{"id":2606,"date":"2025-11-14T11:57:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T16:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=2606"},"modified":"2025-11-24T09:12:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T14:12:33","slug":"word-of-the-week-fugue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2025\/11\/14\/word-of-the-week-fugue\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Fugue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2025\/11\/fugue-state.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2607\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/files\/2025\/11\/fugue-state.jpg\" alt=\"Person walking in fog\" width=\"407\" height=\"271\" \/><\/a>I had a college roommate who enjoyed learning new words. One day he said &#8220;I had a vision while in a fugue state.&#8221; He meant that half-awake, half-asleep moment when you might recall a dream to be lost by the first cup of coffee.<\/p>\n<p>Fugues in music I knew, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oed.com\/dictionary\/fugue_n?tab=meaning_and_use#3523943\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The OED<\/a> gives us a definition that dates to a first use in the 16th Century, &#8220;A polyphonic composition constructed on one or more short subjects or themes, which are harmonized according to the laws of counterpoint, and introduced from time to time with various contrapuntal devices.&#8221; You know a fugue when you hear one. They are hard to forget.<\/p>\n<p>What of my roommate&#8217;s sense of the word? He was a surf-punk rocker, not Bach. Then we get this definition, just by scrolling down below all that music, &#8220;A flight from one&#8217;s own identity, often involving travel to some unconsciously desired locality.&#8221; This usage dates to 1901 and comes from psychology. You&#8217;ll find more on the phenomenon <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/wm-abnormalpsych\/chapter\/dissociative-amnesia-fugue-and-depersonalization-derealization-disorder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So my roomie was using our word incorrectly; he was aware of himself when in that transition between sleep and alertness and began to keep a dream-journal. Pro tip: If you want to record those visions from sleep, keep a notebook by the bed and scribble down details before you lose them. Artists tend to do these things. Or perhaps some dreams, like fugue states, are best forgotten?<\/p>\n<p>Send words and metaphors my way by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below. Want to write a guest entry? Let me know!<\/p>\n<p>See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/metaphor-of-the-month\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/tag\/word-of-the-week\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>image: creative-commons image from Lumen Learning.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had a college roommate who enjoyed learning new words. One day he said &#8220;I had a vision while in a fugue state.&#8221; He meant that half-awake, half-asleep moment when you might recall a dream to be lost by the first cup of coffee. Fugues in music I knew, and The OED gives us a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2025\/11\/14\/word-of-the-week-fugue\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Word of the Week! Fugue<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,87405,87419,40197,99],"tags":[2522],"class_list":["post-2606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-etymology","category-music","category-vocabulary","category-writing","tag-word-of-the-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-G2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2606"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2613,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions\/2613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}