Another "Help me find this story"

October 21, 2014 10:12 AM

The core of the story is that a (possibly Indian) guy falls asleep (or is knocked out {during a robbery?}) (possibly near a river) and lives the whole lifetime of a separate existence in a dream. He wakes up (or comes to) at the end (and tries to integrate the experience).

My google and reddit foo(s?) are failing me as I can't find anywhere to find a story based on a description, so I'm turning to here.

Short novel length, I think. I know this is pretty sketchy details, and I'm also interested in any stories that follow this basic premise, e.g. ST:TNG The Inner Light.

I thought this might have been a Hermann Hesse story, but that hasn't panned out. It's not his Siddhartha. Thanks

posted by achrise to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

Is it An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge?
posted by probably not that Karen Blair at 10:28 AM on October 21, 2014

I came in here to suggest An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as well.
posted by saladin at 10:40 AM on October 21, 2014

If it's not An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, you might want to look at the wikipedia article linked above, since it includes a listing of similar stories.
posted by litera scripta manet at 10:54 AM on October 21, 2014

Rosei's Dream is an old Chinese and Japanese legend wherein Rosei, a traveler, has such a dream which offers him moral instruction.
posted by spasm at 11:16 AM on October 21, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestion. I did check the link, and it's not that story. Unlike that one (if I'm reading the synopsis right) and what I remember of The last Temptation of Christ, In the story I'm thinking of the secondary reality is not a continuation of the first, but an entirely separate existence, like a completely different life.
posted by achrise at 11:17 AM on October 21, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks, but I don't think it was Rosei's Dream, because I don't remember the visual woodblock aspect. It's possible that I somehow got a prose-only version, but I don't think so.
posted by achrise at 11:22 AM on October 21, 2014

I remember a post on the Blue about something very like this, where a guy was knocked out (by a bully?) and woke up with a detailed memory of an entirely different life.
posted by jamjam at 11:30 AM on October 21, 2014

Female protagonist, so this probably won't help you, but this was one of my favorite books as an early teen: Saturday, the Twelfth of October by Norma Fox Mazer. Basically: 14-year-old girl is in the park, something happens to make her emotionally overwhelmed, she wakes up living with a pre-historic tribe (but has modern clothes & things in her pockets like a knife and mirror), lives with them for a year or so, learns their language/ways, then suddenly she is back in the 1970s and tries to convince her family of her experiences with the tribe when on their end, she has only been gone for a day.

I read this book a few times, and what stuck with me was the author's convincing world-building in the tribal part of the story, and that not only is the tribe not identified, the reader never truly knows what happened to the protagonist. Was it a dream or was it real, and if it was real, how was it possible? We aren't told.

Would love to read more books with this type of storyline. "The Inner Light" has always been my favorite ST:TNG episode.
posted by gillyflower at 12:13 PM on October 21, 2014

Could it be The Night Face Up by Julio Cortazar? The guy is Indian and he gets into a motorcycle accident that leaves him in the hospital, teetering between existences.
posted by GoLikeHellMachine at 12:31 PM on October 21, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks, but I don't think it was The Night Face Up (link goes to PDF, for those of you playing along). The tone is right, but in the one I'm thinking of I don't remember any back-and-forth between storylines.
posted by achrise at 12:44 PM on October 21, 2014

Response by poster: Saturday, the Twelfth of October was here on ask back in 2008 under similar circumstances. Sounds interesting. Thanks.
posted by achrise at 12:52 PM on October 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Well, according to what I wrote in my final dissertation during my comparative literature studies, it seems to be the gist of the 3rd imaginary biography of Joseph Knecht, one of the main characters of the Glasperlenspiel.
According to Jacques Pimpanneau, such tales are to be compared to traditional ones collectively coined as "tales of the pillow" (my own translation for "dit de l'oreiller").
Various incarnations (somehow twisted) in western literature : Look for Mircea Eliade and his "Bohemians", "Serampore nights", les "Fleurs bleues" de Raymond Queneau, Hermann Hesses's own "The Poet", "The Circular Ruins" by Jorge Luis Borges.
Apparently there's something to be found in the Matsya-Purana, let me know if you find it, I'm going to sleep.
posted by nicolin at 1:25 PM on October 21, 2014

Best answer: 2nding nicolin, "The Indian Life" section of The Glass Bead Game.
posted by LionIndex at 1:55 PM on October 21, 2014

Response by poster: On a skim of The Poet (warning; PDF), that might be it.

I'll have to dig for my copy of The Glass Bead Game, so that one will be a while in confirming.

Thanks to all so far ...
posted by achrise at 2:07 PM on October 21, 2014

Response by poster: nicolin and LionIndex got it. It is the third imaginary biography of Joseph Knecht, "The Indian Life", found within Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game.

The story is 39 pages long in my paperback edition; the lead-up to the reality shift is much longer than I remember; it happens 19 pages in. The shift is not from any trauma or sleep, it just happens in a passing moment.

Here's the summary from the Wikipedia entry for The Glass Bead Game: The final story concerns the life of Dasa, a prince wrongfully usurped by his half brother as heir to a kingdom and disguised as a cowherd to save his life. While working with the herdsmen as a young boy, Dasa encounters a yogi in meditation in the forest. He wishes to experience the same tranquility as the yogi, but is unable to stay. He later leaves the herdsmen and marries a beautiful young woman, only to be cuckolded by his half brother (now the Rajah). In a cold fury, he kills his half brother and finds himself once again in the forest with the old yogi, who, through an experience of an alternate life, guides him on the spiritual path and out of the world of illusion

The story starts on page 494 in this PDF.

Thanks Everyone.
posted by achrise at 6:47 PM on October 21, 2014