To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…

“Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.”

Montaigne, “Of Experience”, Essays (1580-88)

“Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?”

Lord Tennyson, “The Higher Pantheism” (1869)

“We often forget our dreams so speedily: if we cannot catch them as they are passing out at the door, we never set eyes on them again.”

William Hazlitt, “On Dreams,” The Plain Speaker (1826)

“The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of their own.”

Heraclitus, Fragments (c. 500 B.C.)

“Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.”

William Dement, Newsweek, Nov. 30, 1959

“I suppose that it is submerged memories that give dreams their curious air of hyper reality. But, perhaps there is something else as well, something nebulous, gauze-like, through which everything one sees in a dream seems, paradoxically, much clearer.”

W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, pgs. 79-80

“Another thing we are not supposed to do is explain the inexplicable. Men have learned to live with a black burden, a huge aching hump: the supposition that reality may only be a ‘dream.’ How much more dreadful it would be if the very awareness of your being aware of reality’s dreamlike nature were also a dream, a built-in hallucination!

Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things, pg. 93

“The brain’s unique capacity for making patterns out of seemingly patternless material may not be confined to the waking life. Even in sleep, the search for structure goes on. The forces of anti-chance are at work in dreams, the nightly theater-in-the-brain that never closes.”

Jeremy Campbell, Grammatical Man, pg 230

“Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.”

Prospero, in The Tempest, (Shakespeare)

My old friend, Jim Walsh, used to say that if you could remember your dreams, your life would be an open book. I’ve thought about that often over the years, particularly when I’ve been awakened suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud sound, or even by the alarm clock. What was that anyway that I just experienced? What was I just involved in? Why can’t I grasp hold of it? Well, whatever it was, evidently it’s gone now.

At some point or other, all of us have considered the dreams that we’ve had and tried to make some sense of them — to perhaps wring a deeper significance from them. Mostly, these dreams of ours do not spell out as clearly as we would like what they actually mean — or if they, in fact, mean anything at all. Austrian neurologist, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, really introduced dream interpretation when he published The Interpretation of Dreams, in 1899. His theory was that dreams reflected the dreamer’s unconscious mind; he also thought that dream content was shaped by unconscious wish fulfillment. Carl Jung agreed with and expanded upon that idea, but where he disagreed was that didn’t just believe that “a dream is a mask for a meaning already known.” Or, that they are “simply images thrown up by memory.” Rather, he considered dreams to be: “communication,” “a message,” “new information,” part of a “constructive process.” And, that all of this “fit into the psychic scheme of the dreamer as a whole.” (Campbell, Grammatical Man, pg. 231)

The thinking regarding dreams has evolved greatly over the years since Freud: “Many researchers now believe that dreaming mediates memory consolidation and mood regulation, a process a little like overnight therapy.” (Psychology Today) And, not only memory consolidation, but “problem solving” too. The idea has also been advanced that: “the multifaceted nature of dreams makes it easy to find connections between dream content and real events. The term ‘vericidal dream’ has been used to indicate dreams that reveal or contain truths not yet known to the dreamer, whether future events or secrets.” (Llewellyn Worldwide)

Psychologists, researchers and academicians have all joined in over the years to provide us with their specific interpretations of dreams. Each has contributed their knowledge and understanding of dreams to the overall data base. And, in terms of personal reflection on our dreams, it would be helpful for us to begin with at least an initial understanding of some of the history and terminology associated with dream interpretation. Having said that, imho I think that just a bit of knowledge here would be enough. After all, these are our dreams, having to do with our lives. And, if we are really paying attention, is there anyone more in tune with who we are than we are ourselves? I understand that there are times in peoples’ lives when they need to consult a therapist to help them sort through some problem areas. But, I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable with a counselor attempting to analyze my dreams and assuring me that they know exactly what those dreams are saying to me.

My particular theory about dreaming is that each of us dreams our own, personal dream — or at least, part of that same dream — every night, over and over again. And, I sense that this unique dream may be based on who we are in this life, who we were in a previous life and who we’ll yet turn out to be in lives to come. Custom-made. Tailored to our own, one-of-a kind existence. One size definitely does not fit all.

The dreamscape I’m envisioning resembles a continuous movie reel set up to run from opening musical intro to closing credits. Every night. Every year. All life long. If we are not awakened suddenly, the entire dream would unfold each night. However, we won’t usually remember very much of it. So, if the videotape is constantly running, then why are we missing huge swaths of it? Is it during a time when we’re not in a deep REM sleep? ^* Is the sound “turned down” or off? Or, are we perhaps “dozing” or “sleeping” through it? If so, then, where do the bits and pieces flow from, the vague and filmy memories? They often seem to come to us quite by accident, and maybe it was never intended for us to know them completely anyway.

One early, early morning a good number of years ago, Fluffy, the next door neighbor’s big tomcat, stood meowing loudly outside my bedroom window — for the thousand^th time! Only on this particular occasion it woke me, before the cycle was finished, while the “movie” was still in process. On awakening, I remembered much of what had “taken place” in the dream that day: we — my “friends” and I — but I can’t really say who they were — we were entering the home of another “friend” (we all seemed to know one another). We then began to follow several other people up the stairs, through the halls and in and out of numerous rooms.

