Many of C. S. Lewis’ stories take place in locales none of us have ever visited. Indeed, some of these places seem to exist only in the imagination of C. S. Lewis. We suppose he invented them and their names merely to suit the purposes of his stories.

How indeed shall we find Narnia, the land of the dark tower, or the land of Glome? On what map shall we locate them? Where indeed might we find them?

Might what Lewis said about his space travel stories give us any clues about his fantasy writing in general: “No merely physical strangeness or merely spatial distance will realize the idea of otherness which is what we are always trying to grasp in a story about voyaging through space: you must go into another dimension.”

What did Lewis mean by “another dimension”? Was he referring to a “dimension” that exists only in the mind, another actual “physical dimension” or, as he referred to it, a “world” of the spirit?

A Dimension That Exists Only in the Mind

Would we not refer to the “dimension” that we visit in our dreams as one that exists only in our minds? At times, the places we visit in our dreams bear striking similarities to places we frequent in our waking hours, albeit with some dissimilarities. Lewis recounts that he slept poorly for years and was frequently awakened by his nightmares. Might that explain the land of the dark tower?

On the other hand, some of his stories bear certain similarities to fantasy stories he had read. He indicated that images from his childhood, some from children’s fantasy literature, resided in his memory and worked their way into his stories, as did stories from mythology.

[Read more…]

Humming Birds and Star Ships

As I settled into my lounge chair just below a wall of blooming passion vines on that sunny late autumn afternoon, I felt something alight on my arm. It was my friendly backyard hummingbird, or “Harry” as I usually referred to him.

“Harry, are you planning to spend this winter living in my back yard, like you did last winter? Why don’t you fly south with the other hummingbirds?”

When I sat in my lounge chair in my back yard to read, as I did almost every day, Harry would appear and sit nearby, or occasionally would sit on my arm for a few minutes.

When I casually mentioned this to an acquaintance, I immediately knew that she did not believe me. I had “crossed the line,” mentioning something she had never experienced and had never heard of this happening to someone else. She did not believe it was possible to have a hummingbird sit on one’s arm.

On another occasion, a good friend told me about regularly seeing unusual objects in the sky of the remote area where he lived. He sometimes saw them in the late afternoon, but most often after dark. One evening just after sunset, as he drove down a winding, abandoned country road, one of the objects came down from the sky and landed in an open space near him. He drove even closer.

“You’re the only person I’ll ever tell what I saw and what happened after I drove up by it. I’ll never tell anyone else, because they’ll think I’m crazy.”

True to his word, he has never told anyone else and I doubt he ever will. He is certain no one will believe him, which would affect his credibility in the community in which he lives and works.

[Read more…]