lawrence Upton
 Sent: 01 April 2013 14:30
 To: [log in to unmask]
 Subject: Dream

 I saw the ending of a printed poem. I assumed or felt that I knew
 that the poem was of my authorship. What I could read of it was
 familiar although I would not even have been able to say it back
 without sight of the print, not even those last few lines. 

 I have had a similar experience. Previously, however, I have read
 the poems I hit upon as if I had forgotten them completely so that it
 was as if I were reading them for the first time -- like one whose
 memory has failed on meeting members of close family, perhaps
speaking
 of �that woman who is sometimes here�, and, when asked if he
means
 his wife, exclaims �Is that who she is?�. 

 I have been impressed by the writing; but, here, as my discovery led
 to responsive authorial plans, the words blurred out of focus in what
 I sought to reread. 

 This poem's ending, that is, its final page, verse lines occupying
 most of it, was huge. It was lying down, perhaps tilted upwards
 slightly, but it must have been seven or eight feet high 

 That did not seem odd to me. It may be that it was part of an
 installation or an especially-made piece of equipment for a
 performance. 

 I began to read. 

 I believe that I read the last line first; and then the penultimate
 line; and so on, upwards; and, in some ways, backwards.This seemed
 entirely appropriate; and I had a strong sense of communicating with
 my audience. Where that audience was located I cannot say. It may
have
 been that stage lighting hid them or that distracted me from them. 

 By the time I had reached the top of the page in my reading, I was
 climbing steps which had my words written on them. It was still a
page
 and known to be a page but it was perceived by me as being a
 staircase. I cannot say whether the words were written on the flats
or
 on the risers. 

 I had been joined by a fellow reader, a female, whom I did not see
 directly. She read well. However, I should say that she was uttering
 words which were visible above the printed text, right-ranged where
 the print was ranged left. I cannot say how they came to be there, or
 visible there; I suspect that they were not inscribed. They may have
 been projected in some way. 

 I think that I too was reading the imposed text then. I hear my
 voice � but not my words � assertive; and hers answering
 interrogatively; and then she, assertive, and me interrogative. Yet
it
 was the opposite of interrogation between us. It was a willing
 offering of speech. �Is this what you'd like to hear?� �Does
 that sound good?� �How like you this?� It was good-natured and
 more, the cooperation of intelligent analysis. On reaching the top of
 the page, I found it to be three-dimensional, with a suggestion of a
 corridor, which would have taken us beyond the end of the book,
 whatever that might come to mean: it was a possibility into which I
 could look down or along, depending upon one's choice of referents;
 but I did not look. To my left would have been the page edge and the
 probable means to turn that page and find out what is printed on the
 other side. 

 I wonder now whether we would have had to descend steps of that
 page's lines before continuing reading. The lines might have made a
 narrative sense going downwards. Possibly they could have been
 meaningfully readable contrary to intended order, as with the page
 which we had just finished reading. 

 Would there have been additional text endorsed without printing upon
 the obverse page, if I am right in seeing it as obverse? Why should
 that not be? That page might have risen further from where we now
 stood. If we stood anywhere. Say then: from the point we saw; or the
 point at which we saw. 

 The dream at that particular state dissolved. 

 By then, I think, I was slightly more aware than I had been, more
 aware objectively of my experience; and so the inconsistent logic of
 my fantasy disintegrated. 

 I awoke. I was alone. I had no book. I had no recall of my
 discovered poetry, beyond the recollection that there was or had been
 a discovery.