DREAMS, LIES, ARSON, AND OTHER SUBLIME PURSUITS

Inside the bizarre, brilliant world of Jesse Ball, one of the most exciting experimental writers of our time

JOE MENO

Jesse Ball is trying to show me how to luciddream. The 38-year-old writer and I are in a cafe in Lincoln Park to discuss his novels and poetry. Almost immediately we find ourselves talking instead about the class on dreaming he teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “You can begin by looking at a book. When you’re dreaming, you can pick up a book and then put it down and pick it up again, and the title usually changes. Usually the dream can’t keep up.” Here he picks up a magazine that happens to be lying on a nearby table, holds it up, then sets it down again. “You can constantly do this during the day, these escape tests, to know if you’re dreaming. Dreams are an…

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Chicago (Digital) - 1 Issue, July 2016

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