Dreaming

 

Dreaming

‘We are all made of dreams, and our life stretches from sleep before birth to sleep after death.’

Prospero, The Tempest

Shakespeare

Everyone dreams. It is claimed that dreaming is important, an opportunity for the brain to process the experiences of the day.

Sometimes it is an escape. When interviewed after release, a concentration camp inmate said she had had beautiful dreams while incarcerated, but when she was free once more, the wonderful dreams no longer came to her.

There are five common categories of dreams. The sort that reflects our daily life is the most usual type. In them we may transcend reality and allow our imagination free play.

Daydreams occur when the dreamer is fully awake but mentally engaged in another situation. I’m not sure I would say that these are actually dreams, but what do I know?

The lucid dream, in which the dreamer thinks him or herself awake and participating and able to control events, is a strange, somewhat unsettling event. It is similar in some ways to the ‘false awakening’ dream, when the dreamer thinks he or she has woken up but is in fact still dreaming.

Occasionally, people have nightmares, and these can be very frightening. They usually occur in the early morning. Night terrors are similar, but involve screaming, intense fear and thrashing as if to escape bonds or restrictions.

Sometimes they happen at the same time as sleepwalking. Sleepwalkers can get up, walk around, even appear awake, for their eyes are open, and they can hold simple conversations. They can be led gently back to bed without further disturbance. It is a very odd experience to be with a child who is sleepwalking, for the child is in the present physically, but the mind is elsewhere.   

Sometimes dreams recur frequently. One of mine involves me being late for work, or simply not turning up. Another has me worrying about exams.

Sometimes, dreams are so vivid that they can be recalled years later. As a child, I dreamt that I was flying, and was positive for many years that I could actually fly. I remembered the sensation of flying under my own power.

 Apparently, it is not uncommon for dreamers to think thus. My youngest daughter had a friend at university who had been similarly convinced of her ability to fly. Even faced with irrefutable science, we tend to continue believing that which makes us content.

A dream I had in 2009 has remained with me. I ‘met’ a man, who sprang fully formed into my consciousness on waking. He was a pleasant-looking fellow, neither handsome nor plug-ugly. His skin was clear and smooth, and his hair was dark, clean, and well-cut. He was about 35, of medium height and build, and appeared reasonably fit. It was apparent that he followed an exercise régime of some sort, probably involving running or walking, or maybe cycling or rowing. He was not a man to play team sports because he spent his working days in close proximity to other people and wanted time and space to himself at the end of the long working day.

He was a quiet man, and though he was well-liked by his fellow workers, they could never remember his name. He thought it was because he was more of a listener than a talker. Eventually, he grew so tired of being addressed as Jim, or Bob, or any other name that came to his co-worker’s lips, that he decided to wear a badge with his name printed neatly on it.

Gerard Culpeper

Pastry chef

I have no idea why he chose me as his channel of communication. I have never met anyone called Gerard or Culpeper, though I have a copy of Culpeper’s Herbal (Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, written by Nicholas Culpeper and published in 1653.)

I frequently encounter odd characters in the moments before I’m quite awake, but rarely remember them. I never see the same ‘person’ twice.

What dreams do you remember? Do you have recurrent dreams? If you have pets, do they dream?  Ours certainly do!