My Education: A Book of Dreams

by William S. Burroughs

My Education is William S. Burroughs's final collection, first published two years before his death in 1997. It is a book of dreams, written over several decades and as personal and close to a memoir as we will see. The dreams cover themes from the mundane and ordinary -- conversations with his friends Allen Ginsberg or Ian Sommerville, feeding his cats, procuring drugs or sex -- to the erotic, bizarre, and visionary. Always a rich source of imagery in Burroughs's own fiction, in this book, dreams become a direct and powerful force in themselves.

"Mr. Burroughs has lost none of his irreverence or wit, but in recent years he has acquired an elegant, elegiac tone." –  The New York Times

Genres: Fiction, Literature, American, Psychology, Queer, Drugs, Classics

193 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

William Seward Burroughs II, (also known by his pen name William Lee) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer.
A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century".
His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays.
Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films.
He was born to a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri, grandson of the inventor and founder of the Burroughs Corporation, William Seward Burroughs I, and nephew of public relations manager Ivy Lee. Burroughs began writing essays and journals in early adolescence. He left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University, studied English, and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and U.S. Navy in 1942 to serve in World War II, he dropped out and became afflicted with the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life, while working a variety of jobs. In 1943 while living in New York City, he befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the mutually influential foundation of what became the countercultural movement of the Beat Generation.
Much of Burroughs's work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco. Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a controversy-fraught work that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. With Brion Gysin, he also popularized the literary cut-up technique in works such as The Nova Trilogy (1961–64). In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the "greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift", a reputation he owes to his "lifelong subversion" of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be "the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War", while Norman Mailer declared him "the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius".
Burroughs had one child, William Seward Burroughs III (1947-1981), with his second wife Joan Vollmer. Vollmer died in 1951 in Mexico City. Burroughs was convicted of manslaughter in Vollmer's death, an event that deeply permeated all of his writings. Burroughs died at his home in Lawrence, Kansas, after suffering a heart attack in 1997.

Reviews

[Kilburn Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

William S Burroughs dreams of heroin, giant centipedes, and guns. Oh yeah and young boys with skin like alabaster. I pretty much knew he would dream of those things.

[Mizuki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.8 stars.

"I am talking in a sophisticated, knowing way about drugs and such, and wonder if Dad will be upset, but it's time he learned about the birds and the bees, I guess" (p.33)

Reading this book is a strange experience...but it is kind of exciting too.


(Link: http://bucktickmusic.forumotion.com/t...)

Land of the Dead. No breakfast. No liquor. No dinner

The author seems to be flying around in this massive maze which is formed with his strange thoughts and even stranger dreams and I'm struggling even just to keep up with his track of thoughts..........or the lack of it.

See? This guy is taking flight with his words and dreams! His feet are leaving the ground! So you run after him, trying to keep up........but to tell the truth it is difficult to keep up.

William S. Burroughs, an author with no boundary.

Edited@11/04/2023: I am trying to read this book again...

Will try to finish reading the whole book.

Edited@ 27/04/2023

Does sex have anything to do with sex?

Good question.

at around page. 64, Burroughs mentioned The Black Rider, one of the theater pieces he co-worked with the other talents. The Black Rider is very special to me because the whole play is so attractive and unusual that I was deeply impressed by it when I saw it for the first time as a teenager!

"No death wish can ever be effective." No? Anybody who keeps his eyes open sees people wished to death all the time.

Good oneliner!

[Zac Sydow · Rating 4 out of 5]

currently regressing hard but i think this is worth sifting through to find some of the few pages of sincere autobiographical thoughts he ever wrote. almost heartbreaking at points. of course i loved it more than i should have, as always

[HajarRead · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the few pages when Burroughs is actually sharing his thoughts about life rather than his dreams... Which this book is mostly about. Looking forward to reading his other novels especially "Naked Lunch".

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Burroughs describes his dreams and includes comments on his recurring dreams about levitation and about searching for breakfast, and comments on the meaning of dreams about packing suitcases. Some dreams include celebrities (Mick Jagger, Ron Hubbard); some are about cats, and some are about firearms. Most of the descriptions are short, frequently a few lines long, but Burroughs is precise in his details, particularly when describing persons and settings.

