John Updike on Dreams

In his novels and short stories, John Updike often describes his characters' dreams. In "Grandparenting," Updike comments on the dreams of Richard Maple, who just visited his daughter and newborn granddaughter and who will spend the night alone.

"His room at the Best Inn was on the ground floor, its wall-to-wall shag carpeting laid over concrete poured right on grade. The walls seemed subterranean, breathing out a deep freeze, their surface cold to the touch. . . . The cold pressed in upon him from the walls like a force that wanted to compress his existence to nothing, that wanted to erase this temporary blot of heated, pumping blood. It's a lot to give up, Joan had said of the womb, and indeed the cosmic volume of lightless, warmthless space hostile to us is overwhelming. He felt, huddled up, like a homunculus frigidly burning at the far end of God's indifferently held telescope. He was a newly hatched grandfather, and the universe wanted to crush him, to make room for newcomers. He did fall asleep, a little, and his dreams, usually so rich in suppressed longing and forgotten knowledge, were wispy, as if starved by his body's effort to maintain body temperature."

A good characterization of dreams by Updike: "so rich in suppressed longing and forgotten knowledge."