The Council of Creatures: On Dream, Memory, and the Rewriting of the Ideal

Watercolour sketch from NON-SENSE NARRATIVES (2025) by Camilla Howalt

A dream occurs near the lakes of Copenhagen, in front of a corner square near the lakes. The geography is recognisable, yet porous - it may equally be a beach somewhere warm. A large parrot appears, reminiscent of species such as the Eclectus, Rainbow Lorikeet, or Lilac-crowned Amazon. Primarily green, the bird is vivid, radiant - a strutting figure capable of walking on water. Its gaze is direct, its communication intimate. It shifts size, from grand and distant to familiar and perchable, resting calmly on a hand. The interaction is joyful.

Such dreams, while idiosyncratic in image, may be read as dream-logic’s rendering of memory and symbolic resolution. The lake is not neutral. It marks a site of significance - a topography charged by a real encounter that occurred in the early days of May 2011. Two individuals met there, walked across Dronning Louises Bro, a bridge crossing between two of the lakes, and participated in a shared practice of yoga. Emotion, recognition, and connection were set in motion. In subsequent reflections, this site recurred: the lake became a locus for fantasies of flight, mischief, and intimacy - often depicted in imaginative works involving flying rugs and shifting atmospheres. Artworks - visual and textual - emerged from this space, grounded in dialogue with the emotional resonance of the meeting.

In this context, the parrot can be understood symbolically. Its colour - green - aligns with associations of the heart, growth, and vibrancy. Its ability to speak, or at least to communicate gaze-to-gaze, evokes the idea of mirrored expression - an other who not only sees, but replies. In mythology and psychoanalysis, parrots often appear as figures of mimetic intelligence, voice, and borrowed or returned speech. Here, the bird seems to be a bridge - between fantasy and groundedness, between projection and presence.

Its transformation from enormous to intimate is of particular philosophical interest. When distant, it possesses a mythic quality - larger than life, untouchable. When close, it becomes tangible, real, companionable. This dynamic may echo the transition from idealisation to humanisation, especially in the context of romantic or creative fixation. What was once elevated and unreachable returns, sized to fit the hand - not diminished, but integrated.

The water on which the parrot walks holds further symbolic weight. To walk on water is to defy natural limitation - a gesture of weightlessness, of suspended consequence. In spiritual traditions, such imagery denotes transcendence. Yet here, it is not performed by a prophet or deity, but by a parrot - a creature of colour, speech, and joy. There is a subtle revaluation at play: what was once sacred or solemn is rendered light, accessible, even playful.

From a philosophical perspective, the dream may reflect a reconciliation with the past. What was once a source of longing or creative dependency begins to return in altered form - not as an absence or unreachable ideal, but as an integrated element of the self. The parrot may represent the return of voice - a creative impulse once projected outward now reclaimed. The dream stages a shift from the idealised other to the internalised image - no longer an external muse, but a companionable symbol.

In the context of artistic development, this is significant. So much creative work is born from the tension between longing and expression, between silence and speech. The parrot, strutting, speaking, and perched, suggests that this tension has softened. Communication is no longer a reaching-out toward, but a conversation with. The other - whether person, memory, or symbol - has become part of the self’s language.

There is no simple resolution here. The lake remains. The bird remains. But the framing has shifted. No longer a dream of escape, it becomes a dream of return - not to the past, but to presence.

In this, the dream becomes a philosophical artefact, traced and mapped history- evidence of emotional and imaginative integration. The symbolic returns not to haunt, but to guide. The parrot speaks - not in the voice of another, but in a voice that has always been near. Perched. Waiting. Willing to walk the water beside.

In continuous research,

Camilla

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