the groundhog day project

That’s from The Sandman —Morpheus sentences the guy who imprisoned him to recurring awakening. Basically, he’s constantly under the impression he has just woken from a nightmare only to find himself in a new one. It’s like Jungian false awakening (Celia Green’s version thereof, especially) taken in a very dark direction. I’ve linked Groundhog Day to dreams before , of course. I’ve had a note since working through Benesh’s (2011) dissertation on Groundhog Day to get into false awakening as a topic, but in the modern parlance, I just wasn’t feeling it. Then, today, I was watching the latest episodes of Louie and there’s this surreal quality of late, with bizarre news reports— (For example: “Ten people died in the Bronx last night due to a fire that killed ten people in the Bronx last night during a fire.”) —and just as Louie’s new relationship is about to come to an end, there’s a hurricane coming into New York City. And then, suddenly, the hurricane, and the woman, are gone. ...

You might think that after this many days of watching Groundhog Day every day--today is Day 162--I would dream about the movie every night and live and breathe it every day. But, I don't. In fact, before last night (or, technically, this morning) I hadn't had a dream that involved the movie. I do think about the movie outside of blog time. I think I've mentioned that before. I read articles and essays and screenplays, and recently a play, a couple books--those things weren't all read during the movie or as I wrote blog entries. Well, some may have been. There have been times that I've written a blog and done the research for it at the same time. Like a 1 hour 41 minute long research project. But, I already detailed a bit of what goes on behind the scenes. The point is I've got plenty of other stuff on my mind beside Groundhog Day . And, until this morning, Groundhog Day had not invaded my sleep. I can't say the dream was particularly exciting, unfortu...