Sheri-D Wilson is a prolific author of 15 books of poetry. She’s authored 3 produced plays, created 4 short films & produced 3 word & music CDs. Awards include: The Order of Canada, Honorary Doctor of Letters – Honoris Causa from Kwantlen University, Poet Laureate Emeritus, Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, & Women of Vision Award.
Her lifework has centered around creating space for others to share their voices & developing a wider community vision. She splits her time between Calgary & Vancouver with her pooch, Willow. www.sheridwilson.com
In The Oneironaut Ø2, Rain, a brilliant bespeckled outcast scientist, finds herself drawn into the liberating world of illusion. Called by the Willows, she is chosen to lead the rebellion against The Bureau, a dystopian, regime that controls society by forcing its citizens to take a MetaNoia pill which prevents them from dreaming.
Interviewed by Johnny Frem
Johnny Frem (JF): This trilogy is a mammoth undertaking. It must’ve taken you years to build those worlds. When did you start working on The Oneironaut?
Sheri-D Wilsom (SDW): I started writing The Oneironaut in 2018. It developed into the one-story 600-page trilogy of ∅1, ∅2, and ∅3 over time.
It all started when I received an invitation to speak to an international forum of precision oncologists.
JF: Oncology is the study of cancer, right?
SDW: Yes, it is. I’d say they’re the fighter pilots of oncologists, the brainiacs of the world. Precision oncology tailors therapy to the unique genetic makeup of each individual tumor. Instead of using one-size-fits-all therapy, doctors analyze the individual patient’s DNA, RNA, and other biomarkers to identify specific mutations or characteristics driving the cancer. With this information, I believe precision oncologists select targeted therapies that are more likely to work and less likely to cause side-effects. It’s like a fusion of cutting-edge science and personalized medicine.
One of the doctors called me and said, “Our organization (P.O.E.T.) would like you to present a poem at our gala dinner.”
“Okay…?”
“And we’d like it if the poem is about us?”
I replied, “I don’t think so…” I couldn’t imagine writing a poem about the smartest people on earth and then presenting it to the smartest people on earth!
The doctor said, “Well, why don’t you come and do something else.”
“Perfect,” I said, “I’d love to.” No pause. No question – I knew what I wanted to do. For years, my mind had circled around ideas for poems based on the ancient Greek Asclepius – and his practise of using dream to assist the unwell in healing. The door was opened, and it was time for me to walk through it.
Sidebar: Asclepius (son of Apollo) would use the dream state to delve into both diagnosis and prognosis. Many people of the ancient world would go on pilgrimages to his healing sanctuaries.
Apparently, the afflicted would go there, make a sacrifice, and then soak in the warm waters of the healing springs. Next, they would lie down on stone, probably basalt… and Asclepius or one of his priests/priestesses would enter the darkness of the cave to analyze the patient by entering their dreams – or listening deeply into the body that would tell them what was going on.
JF: And use dreams to heal?
SDW: Yes, they would enter the liminal space to suss out physiological blockages. I always loved that idea. I thought about it and I read about it for years and I was finally being given the opportunity to tell super-thinker brainiacs about it.
As I presented the poem, I was struck by the depth at which precision oncology listened – huge capacity – seldom found.
Afterward, a lot of the doctors came up and wanted to talk with me (it was a great honor). They were interested in Asclepius (Asklepios) and the poem about dream healing had sparked their interest. We spoke about the importance of connections between things – connecting dots. We spoke about transformation and transmogrification in the dream world.
Their response and subsequent dialogue stoked me and that night I went home and started writing The Oneironaut.
Originally it was only about healing. Then one night I saw the dystopian counterpoint in a dream, I saw a totalitarian regime. Right away I woke up and hit the keyboard.
Shortly after all of this, Covid struck. All my gigs got cancelled and I was basically relegated to my basement, which turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.
I homed in on the worlds (of realms) – the realms homed in on me. I was able to live the work – or maybe live to work – traversing the epic poem form as the characters led me deeper and deeper into their realties – and yes, everything is illusion.
JF: It’s not an easy read because it’s poetic and not in the format of anything I’m used to reading. But I just got into it. I started to enjoy the ride instead of trying to pin everything down in it. Just let the meanings emerge. It felt like I was reading my first chapter book. Was that your intention?
SDW: Yes… I suppose… it’s meant to be read like you listen to jazz.
JF: I relate to jazz. I play, but I don’t like to analyze it. I don’t pretend I know what’s going on, and those cats don’t know either. They just feel their way. When I read, I like stories. This is a poetry book, but apparently it has a story: The bad guys, the Department of Dreams (DOD), has decreed: every citizen must take the drug, Meta Noia Pill, so they’ll stop dreaming. The protagonists are being pursued as they flee X-City because they’ve refused. But is that all I’m supposed to get?
SDW: Yes! Jazz – going with the flow – not trying to pin-down meaning. There is something in me that loves that… reading with your intuition. Then it becomes like a dream, or the headspace needed for healing.
In a world where everybody’s trying to find meaning – I like to ask myself… what is it about. Everything is illusion. The great thing is… there’s nothing to gain except the experience. If you let it be an experience as you read The O-Naut, you’ll know what it’s about without struggling (trying to make it what you want it to be instead accepting it as it is).
JF: Without knowing all the details. I get it. Let the details explain themselves. You know there’s a panic, that Che may not be there, you don’t know why, but you know that the DOD is out to shut you down and you want to get away. And that’s it.
