Interview with Elio D’Anna
Why do you think the book attracts so many people?
Elio. Because the Dreamer is a completely new literary character, real, vibrant and at the same time unseizable. He is modern and timeless, he is wise but doesn’t belong to any religion or philosophy. His love is merciless. He is the living promise that one day we can all become the Dreamer, masters of our own destiny.
For the protagonist who is an ordinary man. The readers identify with the guinea pig, and sympathize with the protagonist for all the troubles and endless efforts he goes through to apply the words of the Dreamer to his own life.
The Book is also a map, an escape plan. The readers immediately identify with a man who takes to flight, a man who is dreaming his freedom. He is giving reality to a dream that belongs to all of us: transforming our life into a portable paradise.
Q. The name ‘Dreamer’ that you use in the book reminds us of the dreams that we all see during night sleep, and sometimes during the day, too. Is it the same thing, and if not what makes them different?
Elio. No. Nothing could be more far from it. Dreaming is not the product of an oneiric activity but a state of freedom, a psychological condition of absence of fear, anxiety, doubts and negative emotions. When we are able to reach such a condition we enter into a creative state, in contact with the world of ideas, of solutions. We become the solution.
The definition I received from the Dreamer is: “Dreaming means to be right now what you wish to become.
Q. I can hardly imagine a world full of people that never die, and who are happy at the same time! If not something else, wouldn’t this create major demographic problems with all these billions of people on Earth?
Elio. It is enough for you to dream that you will never die. The Book talks to and is directed only to the single reader, the individual. The others do not exist if not as millions of mirrors reflecting you and only you.
Q. This is definitely a difficult, and even dangerous book. Do you believe that it addresses a very specific and limited number of readers, or the general public?
Elio. The only thing that is endangered by reading the School for Gods is one’s ignorance together with his fears and doubts and all the emotional ballast that poisons his life. Do not worry too much. People find the Book only when they are ready for it.
Q.You speak of the ordinary people in the book. How can the ordinary person approach the Dreamer?
Elio. We all have a chance to meet the Dreamer, the most sincere, the most real part of ourselves. We do not need to be extraordinary to meet Him. We just need to be ourselves. This happens when we touch our limits, when we reach the point where we cannot go on anymore.
