Dreamtime

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I have discovered, when hibernating in some pleasant moments between waking and sleeping, or the other way around, t’ween sleeping and waking, that at such moments, time allows itself a natural freedom and runs forwards and backwards and from side-to-side quite willy-nilly. It occasionally indulges in somersaults, and cartwheels. It is, after all, TIME and, despite physicists best efforts to - as Jim Croce begged back in 1973, - “save it in a bottle,” time apparently can do whatever it wants.  

The dreams that share that lovely little corner of spacetime with me - and dreams I suppose they must be, although I am loathe to imply with that designation any tint of fantasy or deception to their enchanting narratives - those dreams slide with equal facility among a variety of worlds. Some worlds I fully recognize, and are peopled by individuals whose names, forms and faces are well-known, and often quite dear to me. Then there are other worlds inhabited by entities whose particulars, if not on the tip of my tongue, do lurk somewhere close behind my eyelids, and with whom I would claim a passing, though fuzzy, familiarity. Those worlds are followed, but not terribly often nor closely, by worlds with landscapes and inhabitants which, while utterly alien, feel nonetheless somehow like home.

As I lie there, futilely trying to lure the fading sprites back to the playground, I find myself assuming that there was some meaning in these frolics along the paths I did not take, or, that perchance, lie along trails that still await me out among the multiverses. First galaxy to the right and straight on ‘til morning, or Neverland, whichever comes first.

The notion that currently most intrigues me is the suspicion that, despite the seeming daunting hurdle of my father’s five score years, perhaps time is just “messin’” with us. That these places and spaces, these envisioned faces and cosmic traces that flit about me during these gentle “t’ween” times are fleeting, teasing invitations to more worlds, more moments, more laughter, and, yes, perhaps more tears. But, then, honey grows sweeter when tempered with the saltiness of tears.

Scientists increasingly tell us to pay attention to our sleep. Choose your source and you will discover that you should be getting 8, 9, 10 or even more hours of sleep a night. Methinks it is not so much the sleeping to which we need attend. More likely ‘tis the dreaming.

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