The continent forgotten

Another version of not reaching Africa: I actually settled down in a house in Mali – but, apart from that general fact, I can't remember a thing!
… if you manage to trespass the southern border of (Scandinavian) imagination, the memories will be confiscated?

/IÖ

The Hibakusha Free State

A dream of Africa from last night:

My friend H and I find ourselves confronted with a map of Africa. There are only a few names printed on it, we are to come up with the names of all the countries. At fourteen, I wouldn't have hesitated, now we have to guess a lot. We start at the east coast, south of Somalia, with Tanzania and Mocambique.
Then there's a rather large country with a free state, named Hibakusha, in the middle. Liberia? No, no, I know where Liberia really is. Big country encompassing Hibakusha Free State? I have no idea. H produces the name, but I can't hear it properly, and don't ask for it, as we move on to the next one, between South Africa and Congo Kinshasa.
Again, I can't remember the name. We are told by a third person it's Zambia. That puzzles me: it's five times bigger than Zambia should be. And where is Zimbabwe on this map? The borders seem to have changed.
South Africa is easy, we pass over it more or less without a mention. And then, on the west coast, which one is that again? We get a hint from the third person: the misty mountains with gorillas. We hesitate. Namibia. I have a feeling something's fishy, those rain forests should be a long way up north, shouldn't they? Oh well. Angola is next.


[Madagascar is missing from the map, but in the dream I don't pay attention to that. And although Zambia is somewhat enlarged and the shape a bit distorted, the dream-me had actually mixed up Zimbabwe and Zambia, while the third person's information in that case was more accurate.]

/ IÖ

Sinusiniri Bay

I’m living at a hotelroom by the coast and I’m just about to go to bed. Kalle and Mattias look by, and point out that it’s full daylight outside, and it would be nice to take a walk in such a bright night. We start to do that. The news reach us that there’s an attack on an American naval base at the “Sinusiniri Bay”. The name comes from the fact that the bay is formed like a sinus curve. We want to go there to see what’s going on. Mattias gets his Mac up and starts to do different searches. We use a searchprogram where one can place out different ships etc to search for their specific formations. We are, however, a bit uncertain as to what should be included in the American naval base. A square platform, some battleships? The search program suggests different areas: A map over London (with a possible sinusformed bay), Venice, a map over the “solar observatory” in the middle of Africa. Nothing suggests the place where we want to go. Niklas joins up and we go to a restaurant to eat. The food portions are too small, everyone returns them, except for me who is happy with ham, ananas and rice.

JE

Dreaming of Africa, continued

I’m going to participate in a conference, in order to stop the privatization of Africa. Different African delegates will be at the conference, where Western businessmen will divide and sell different parts of Africa to themselves. It’s highly absurd and unmoral, and I’m supposedly participating as a unified representative of Africa with the goal of stopping the act of selling. I’m a bit unsure who gave me the mission, I’ve never met the Africans and all that I can put forward are moral counterarguments. I’m especially uncertain about my legitimacy since I’m a completely external participant. I’m running around in the big conference centre, the actual meeting is in western Africa, but I’m in the eastern part and it has to take a lot of time to travel over an entire continent, but soon the conference begins! I finally arrive at a meeting that has gathered a large amount of Africans, but they seem to be mistaken, the meeting is all about coffee and different samples is given away. I continue to run towards the western part.

Nära Afrika

Ett enkelt drömexperiment med viss relevans här gjordes december 1999-januari 2000 inom surrealistgruppen i Stockholm på temat utforskning i drömmen av på förhand utsedda områden. Uppgiften var att drömma om Afrika.

Geografiskt sett är detta förstås ett mycket vidsträckt och föga enhetligt område. Delvis kanske detta var en starkt försvårande faktor. Å andra sidan borde det också kunna vara tvärtom: att var och en ändå har en stark bild av ett personligt-mytologiskt Afrika eller ett drömafrika, som är mer eller mindre fristående från och obekymrat om förhållandena i någondera delen av det befintliga Afrika (t ex ett Afrika som det som manifesterades i Raymond Roussels odödliga bok “Intryck från Afrika”).

Erfarenheten var övervägande negativ, de flesta deltagare i experimenten drömde om misslyckade försök att resa till Afrika, andrahandsrepresentationer av Afrika, tankar på Afrika, men ingen lyckades verkligen ta sig dit medan experimentet pågick (de ursprungliga bidragen publicerade som kommentarer här). Några lyckades dock ta sig dit strax efteråt (kommer att digitaliseras). Hur ser andras drömafrika ut? Finns det belysande exempel på när motsvarande experiment misslyckats eller kanske lyckats?