To sleep, perchance to dream. . . and hopefully remember it.

DREAMS by Robert Service

I had a dream, a dream of dread:
I thought that horror held the house;
A burglar bent above my bed,
He moved as quiet as a mouse.
With hairy hand and naked knife
He poised to plunge a bloody stroke,
Until despairful of my life
I shrieked with terror - and awoke.

I had a dream of weary woes:
In weather that was fit to freeze,
I thought that I had lost my cloths,
And only wore a short chemise.
The wind was wild; so catch a train
I ran, but no advance did make;
My legs were pistoning in vain -
How I was happy to awake!

I had a dream: Upon the stair
I met a maid who kissed my lips;
A nightie was her only wear,
We almost came to loving grips.
And then she opened wide a door,
And pointed to a bonny bed . . .
Oh blast! I wakened up before
I could discover - were we wed?

Alas! Those dreams of broken bliss,
Of wakenings too sadly soon!
With memories of sticky kiss,
And limbs so languidly a-swoon!
Alas those nightmares devil driven!
Those pantless prowlings in Pall Mall!
Oh why should some dreams be like heaven
And others so resemble hell?

Lately I haven't been able to remember my dreams.  I first noticed this happening last week but at the time didn't think too much about it.  When I sit down to write my morning pages if nothing immediately pours out of my pen I often resort to recording my dreams.  But Saturday as I sat staring at the blank page for the third morning in a row, I realized I couldn't recall the last time I remembered a dream. 

It isn't that I haven't been sleeping well and therefore not getting the REM sleep required for most dreams.  Thanks to a combination of limiting my night time Netflix on-demand watching and a night time Benadryl to treat my first-ever case of poison ivy, I've been getting at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night.  And I know I've been dreaming because as I'm just waking up my mind recognizes I'm coming out of a dream.  It's just that when my eyes open, the remnants of the dream are gone. 

This is becoming more and more unsettling to me because I so often remember my dreams.  In fact, some of the earliest memories I know are my own, not ones I've created from stories that others tell about my life, are dreams I had as a child . . . the seven dwarfs from Disney's version of Snow White dancing around on my ceiling as I lay in my crib, a Geisha doll coming to life and trying to push me down the basement steps of my grandmother's house, my father coming home from work and a vampire sneaking in with him and hiding behind the sofa.

While the dreams I have as an adult aren't usually as frightening, they are just as vivid. There are those set in recurring dreamscapes, cities and coast lines I can navigate just as easily as I can get to landmarks in my home town.  Sometimes my dreams have a cinematic quality to them where I am an observer of the action rather than a participant in the story line. 

At other times my dreams involve unsettling images that are evidently quite common and readily interpreted.  A dream about losing teeth?  It could be I'm feeling insecure or am experiencing loss or change.  Dreams about high tides and tidal waves come from feeling overwhelmed, although I always think about going fishing during these dreams . . . wonder what that means? 

After talking about recurring dreams with my mother recently, I discovered that we both frequently dream that we need a loo and can't find a suitable one.  I was surprised to find that "suitable toilet" is an entry in many dream interpretation guides.  The version of the dream I have most often relates to feeling like I have a lack of privacy, which as an introvert living in a household of seeming extroverts , seems pretty obvious.

Dreams by Heinrich Vogeler

But for the past two weeks I haven't had any dreams that I can interpret, record, remember.  Not even a whiff of an emotion that lingers after waking or a flash of an image that comes back to me during the day.  It has me feeling unsettled-- like my conscious and subconscious are living separate lives, are no longer on speaking terms.  While I'm awake, I find I miss having that sense of my dreaming life . . . it seems like the world is a bit less magical, mysterious and leaves me feeling a bit disconnected.

Thanks a lot St. George.   Now where do I get my dragon tongue?

In my wanderings on the web I found an archive of an exhibit entitled, "To Sleep, Perchance to Dream" that was at the Folger Shakespeare Library back in 2009.  In addition to Elizabethan theories on the medical causes and effects of sleep, I learned that rubies and emeralds are supposed to ward off nightmares while wearing an amethyst will lead to exciting dreams.  Easier than eating the wine soaked tongue or gall of a dragon, especially as it has become so hard to find good dragon parts these days.  So maybe tonight I'll go to bed with amethyst earrings on and hope that tomorrow morning I have a dream to record during my morning pages. 

In the meantime, if you want to listen to the audio tour of the Folger exhibit you can click here or if you have a dream you remember and would like to see how the experts in Shakespeare's day would interpret it, check out the Folger's Dream Machine.