I Dream of Forry
Posted by Earl Roesel in A Walk Through the Forrest with Earl Roesel, Books, Latest News on December 2nd, 2009
As someone who rarely dreams and who essentially enters into an ebon oblivion each night, the idea of writing whole book chapters and crafting elaborate dreamscapes in one’s sleep is fascinating to me. Forrest J Ackerman could do these things.
Almost invariably, just after awakening from a nap and removing the cloth covering his brow, he would call out, in his wavering but ever-so-iconic singsong voice, “Eaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrlll!” This would be my cue to come into the living room. Once there he’d tell me he was ready to dictate a statement, letter or list of some sort and proceed to do just that, uninterruptedly, for the duration of the task. All the work had somehow, someway been done in that marvelous brain of his while sleeping.
Forry dreamt often and vividly. He was prone to take several minutes to describe a dream in detail before even getting out of bed in the morning. Certainly Dolly, Joe Moe and myself were all witnesses to this at various times. Below is a particularly elaborate dream FJA had me transcribe to give you, the reader, a glimpse into the mind of Forry Ackerman. In light of the furor surrounding the recently released 2012, the fact that the centerpiece of the dream is a book entitled The End of the World may be very apt at this time.
“Well, this dream I’m about to tell you I dreamt last night (18th of September, 2008). I dreamt that I was in my former Ackermansion and I was in a room that was on every shelf, from the lowest to the ceiling, packed with books that I owned. Incidentally, when I in reality was showing a fan around, I would state, ‘Yes, I have 57,000 books and I’ve read every last word in them.’ The fan would inevitably react in disbelief. How could I possible have read every word in 57,000 novels? I would say, “Oh, it wasn’t so difficult. When I got a new book, I just turned to the last page and read the last one.”
Well, to continue last night’s dream, suddenly I heard my name being called and I walked over to one wall where there was a little lever. It was up, then someone could speak and I’d heard. In order to speak, I had only to press the lever down. So I did this and said, ‘Forry Ackerman speaking, what can I do for you?’ Suddenly I could not only hear who was talking but see them as well. They were three fans. They said, ‘We’ve been commissioned to see whether you have three certain books and if so, if you could find and show them to us and let us copy their jackets.’ I had only one title they were looking for and since all my books were filed in alphabetical order, it wasn’t difficult for me to lay my hands on the title they wanted to see. I brought it and handed it to them and they were satisfied. Then they named another book. I began to wonder what they were doing with these dust wrappers after they copied them and what did they intend to pay me for this service.
Before I could find the answer to that question, I found myself standing outside the Ackermansion and there was a gravel trap of an old car parked in front of it. Three men got out who were not dressed much more respectable than the car. Before I could ask them what they were doing here, one said, ‘We’re here for our appointment.’ I said, ‘Appointment, what appointment? I don’t have an appointment to see you. Maybe you made an appointment with my wife and she forgot to tell me. But who are you and what do you want?’ They said, ‘We want to know if you have a book called The End of the World by Edward D. Edwards.’ I’d never heard of it and told them so. They said, ‘We want to buy it for a client of ours.’ I said, ‘I don’t sell books from my collection. But out of curiosity if I found it what would you pay for it?’ They said, ‘$500.’ I thought, ‘Wow! I’ve paid $50, $75 or on rare occasions $100 for books, but never $500.’
But all of the sudden they were not talking about this book The End of the World. They now were wanting to know if I had one by another author, the first name being Frank and the last name unrecognizable to me. The last name was the same as a young British artist who was a friend and client of mine. That dream abruptly ended. I never found out if I was paid for anything when I opened my eyes to the real world. Everything vanished except for what I just recorded.”