Acquired Jun 6, 2009
Gift from Anthony

[David Corvine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really for those with a longstanding interest in the life and work of WSB.... probably not a good point of entry as a first contact.

[Ada Graves · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's odd what people share as far as common dreams. Mr. Burroughs describes a number of odd dream experiences I thought were peculiar to just me. I guess the human condition is more universal than I thought.

[Lucy Seward · Rating 5 out of 5]

gloriously insane, made my dreams more vivid

[Matthew Snope · Rating 4 out of 5]

WSB dreams about what you'd expect him to: gay intercourse; morphine; strange creatures; guns; Tangier; etc. But some of his dreams are just amazing, and his writing -- raw, concise and descriptive -- captures these dreams with powerful impact. These are interesting dreams from a very, imaginative talented mind. There are themes in the dreams, like the above things, and recurring people, and many dreams have dark settings and disturbing goings-on. But there is also levity, in that WSB flies around, continually can't get a decent breakfast in the Land of the Dead, and often dreams IN his dreams, waking up in the dream and then waking up in waking life. It is pretty bold to publish, when he was alive I believe, reports from his un- and subconscious. There are few things more private and revealing than someone's dreams. Burroughs believes a little too much in his dreams, that he is visiting actual places in alternate realities, or that his dreams are visions or premonitions. But it is when he simply describes his dreams in vivid yet terse terms that his writing is at its best. Many dreams would make great short films, plays, short stories, even movies. His style is of course fragmentary and nonlinear, but it works in this context since he's writing about the fiction going on his sleeping mind. A very intelligent man with dreams worth spending time reading.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting glimpse into one of the darkest and most fascinating minds of the 20th Century. Similar to Kerouac's Book of Dreams in parts, Burroughs here presents a record of some of his dreams (in explicit detail) towards the end of his mortal career.
I'm not averse to the usual obscenities and rectal mucous in his books but this book had little of that and just focused on what happened in his dreams as he levitated or ran into people he knew. Some of his dreams sound quite frightening but then again, I guess we all have nightmares. (I just don't remember half of mine).
There are moments of WSB brilliance throughout the book, where Burroughs makes some very strong points and scathingly attacks the status quo of modern society and I gotta say, does it very convincingly, at that.
The end of the book ended on a bit of a sad note (involving death) as one of the stories, which at first I thought was a dream, turned out to be true.
Burroughs and his son (see Cursed from Birth for more details) seemed to go through much pain in their lives. RIP William.

[Miguel Soto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro difícil, o al menos a mí se me complicó seguirlo. No sé si fue el hecho de leer a Burroughs en inglés, que sí es algo más complejo que traducido al español, o si lo empecé en un "mal momento", por ser unas vacaciones, o si por sí mismo el texto es complicado al tratarse primordialmente de sueños del autor.

A pesar de las dificultades, le fui tomando sabor al libro poco a poco, me gustó especialmente poder conocer el gran valor que Burroughs le daba a sus sueños, "la fuente de sus mejores escenarios y personajes", lo que me lo confirma como un autor surrealista. Me pareció también que conforme se avanza en el libro no todo son puros sueños relatados, algunos le ameritan algún comentario explicativo, otros parecen tal cual "viñetas" de sus libros, lo que tendría mucho sentido si el sueño era una de sus fuentes de inspiración. Varias veces aparecen personas reales recurrentes, o escenarios literarios como La Tierra de los Muertos, donde es imposible procurarse algo de comer...

Al final, final, vienen algunos tipo ensayo más prolongados, bastante disfrutables.

[CivilWar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it is what it is, it's right there in the title, it's just Burroughs' dream diary.
Sometimes it's interesting in the way that dreams can only be, but for the most part it is just a trip down dream lane with largely boring nonsense.
Nonetheless it did inspire me to write my own dream journal and, hey, that has to count for something.