SDW: But meanwhile you’re experiencing this other realm anyway. So, in reality (or so-called reality) you think you know what’s going on, but do you? And which reality is real anyway? Is the real book about Asklepios and dream-healing? Do you want to use reality to explain the dream or the dream to explain reality? We think it’s about these characters who are leaving X-City et cetera, but in the end, it could be a story about Asklepios and the intricacies of lucid dream healing. Well, it should, or could, I hope it does, have that kind of question in the end.
JF: It’s like reading your first chapter book as a kid, you don’t know how it’s supposed to go. At that age, before you know much, you can only guess what might make sense among whatever words you already understand. You just enjoy it. You get into it. You let it tell itself. Eventually we wind up thinking: books are this! They’re supposed to be this way, but that’s kind of a recent phenomenon – knowing what a book is. You’re not writing that way. For instance: many of your lines in italics are meant to imply the input of others who are not present in the physical reality of, say, the conversations between Rain and Gauge. Not only are there no quotation marks, but there’s also nothing to say who said what, no he-said-she-said, you just get it. We read what’s around it and that’s how we know who is talking. We know what they’re talking about; we know their character. Suddenly some of your other characters enter. Jet, in italics, just jumps in. Are Jet’s thoughts telepathically imported into the conversation? And do you believe in telepathy?
SDW: I don’t know about “believe in it.” I practise it. And I believe every writer uses a different technique to express inner dialogue, or asides. When Che is speaking from another realm… I use seven angle brackets on either side of the text. And when Jet speaks, I reference it. And I have other rules throughout as my terms of engagement.
JF: It’s my belief that there is a collective unconsciousness and we’re all connected and we’re not separate individuals. Our thoughts are not our own only.
SDW: We’re connected to sentient beings (both unhuman and nonhuman) all of the time, yes. And we have conversations there and we send and receive ideas.
JF: That comes out in your book. We don’t know where our thoughts come from. If our thoughts are like bubbles that we see as they rise to the surface, then we don’t know where they originate. And do they interact with other thoughts?
SDW: True. Thoughts and there’s something else going on as well – because of the words and sounds I have carefully chosen to take the reader on their own inward journey. For instance, someone got in touch with me and told me she hadn’t dreamed in years. Then, after reading The O-Naut, she started to dream again. I suppose you might call this the meta-physics of the book.
JF: Can you tell us your explanation of what it means in The Oneironaut 02 “to fish”? I have ideas about it, but can you tell us?
SDW: Well, I’d be interested in what you think about that.
JF: I think it means: “to watch for a dream, to go fishing, to be in that state halfway between awake and asleep and a dream can go by. The metaphor of fishing is to cast and to reel it in. Okay, you’ve hooked a dream, and you’re reeling it in and now you’re going to be in this dream, part of it. And do it lucidly.
SDW: Yes.
JF: Have I got it?
SDW: Yup.
JF: That means you expressed it quite well too.
SDW: Well, thank-you. Yeah. And fish, move as one – with water – with other fish – schooling as they do. Fish. Go fish – are interesting metaphors – they are poetic – they are meta-physical – they are an ancient symbol – the unconscious mind – they are some of the oldest creatures on earth.
Some swim deep – some change sex as they mature – eggs – see in the darkness. They are mysterious. Metaphysically it has some interesting metaphors.
I note… as the oceans become desiccated and polluted – the fish become contaminated. Dreams can no longer swim or fly. So many things. I love surrealism – and of course the fish…. A lot of things were at play when I was thinking about fish.
The title of the book comes from the ancient Greek word… Oneiro, to dream – Naut, to journey.
JF: Oh, the point-of-view! So many different p.o.v.’s, because it’s a dream and who is the dreamer? That’s not apparent yet when the dream starts: Rain could start having a dream, but we don’t know. Once the dream begins, it’s not their dream. They’re just one of the people in the dream. The point-of-view, once we’re in a dream, your characters can- anyone in the dream might be the dreamer.
SDW: Each chapter is named for the speaker… Lily’s Log… or Rain’s. When we go into dream in one of their chapters – it is generally their dream. But I will say, in the next book… ∅3, which I am presently editing, the identity of a dreamer may also change. I try to make it as clear as I can so the reader can follow.
Just saying… in the first two books, Rain was Hygeia (sister to Asklepios) in her dreamspace. But when we enter into the next book, she changes identities when she enters Gauge’s dream.
JF: Part way through The Oneironaut ∅2, you introduce Gauge and some of the Willows of Sweven?
SDW: The word “Sweven” means “to dream.” It’s an archaic word. There are many archaic words throughout the text (actual).
JF: All those words that I’d never seen before.
SDW: Perhaps.
JF: So, you weren’t just making them up?
SDW: No. I’m doing a glossary to accompany The Oneironaut ∅3, because a lot of them are rare or rarified metaphysical words that describe different metaphysical states. Many of the readers of the first two books have expressed an interest in a glossary.
JF: Have you finished The Oneironaut ∅3 already?
SDW: Yes, I’m editing it right now – and it seems like the ending is taking me on a bit of a twist. I’ve loved delving into Speculative Poetry, and I’ve learned a huge amount about life from this book. It has been quite a journey, but every morning when I get up to write I’m still interested in where the characters are going to take me next.