The dream/vision sequences

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Sheila Gehlmann
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Re: The dream/vision sequences

Post by Sheila Gehlmann »

I believe they were both ancestral memories and time travel. Sarha's past life was with her ancestors, and her present life was meant to teach her companions and others the ways of ancient times. The time travel was necessary for her understanding of her past life and provided her with skills (using the thrower) that served her well in the present life. She gained a depth of knowledge that would enable her to help others to understand that time long ago that led to the future. The same is true of the others who experienced the time travel in the way that Sarah did. It was interesting how all of the time travelers came together at the same present time in history in order to share their individual ancient experiences with each other. It was also interesting that they all wished to return to that life long ago. Outstanding story!
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Post by Charlie Sheldon »

So.....when I started this series, writing it, back in the fall of 2013, I had no outline, I just knew I wanted to be in the Park area and somehow pivot from present day to a much much earlier time. This was a challenge, how do you do this in a way that makes some kind of sense and carries the reader? I thought about this a lot and then came up with this idea that someone gets lost or injured or struck somewhere and something happens and then they wake in another time or world, or a memory of such. In Strong Heart Sarah disappears and falls into a deep hole and time passes and then she sees the eyes of the bear she saw earlier, and in the other stories something sort of similar happens - they come to or awaken in a new and different place, they are still who they are, their "self" is the same, but they have no thought or memory of their life in the modern times, they just are who they are, in this new circumstance, with some memories of events earlier and placed well within this new world. They come to and they are suddenly awakening in a new place among other people, Sarah does not know the language spoken in her case, and they must figure out, on the spot in real time, what the heck is going on, how they fit in, what their role will be. Sarah wakens in a stick-built cage with other young girls, William awakens standing at the steering oar of a great canoe (the books Strong Heart and then the very end of Adrift and the start of Totem). To them, this is real, it is real, they interact and get hurt and learn things, and never once to they think of or have any awareness of their life in the present day, yet they are who they are. I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether this is a dream, or a memory, or time travel, or maybe even a shift to a parallel universe, and different readers believe differently.
So that was how I did and do the pivot, some kind of event or accident here in the present world, when lost or alone, somewhere in the Olympics, and then being carried or going to another place which is the same place perhaps but thousands of years earlier, and finding themselves on a journey or having an adventure that lasts for days and days, even weeks and months, yet when they then have another incident back in that time and return to this time, or world, only a few days have passed in this modern world.
My guess is that 30 percent of readers, maybe even 50 percent, get to this place in the books and cannot go with me through the pivot, and I lose them, as they cannot suspend their disbelief and give up on the story. Yet, for others, the pivot is easy, natural, exciting.
So is this something that can be understood, and then replicated so people can choose to go places? Is this linked to an ancestral heritage. as for example Sarah's native roots or William's? What about Henry David Olsen who does not have First People ancestry that he knows of (though he marries Dipper a Sol Duc woman) ? Or Laurie, Carl's niece, who is entirely non-Native and not from anywhere near the Olympic Peninsula? How did she hook into this thread or stream or method? And they all seem to go to the same general area, and people, if not time, and how is that?
Is this a form of imagining, or might it be another way to travel, to actually find out things? Chief Seattle said "There is no death, only a change of worlds." Maybe these journeys are changes of worlds. Maybe they can and do travel in time, truly. Maybe this is the way people might be able to cross the stars, not in ships but in these journeys, which seem and are real, with real physical skills and changes upon return to the present day.....
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SnowStorm244
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Post by SnowStorm244 »

I think that it’s a sprinkle of both. Memories can put you back into the same place that you just were remembering the good and bad. I don’t know why she would include the ancestral aspect to it, I didn’t really like that part.
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Post by Christabel18+ »

In my head I had already concluded it to be ancestral memories so I'm definitely going to stick to that.
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Post by Chinaka94 »

I would describe them as ancestral memories, but it's also time travel since she could engage as though it was the present time.
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Post by 5_tourmaline »

I felt like the whole sequence of ancestral memories or dreams mostly. It explains how Sarah and the locals can understand each other.
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Post by Inks and Quills »

I agree with many above, it was very ambiguous without a definitive lean in any of those directions. My personal interpretation is that she used ancestral connection and shared memories to time travel back to that time.
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Post by Nwankwo GC »

The sequence of the book is ancestral in my opinion. The connection of the characters with the ancestors is a solid proof that the sequence is ancestral.
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Kavita Shah
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Post by Kavita Shah »

It's some part memories of ancestors and some part time travel vibe. Interaction with ancestors can be part of the time travel where the voice travels through time.
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Post by IgnatiusChima »

Although I do not entirely grasp the sequence of the book, I am inclined to say that they are ancestral memories. They were too detailed to be just dreams or visions.
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Post by Grampy »

Fine Brand wrote: 04 Feb 2022, 01:49 I agree that the sequence of this book is ancestral. Because that the only way to explain the character living with the ancestors.
Yes I completely had no other option to believe the sequence of the book was ancestral, because bringing this to reality seems unreasonable.
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Post by Laww »

Sarah's interactions with her ancestors confirms the presence of ancestral memories. However, it is still a bit strange to me.
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Post by Almira789 »

Wow, this made me reassess such sequences in the book and rethink Sarah’s potential. I want to conceive, however, that it is ancestral memories because her lineage correlated with the chain of events.
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Post by John korir »

I think we all live with the invention of our ancestors, we all follow what our ancestors did but now in a formal way. I agree with the ancestral memories sequences.
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Post by Boohoo31 »

I’ll go with ancestral memories because Sarah was able to go back and relate with the ancestors. I will also say it’s time travel as she was able to change few events in the past.
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