Not bad, but certainly not essential Burroughs. Check out Exterminator! for usage of dream imagery used for actual short stories.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to wonder how tf Burroughs envisioned the stuff he did, and... well reading his literal dreams makes it clear that these visions come straight from there. No real analysis here, just an insight into the mind of the man himself. And it's wild.

This ends my read through of all of Burroughs' full length works! What a journey.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've come to the conclusion that Burrough's isn't for me. Once again there were parts that I liked, whilst other parts had my eyes starting to glaze as I yawned to the finish line. I just don't mesh well with his prose...

[Kiara Selena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the concept better than the book itself.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of Burroughs dreams. Some a more like snippets, others are a page or two, and some read more like journal entries. I think that if you are already a fan of Burroughs then this book is for you. I had never read Burroughs till now and I got a good indication of how he writes. Lucid, dreamlike, honest. I enjoyed the dreams that were weightier in their language and depth and that were longer. Burroughs has a few reoccurring themes: making it with men, the absence of food, packing, floating, taking heroine or hunting for methadone, being junk sick, and the Land of the Dead (as he calls it). Clearly his dreams are a side effect of the life he lived which is interesting but based upon this book, nothing to be glamorized by. At least not for me. I think the book isn't just an indication of how Burroughs writes but also of who he is and who he was. It's probably the best memoir he could've written. Though I say that without any knowledge of Burroughs writing a memoir. Would I read another one of his books? Yes, for sure. I liked it enough to keep reading his work. In fact from what I understand he grew so much inspiration for his work from his dreams. I think thats pretty evident based upon this book, because so many of these dreams could be something more. Is it for everyone? No I don't think so. But if you like Burroughs or his writing style or the beat writers then yea, you'll like it. I also think out of the beat writers I have read, thus far, Burroughs is the best.

[Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like dreams. I like hearing about other people's dreams. Have a funny dream? Tell me about it. I've never been able to figure out why telling people about a dream I had bored them to death. At the beginning of this book Burroughs explains this: dreams have no context. Ahh. I see now. Anyway this is quite interesting and strange. I waffled between giving it three and four stars because there were parts of it that bored me to no end. But then I realized that stars don't mean anything lol. Burroughs dreams about cats, travelling, and young men a lot but what struck me funny was that the structuring of his dreams (or at least how he relates them) is totally different than mine.
Also sometimes I would have dreams about reading this book- so I was dreaming about Burroughs's dreams? Like in very vivid detail and I would remember what I had read in my dream and it was in similar form to what he wrote but I wasn't able to find those excepts and so I finally remembered I had been dreaming. If that makes sense. So maybe this helped me become a better dreamer. Probably not.
"My God, I am about to pet a centipede! I petted it. It turned around and went away through an invisible diaphragm."
"Imagine a big lemur. Lemur as big as I am, and cuddling up to me--nothing sexual, it's much more intense than that."
no context
It's a neat read.

[Adam Huber · Rating 3 out of 5]

The reviews and blurbs on "My Education" tout it as an extremely personal book for Burroughs, and it is. The problem, however, is that it's also extremely self-indulgent and not easily-accessible unless you're already well versed in Burroughs' previous work and background. It's a welcome edition for the die-hard Burroughs fans out there, but definitely not a good place to start for those looking to give the surrealist beat writer a try.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a horrible bit of collected scraps of disconnected dreams. Do not bother getting or reading it.

i suspect that it is simply an effort to create revenue from Burroughs's estate by publishing some of his notes as a book.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Speaking of black holes, Sanche said: 'I would have to know what the cuisine is like'. And I thought, 'You are really earthbound.' Cuisine! The aliens that have been contacted it seems have no stomachs."

Nothing more than dreams.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burroughs's dreams.... amazing.

[Tait · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a literary dream journal, “My Education” is more interesting than many others I’ve read. Rather than the intellectual coziness of Cixious’s “Dream I Tell You” and Ortiz’s “Bruja” or the sadly quotidian surrealism of Michel Lieris’s “Nughts as Day, Days as Night” and Georges Perec’s “La Boutique Obscure,” or the zany incomprehensibility of Kerouac’s “Book of Dreams,” Burroughs’s dreams contain the kind of weird imagery, unsettling scenarios, and ambiguous psychogeographies that I personally associate with dreaming. As a clear source of inspiration for his fiction, his dreams contain all the dark contents and personalities that Burroughs fans are familiar with, but in a raw and more clearly narrated form.