What was I doing there? What did I hope to accomplish? What, exactly, was the point of all of this? Over the course of many years, I’ve been startled awake by some errant sound, by something that went bang in the night. A few of those times — and being aware of what I had just dreamt — I found myself in that same house. I don’t know where the house is, or where it might be in my hometown or even if it actually exists somewhere in the world. But, I’ve been there often enough in my dreams that it has become quite real for me. I feel comfortable enough there for it to be a house I once lived in —except I know that I didn’t. At least, not in this life.

Sometimes, when I awaken suddenly, I’m on a road, the road to this house, I suppose. It’s a road that I recognize as having traveled, but most likely I haven’t. And, in the dream, I can’t tell if I’m walking or driving. Actually, I may be gliding, or flying, perhaps time-traveling. On a few occasions, in my wanderings through the old house, I seemed to be getting close to something that beckoned me — like a strong tropism. I can remember from a few, abruptly interrupted dreams, that I was consciously and actively seeking to identify a strong force I sensed was located somewhere in that house. On my “return trips,” I haven’t found it yet, but I’m guessing it’s in one of the yet undiscovered rooms that I have still to visit.

I must have gotten fairly close at least a few times over the years, because I can recall feeling apprehensive, with an uneasy urgency that inhabited and gripped my entire body. Whatever is there, I’m sensing that it and only it will allow me to somehow regain a wholeness, a completeness that I’m lacking at present. My best guess is that I’m in search of something I once had, but no longer do. But honestly, I couldn’t even begin to tell you what that might be.

Where is this entity, this pulsating life force I seek so wistfully, yet still unsuccessfully? I’m going to suggest that it is most likely in a “secret place” — perhaps in one of the attic rooms in the familiar, yet unidentifiable old house. Though I am drawn, like moth to flame, in a fatalistic spiral, I’m now beginning to realize that its unearthing could well mean the end of my current existence as I know it. Either positively, or perhaps, even negatively. However, I’m fairly certain that it would make a difference. Could such a discovery yield real peace, or might the exposure to a force so potent be unsurvivable? I remember being struck by this thought: In order to safekeep something of importance, sometimes we hide it so well that we forget where we put it…

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* “Dreams are stories the brain tells during the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep. People typically have multiple dreams each night that grow longer as sleep draws to a close. Over a lifetime, a person may dream for five or six full years.” (Psychology Today).

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The thing about dreams: when you’re dreaming, everything seems to make sense. When you awake and think back on the dream, actually most of it appears nonsensical. The truth may actually lie somewhere in between. There is a certain “logic” to dreams. Things — facts and situations — are presented to you in a dream and you accept them — you understand them as “truth”. Almost as if you had heard or seen them before, but of course you haven’t. It all just seems so logical. Yet in retrospect and upon review, it doesn’t quite add up. During a dream, you give your consent to the logic and premise of the situation without a challenge — you go along with the “rules” that seem to apply, despite the overwhelming inconsistencies. I’ve often thought that it’s not that my dreams actually did make sense; it’s that they didn’t not make sense.

Whether dreams make complete sense to us, or not all all, I mostly tend to agree with the current thinking on the subject. That is, rather than looking at dreams as “repressions in disguise,” it would be “more natural to see them as events, ‘messages,’ generated by the brain in the normal course of affairs.” (Campbell, Grammatical man, pg. 231) So, if we think about our dreams as part of a process of “connecting the unknown to the known,” and consider them in a positive manner, it may be more beneficial in terms of how we lead our lives and confront future challenges.

I’ll end with a haunting dream of mine from 20 years ago; a dream that has returned to me countless times over the last two decades. It was October of 2002. My dad, a special man and my absolute hero, had been declining in health for a number of months due to inoperable cancer. He had strongly refused radiation and chemo, probably understanding correctly that such treatment would only add days, not even months, to his life. He had hospice care those last days.

One night, as we were visiting him, my wonderful brother-in-law Ed and I were in Dad’s bedroom. There wasn’t much talk; we were just hoping to be supportive and comforting. As he lay there in bed, Dad turned away from us, glancing up at a wedding picture of he and my mother on the dresser. At some point, he turned to look back over his shoulder at Ed and me. The look on his face said everything. It was not a sad countenance, but the expression of a man longing to move on to the next phase. He knew what was coming and he seemed ready to embrace it. Then, he turned back to gaze at the photo again. Later that night, we lost him.

My dream occurred several weeks after Dad’s death. During the dream, I was sitting at the desk in my office at Pyrotronics, a company I had left seven years before. Eventually, I looked out the window. I spotted my dad walking across the parking lot. As I jumped up from my desk, I yelled out, to no one in particular: “That’s my father, I need to go talk to him.” As I reached the parking lot, he was still walking away from me. And, from behind, I of course knew it was him, with his trademark fedora. I called out to him. I guess he heard me because he immediately looked back over his shoulder at me. In the same way that he had looked back over his shoulder the evening that he died. But, this time, the look on his face — and, the smile on his lips —assured me that he was at peace, and that there was nothing to worry about.

November 9, 2021

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