Hot Flashes as Dream Symbols

Abstract

AbstractIn the spirit of dreamwork and poetry, this essay explores the experience and conceptual drapery of the hot flash as if it were not an objective reality but a symbol. Looking not for one single correct interpretation but for multiple layered meanings (as in a dream or in a poem) illuminates a rich network of connotations and associations of hot flashes on many levels: archetypal, historical, cultural, linguistic, scientific, and personal. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDonna Glee WilliamsPushcart Prize-nominee Donna Glee Williams, author of the eco-fable The Night Field (Mobius, 2023), was born in Mexico, graduated from Tulane University, then earned an MFA and PhD from LSU. The imagined societies in her fiction owe a lot to years of wayfaring across four continents. These days she walks in the woods, writes, and leads dream groups from her cabin in the Appalachians. Her poetry has appeared in Bellingham Review, New Orleans Review, New Laurel Review, New Delta Review, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Maple Leaf Rag, Writing from the Inside, Beltane Papers, Mesechabe, Fly, Science Fiction Association’s Star*Line, and Friends Journal.