On top of this, Burroughs makes the interesting and ancient connection between dreaming and the bardo or afterlife condition, calling the place he went at night the “Land of the Dead.” This association, psychologically explored in Hillman’s “The Dream and the Underworld,” here functions as a mystery and world-building mechanic, as well as a window into the clear sadness Burroughs felt at having outlived many of his well known contemporaries.

Given the vividness of the images and clarity of the writing, “My Education” really illustrates what is really going on when people say that reading other people’s dreams is boring: not because of a lack of engaging material but because dreams, as discreet narratives, rarely allow for character development or plot progression in the novelistic sense. Burroughs’ dreams are timeless moments, where he has returned to Tangiers or to his mother’s house, and where nothing he does can have any weight or consequence (even if taken as a consistent secondary reality).

But as his final published work, this elegiac and inefficacious backward glance at Burroughs’ obsessive images, lost friends, and the places he could never leave behind works as a bardo experience of a great writer dreaming his way into the beyond.

[Erica Basnicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

First review, and that’s important to mention because I made the mistake of reading this book before reading (or re-reading) anything else by Burroughs. I suspect there are many references to previous work that are lost on me. Some I vaguely remember from a first reading of Naked Lunch decades ago. I think the context would add something to the reading of his dreams.

Saying that, there are some nuggets of incredible writing in “My Education” that are brilliant without the context. And maybe the context won’t help. After all, Burroughs himself admits that the telling of the dream isn’t nearly as interesting as the experience of it (no context!). So I’ll be reading this again as and when I get through his other books. I’m just not sure it’s the kind of book anyone but an already-renown author could ever publish, based on the writing alone. But still a weird journey, and I’m a big fan of weird journeys.

[Tom Calvard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Burroughs' books - always fragmented, shocking, radical, subversive, grotesque. They have to be understood in conjunction with the writer's life and his visions and experiences.

This late volume is an intimate collection of dreams, reflections, and memories. Although quite jumbled in one quick dream jotting after another, there are a lot of profound thoughts and images. Burroughs was a very original artist and writer, and I found it was interesting in how it got me thinking about dreams, creativity and layers of consciousness, even animals and the nature of life and death, existence, the human condition. No stone unturned, even if there are sometimes centipedes underneath!

[Nathaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

“An experience most deeply felt is the most difficult to convey in words. Remembering brings the emptiness, the acutely painful awareness of irreparable loss.

From my window, I can see the marble slab over Ruski’s grave...Ruski, my first and always special cat, a Russian Blue from the woods of East Kansas. Every time I see a grave, I get that empty feeling where something was, and isn’t anymore, and will never be again.”

[Chris Laurie · Rating 1 out of 5]

This volume is barrel scraping dreck. It consists of short paragraphs recalling dreams. It lacks any context for the dreams and provides no linking armature to give some cohesion to this mess. This is the worst book in the Burroughs canon.

[Charles Northey · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are moments of brilliance with some beautiful turns of phrase, and best when reading is uninterrupted. Some of it is barely accessible- you read for feel not content. Burroughs is not for everybody.

[Jon Zellweger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life if a cut up, Burroughs viewed life symbolically — mystically. My Education is a collection of entries to his dream journal. Interesting, but for the completist only. I decided 40 pages was enough on a straight go. Perhaps I’ll pop it off the shelf and read a few pages periodically.

[Danny Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An oddly intimate book with some amazing one-liners and surreal moments. I really enjoyed it, even though it got a bit stodgy in the middle — hence the 3.5 rather than 4.

“Well, I really got a turkey of a body…”

He sure shit does.

[Richie H · Rating 4 out of 5]

been in a reading slump lately bc i’ve been watching too much tv lmao but slowly getting back to it! loved this read, and also had an encounter other day in second hand book shop with an older man who knew of naked lunch and we spoke a bit about burroughs 😭 never know what’ll happen in life