We Are Such Stuff

 We are such stuff as dreams are made on,

And our little life is rounded

With a sleep.

The Tempest, William Shakespeare.

Being of an age when sleep is an erratic visitor, I tend to focus more on the dreams than the actual sleeping part. And they are strange critters, aren’t they? These dreams of ours.

If popular music is any indication, dreams are the inevitable partner of romance - of love requited and un. “When I want you, all I have to do is dream.” “When I close my eyes, I dream. And when I dream, all I ever dream about is you.” “Dream lover, until then, I go to sleep and dream again, Until all my lovers dreams come true.” Etc, etc, etc, etc. Add your favorites, :-)!

Ah, well, no offense to any of my romantic interests, from the little black-haired Irish girl who lived across the street from Jefferson Elementary, she of my earliest classroom memories, to my dear better half here with me in Burr Ridge to, as Julio and Willie put it, “all the girls I’ve loved before,” I don’t have those dreams.

Let me clarify - I think my dreams are as thematically diverse as anyone’s. The very strange thing is that when I dream - and on those rare fleeting occasions when I can remember any of the details of the dream - I dream in the presence of strangers. Although able to interact with, and converse with, the other actors in these insubstantial dramas, I am the only identifiable entity in my dreams. Upon waking, in those, fleeting recollected moments when I can recall anything about the dream, ain’t nobody I know there, ‘cept me.

I realize that this is somewhat unusual. My wife can recall, and retell, her dreams - cast and plotline - with the length and clarity of War and Peace. And the players are all real people who share her live in some way. Not I. I hang out with strangers.

One episode of an favorite old TV show, Nothern Exposure, (which I recently binge viewed in it's entirety) proposed a possible explanation. In the episode Chris and Bernard - a bi-racial pair of brothers - discover that they are having each other's dreams. Interesting notion, especially in light of my fondness for the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. Maybe I am dreaming of the lives I am living in those other existences? How about that Professor Freud? Huh? Wadda ya think!? Stranger things have happened, right? Although none spring to mind at the moment. . 

Yet, I am pulled back, at least partially, into more realistic realms by the fact that I can recall a couple of specific dream types:

Type one: Where Is the Room?

This dream is obviously drawn from my academic life. The setting is a large convention venue. Lots of hallways, elevators, meeting rooms, sociality suites. I am supposed to be presenting a paper but cannot find the room. I am late. I am lost. I rush frantically about until rescued by the relative sanity bestowed by the breaking of the rosy fingered dawn - as some poem we had to translate in Classical Greek 101 at Kalamazoo College put it, and I awake.

Type two: Doesn't the Addams Family Live Here?

This type is similar to, but still different from, type one. I am trapped in a large spooky, gothic kind of mansion. It isn't a frightening environment as much as it is a frustrating one. I need to do something, but I don't know what or where. So I rush about never discovering what it is I seek nor where it might be located until, again, I am rescued by the rosy fingered dawn.

In both types of dreams I encounter the usual cast of familiar strangers who offer well-intentioned, but meaningless advice. My first non-dream response upon waking from either a type one or a type two dream is: "Whoa! That was weird!" And then the dream disappears.

Naturally, shortly after writing this post, the black swan that proves the exception came winging her way into my dreamscape:

My best and oldest friend accompanied me throughout the dream. We are playing golf at night on a lighted par three course, similar to, but eventually different from, one we frequented while attending high school in Springfield, Ohio.

The round started normally enough. My friend hit a lovely drive off into the lights, perhaps even onto the green. Things then got a bit strange when I attempted to tee off. The tee box turned to sand. Not golf course sand - beach sand, deep fluffy sand which would not hold a tee. Every time I placed the ball upon the tee and stood up to tee off the tee would disappear into the sand and the ball would roll away.

We finished the hole. I do not recall how. But we set off to find the second tee. Signs led us to the door of a large decrepit old mansion. We entered and found ourselves in the throes of a type two dream - hauling our golf clubs around while wandering fruitlessly about seeking the second tee. Cue the rosy fingered dawn. "Whoa! That was weird!"

Weird on several levels. First, there was a person from real life in the dream. Previously, at most, as the dream faded I might think, "Hey, that might have been .  .  ." Usually someone from at least long ago and perhaps far away.

Second, the whole athletic thing - golf and the semi-sentient golf course winding its way through some Addam's Family Mansion.

Third, and strangest of all, I remember it - at least all the salient parts.

However, given the strangeness and weirdness of my night time dreaming, I should point out that that particular cloud does have an afternoon delight silver lining: naps! I take them most days - and when I do, I do not dream. Or if I do I am blissfully unaware of the phenomenon, and awake not weird.

Well, the clock has crept past midnight and the tornado warnings have been recalled. Time to wrap this one up!

Sweet dreams!