Blog 9: Dreams, Reality, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Earlier this week, for the short essay we wrote about Borges’s “The South,” I wrote about how I thought that Borges’s message was that the imagination is incredibly powerful, that there is more than one “reality,” and that our perceptions of what is “real” and what are dreams and imagination are not as simple as we might think. This was based off my belief that in the story, Dahlmann imagined his trip to the south as a way to escape from his suffering as he was dying in the sanitarium. This imagined reality might not be “real,” but it was plenty real for the narrator.

Anyway, when I was writing this short response, it made me think of the conversation that occurs between Harry and Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. After Voldemort almost kills Harry and Harry is temporarily in a sort of limbo between life and death, he has a lengthy conversation with Dumbledore (who was killed in the previous book). At the end of this conversation, Harry asks Dumbledore if this whole conversation was real, or whether it was just happening inside his head. Dumbledore responds: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

I think that this awesome quote (J.K., you’re a genius) further illustrates the idea that our perceived notions of reality may not be correct, or are too narrow-minded. Although, I’m kind of torn here: I don’t think that Harry was imagining his conversation with Dumbledore, but I do think that Dahlmann was imagining his trip to the south. Yet both of these events took place within the character’s mind. So if Harry’s conversation with Dumbledore was “real,” then perhaps Dahlmann’s trip to the south can be considered “real” as well.

Like I stated in my discussion questions, this is an extremely abstract and therefore difficult concept to discuss. Basically what I’m getting at is that dreams and imagination can be other forms of “reality.” However, perhaps it is also wise to heed more advice from Dumbledore: “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”