(ESSAY) 'my system' by Freya Johnson Ross

Windows ‘25

In this latest post from our Digital Dreamland series, Freya Johnson Ross documents swerves of consciousness, distraction, contact and the dreamy internet.

I dream about the colour of the sky, reflected in windows, the shining blue of this, and that, and of the clouds and the panelling below the windows. It is pleasing and seems calm, apart from the arial that is waving and bending WILDLY in the wind. I wouldn’t actually know there WAS any wind at all were it not for this sign. Look out – wind up it says, like a bare flag.

Wind down. It’s context I’ve not thought about before, signalling to me, of the stiffness and forgetfulness of my hand as I write. The sensation is a lack of control, where making certain shapes follow after each other seems impossible: I’m swerving off the road as I try to take a corner too fast, ignoring the flag.

I keep stopping to google things and I don’t think that is the artist’s way but it feels thrilling nonetheless. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of is right here in front of me, close enough to touch. And I am there – reflected back at myself, I feel powerful and can do anything. Connection is easy and seamless, infinite potentiality I will NEVER tire of. 

The sound of my headphones disconnecting gives me a fright and I feel my heart beat faster. I type more quickly, eyes scanning, absorbing, integrating.

Bathed in such bright light, so lovely. Blue sky, and there’s something, what is it? It’s not a flag, but it’s bright white. Blasting out all the colours at once, like an internal slide show. Perhaps I should ask someone about it. Maybe T since she works so much with images. Although our psyches are hardly matching so I don’t know if it’s likely to provide any insight. Maybe it doesn’t matter and I just need to tell someone. I think I might want to get it out of my head.

Oh this light, I’m a captive audience, a plant following the sun. Beautiful. Possibly sickly and we should have known, but we didn’t. Toxic colours can be a warning but this is just fabulous Danish design and I’m here for it.

Brighter than the sun

My therapist tries to get me to speak about my dreams but I resist. Now I have learnt not to reference them as it might lead to a polite tussle between us, in what feels like a dead-end I don’t have time for. 

There are so many funny images I can’t keep track of – what will stick, what moves? There are so many funny things I have time for. I laugh until I’m sick. Hilarious. I am a comedian. I am a joke.

Je me reve. You still look pretty good, glowing, untouched by all the exploration and long nights. Who knows where, I wonder where I was. Reading the latest literary sensation or not really able to relax scrolling home on the train. Locust bean gum. Worrying as it makes me think of plagues and why I can’t follow through. Actually that’s not true, things are manifest but I forget, lost amid the debris (hubris).

Why is it so hard not to feel structural failures and problems as personal? No matter how many conversations and connections help to point this out there seems to be an unceasing individualism everyone is whirling in. 

Asking for an uninterrupted hour, or 50 minutes, and then, when I have it I can’t even enjoy it. I feel peeved, pissed, my lips flat. Drifting heaps of thought. So much time and it is not flowing.

The cage is emerging, bent out of shape, oww. Pacing back and forth. 

Interpret now!

I think things through carefully and begin to put together my ideas. On reflection, I see that I am trying to aim for an approximation of complex, linear and complete. I go into as much detail as possible. Searching, sifting, noting, analysing, reconfiguring, drafting, editing. There is a system, I am making a system. Depth feels good. I am constructing something HUGE. Small fragments pasted together with my drool into an unidentifiable shape. 

Here, at the source there is also a system, and it is bounded. I believe in its magic as much as everyone around me, startled and delighted by the degree of associative connectivity, the creative resourcing as fast as you like. My brain is expanding. The speed of juxtaposition. Make it visible, we cry. Visualise, manifest.

I burrow in, wanting, and that’s not fair you’re interrupting my thoughts. I’M interrupting my thoughts. Being online makes me feel unsatisfied, left wanting. Wanting but not sure what, just an internal nudge, pressing on me. I need to pee. I have burrowed in so much I can’t tell what is hollow and what is stable. It looks cool though.

Home maze

Day dreaming. How does one make a decision, I cannot absorb any more. Guide dogs’ CEO: ‘it could be the wrong move for us as guide dogs’.

I was thinking but lack of internet. Is my brain ~~~ imagined future dog show show me your show meme. So distractable dayy DATA limit reached. Take out a physical notebook, written in and out of existence: open – text – shut. Start writing and thinking but limit reached. Words come in – message – open – out… Intercostal muscles weep.

My computer is not connected to the internet and yet I open a tab, type, and press return. No internet. Searching activity, activity: searching. Click click click, release. Search and retrieve. Read that pile of things. It’s unclear what’s going on. I need to move, to reset the connection.

Then: excited to be free, I stand up. Pillow falling, popping off, flopping off my daybed. When time wends and I’m not sure; hoover it up it’s all over the place. What do I want to do? I thought it I was so happy and so free. Fantasy is dead and I’m not sure what is left. Thoughts a bit limp, what is my brain now, made of puppies.

Something with my hands and away from the computer would probably be good. I pick up my phone, but it’s still soaking in to me – it is unending, ol’ infinite scroll. There is a question of how to maintain motivation in the face of the infinite. I feel all over, suffocated by too much detail, impinged upon.

~ ~ ~

The internet IS dreamy but now I can feel the cage system pressing on me. It’s confusing how something can be numbing and stimulating at the same time, you’d think those would be contradictory. Nothing is contradictory here. In our dreams we get whatever we want.

~

Author: Freya Johnson Ross Published: 22/4/25