Metalepsis (me-ta-lep’-sis): Reference to something by means of another thing that is remotely related to it, either through a farfetched causal relationship, or through an implied intermediate substitution of terms. Often used for comic effect through its preposterous exaggeration. A metonymical substitution of one word for another which is itself figurative.
Your dreams are nightmares waiting to hatch. They’ll be featherless and will crash when they jump from your mind-nest out into the world. I can hear them bouncing off anybody who will listen and who will get a good laugh as payment for their wasted time.
I just don’t know what else to say. Dreams are like cheese, and cheese is like truth. There are so many different cheeses, likewise there are many many different dreams. You have cheddar, you have the “can’t open your locker dream.” You have feta, you have the “teeth are falling out dream.” This list is endless. But, then there’s truth—it goes well with cheese: like a delicate cracker with just the right amount of salt, and shortening, and gluten. Mmm! I’ll have some of that! Give me a slab of Port Salut on a warm truth-cracker! In a way, dreams follow the truth around like a child chasing a butterfly. The child will never catch the butterfly and would not know what to do with it anyway, like an electric drill, or a motorcycle, or a federal income tax form. You just yell at the kid: “wake up,” and that usually works. If it fails, make sure they major in philosophy when they go to college. A sort of cordial recalcitrance, or witty smugness will take them far, perhaps as far as a PhD.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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