Ping Pong 3 - The Rakshas Dream

Scrap described the Perfect Monarch.

And asked me; what is this?

Is is,

"A Rakshas Dream"

Theories abound of the origin of the painting; "A Rakshas Dream".

Of the why more than the who. For the who is Uxlurian Vesh, famous explorer and, it is rumoured, now terminal Akwei addict.

(Though Vesh certainly did not paint the image, but claims to have recovered it from the City of Portal on his most daring expedition.)

But of the why, and what the painting means; these are the common subjects of discussion.

It is not horrifying, through it is a little disturbing.

It is beautiful, but like a very cold dream of something which sees through time.

How many levels of reality are bound within its canvas?

Famously, "Dream" is apparently a hyper-realistic painting of a painting of the inside of an Elephant, on the Elephant itself.

(The question of "of"-"of"-"in"-"on" has fuelled critical exploration more than any other.)

The name "Rakshas Dream", suggests that the image is intended to be that of an Elephant, as conceived of in the somnolent mind of a predatory Tiger-Demon.

Its name as well, was probably not given by Vesh, or at least no record seems to exist of its origin. It may be that people simply started calling it that, or that Vesh came out with the phrase either before or after one of his binges.

Perhaps he recalled the phrase from some connection to the paintings origin, or perhaps the words come from nowhere at all.

(Or this is an image of the Elephant itself, dreaming of itself.)

Perhaps the  eye of this death-dealing spirit penetrates skin, bone and flesh. Do Rakasha dream of skinless beings? Or is a sleeping Tiger-spirit no more or less likely to do so than anyone else?

Is this how those demonic multitudes imagine us? As skinless ghouls, translucently-wrapped packages of meat?



OR - is the painting itself perhaps only what it appears to be - an exact and accurate reproduction of a real-life scene? In which case the painting is merely a record of another painting, this one drawn directly onto the skin of a surprisingly-quiescent Elephant.

This raises more questions. Who painted the Elephant itelf? And in what circumstances? And why?

It is here that the strangest and most cryptic and detailed therories have been developed - that the musculature of the Elephant descibe some sort of map or code. Madmen have seen patterns in this flesh and a guard must be kept before "Dream" whenever it is exhibited lest a small minority of oddities attempt the grapple with or seek possession of the piece.

Still there are always a slumped few towards the rear of the attending crowds who can be found scribbling in notebooks and swapping anguished glares.

This sub-cult believes that the maze of some slender dimensional is pictured or encoded in the painting on the elephant in the painting of the Rakshas Dream, and that the painting is one of a real painting, one a real elephant, and that this multiply-layered nature is a deep and necessary part of this encoding.


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Not that great maybe, but you will probably do better Scrap when you tell me what, or who is THIS:

crapaud et grenouille by Jean-Joseph Carriès

Discover its nature HERE.