"In Carcosa..."/ Dream Journal

[uberreiniger]

Being on a Lovecraft kick again, I decided to acquire and read one of the books that inspired Lovecraft's creation of the Cthulu Mythos: The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. Chambers was a bohemian artist of the 1890s who one day, for reasons he never really explained, decided to stop being an artist and start writing sensational romance stories. Shortly before he did that, however, he produced The King In Yellow, a collection of loosely connected, troubling stories of the surreal. The title refers to a fictional play script of the same name that is apparently cursed, bringing madness and death into the lives of all who read it. There are allusions to an entity known only as "Hastur," a blank white mask, and an insidious image known as The Yellow Sign. These things are all the scarier for the way they are only hinted at. These stories are some seriously creepy shit. And this book is messing with my mind.

I only read a few pages of the opening short story the night I got the book. That night I dreamed of Hastur. His white mask didn't have a face. Instead it had the Yellow Sign carved into it where the face should be. It was distressing. But hey, you read horror stories, you have dreams about the monsters, right? No big deal. Later that next day a friend on Facebook posted lyrics to a song by The Dead Milkmen. Not having heard or thought of that band in years, I innocently went and looked them up to see what became of them. It turns out they recently got back together and released a new album... called The King In Yellow!

What are the odds?

So today I went back and finished reading the story. (It's called The Repairer of Reputations, in case you're interested.) Reading it I was struck by a brutal sense of deja vu when I got to a specific line:

...I put the diadem from my head and wiped my forehead, but I thought of Hastur and my own rightful ambition, and I remembered Mr. Wilde as I had last left him...

I realized I had had a dream in which I sat reading this line over and over again several years ago. But I never actually saw it until today.

WTF is going on?



Oh. That...

Comments

[catlin.livejournal.com]

It is a sign...

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Not any sign, the Yellow Sign.

[batchix.livejournal.com]

weird stuff like that happens to D and I a lot. He calls it patterns. Like the pattern with the number 36.

btw they revived the Hearts of Steel transformers story and right now they're fighting an invasion of Cthulu-like creatures. X3

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Child's play. That Unicron guy is a god the size of a planet and the Transformers have kicked his ass like, five times now.

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

A weird flash from the future? How odd. But interesting and cool!

Maybe this story is supposed to inspire you for something in your life. I notice there is a sort of line of inspiration that stretches across the Cthulhu mythos. Everyone knows about the after Lovecraft stuff, but how many know about what inspired him? It must trigger something on a deep level, and apparently that's true for you as well.

Unless... you read that story in past life, and you're getting chilly-willies now to come across it again. =^D

Still~! Regardless, how delicious to have that atmosphere of mystery and weirdness! Most of us lose it in late childhood, so having a chance to feel so delightfully connected to and inspired by (even spooked by) these stories and dreams...? PRICELESS.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

It really is something to think about. The fictional King In Yellow story spreads all over the world, infecting culture at all levels. In real life, it inspired Lovecraft to create a story that has in turn spread all over the world and infected culture at all levels. Good God, why is no one catching on to this?

As it so happens, I have recently finally found a direction for the music project I want to create and it's essentially a set of concept albums dealing with cosmic horror. Hastur has certainly struck when I was already at a high point of inspiration and has now spurred me on further.

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

Very cool!! Love it!

[armageddonriver.livejournal.com]

I recently got into reading some Lovecraft, and stories by his literary descendants, as well. You describe the sensation of reading that work beautifully and aptly. I absolutely agree.

Having not read the story myself, I can't suggest too much insight into what might be going on here... though I can say that my mystically active friends and I have all been having more prophetic and meaningful dreams of late; which is a big deal for me at least, as I usually don't remember my dreams at all. When I do, and they also seem spiritually significant, I definitely sit up and take notice.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I dreamed of an army of Hasturs last night. But I went to bed only a few minutes after making this entry so I'm willing to overlook it.

I had a very vivid nightmare a few years ago in which I released a previously undocumented Great Old One and his spawn/servants into the world. I'm turning it into the basis for my musical project to which I have assigned the genre "Cosmic Horror Metal."

[ravenbrenna.livejournal.com]

I was really creeped out reading the first paragraph of your post. I'm not even touching that book lol.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Yesterday I deliberately avoided reading it and it's the first time since I started that I didn't have dreams about it. It was probably unwise to make this particular post right before going to bed that night because I then proceeded to dream about an entire army of Hasturs, all with dirty yellow robes and Yellow Sign masks.

Holy crap, what if that's it? What if Hastur is not a he but a they? What if each copy of the play belongs to one specific "king in yellow" and the books are actually the organs by which they feed on human consciousness? They probably only look like books because that's the only form the human mind can comprehend them as!

Yeah, don't read it, lol.

[ravenbrenna.livejournal.com]

O_O

Yes...never ever reading it! lol

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

So far the King has left me alone the last few nights, thankfully. But I still keep thinking about it during the day. This story collection is giving me Silent Hill levels of obsession!