Acting Your Dreams: Using Acting Techniques to Interpret Your Dreams by Ben Tousey Read Free Book Online Page B

start laughing, and then look at us
and say “sorry, it was an inside joke.”
     
    Even though someone
may say something straight forward, there is always a deeper meaning. The best
example of subtext comes from the Easter story told in church on Easter Sunday.
Mary had come to adorn the body of Christ after his crucifixion and burial but
when she got to the tomb the body was gone. She was weeping in the garden when
someone asked her why. Her reply was that they had taken her Lord. Then he said
to her one word… “Mary.” It was only one word but Mary knew it straight away.
There’s no way of knowing how much subtext was behind that word, but she
recognized the way he said her name even though she didn’t recognize the man in
front of her.
     
    Monologue
    Sometimes the
characters in a screenplay talk to themselves. This is called a monologue. A
monologue is a concentrated process of thinking aloud, expressing the
character's mood, his thoughts and feelings, even his inner conflicts. I have
friends who often talk in monologue. They love to talk and they will talk
regardless of whoever’s in front of them. In such a case they’re not really
talking to anyone in particular, they’re having a monologue with themselves and
using me as the starting point.
     
    In a literary
context, a monologue is a speech in which the character reveals something about
his or herself. The monologue can be an actor speaking to himself, such as
Hamlet’s “To be or not to be.” It can be one character talking to another
character such as a criminal who confesses to the police how and why he killed
his victim. These monologues are invaluable in moving the story along and a
good Dreamwright knows just how to use them.
     
    Monologues
usually come as narration. Often, our dream have a narrator moving the story
along. It usually sounds like us—talking to ourselves. These monologues will
tell us volumes about what is going on.
     
    Dialogue
    A dialogue is a
conversation between two or more people. Very simply put, it’s me talking to
you and you talking to me. In dreams you will find plenty of dialogue. I
remember observing two people having a conversation, and they were basically
talking over each other, each person talking and not listening to each other. I
thought it was rather funny. That wasn’t dialogue. That was two monologues
happening at the same time. It’s important that we realize that dialogue
involves the interplay of the characters speaking to each other.
     
    By recording
the dialog in your dream, you will learn more about the characters and their
interaction with each other. If the dialogue is strained, it could infer some
unresolved yet uncomfortable conflicts between the characters. If it is loud
and angry, that will tell you that there are very strong emotions between the
two characters. The best way to understand a relationship between two people is
to focus on their dialog, keeping in mind that they will bring into play
intonation, and enunciation, and they will use an incredible amount of subtext
during the course of their conversation.
     
    Enunciation
    Enunciation is
a very specific statement or pronunciation of the words. When we watch Brian
Williams on television doing the news, we see that he enunciates very carefully
so that we can understand what he’s saying. When trying to talk to someone who
doesn’t speak our native tongue well, we will find ourselves enunciating
carefully so that we can be understood.
     
    Others do not
enunciate so well. Some people talk in such a way that they don’t make sense.
They either ramble, or use a lot of “ers” in their sentences, or they
substitute pronouns for nouns. Instead of saying “will you bring me the phone?”
they say something like “get me that thing…”
     
    How a character
uses enunciation will help us learn how to communicate with them. If we, in
real life, tend to use sloppy enunciation, then some of our dream characters
may as well. In this case,