What Dreams May Come ...

Benedict Cumberbatch as the Melancholy Dane--
the best I ever saw

 

I'm sure a lot of you remember "To be or not to be"--some of you former juniors of mine at Western Reserve Academy had to memorize it for class--and the lines Hamlet utters. He thinks about suicide, then wonders "what dreams may come" when he is dead. The thought of that he says "must give us pause."

Well, I did some pausing today as I reflected on the dreams I had last night. For some reason I've been sleeping more deeply lately--even remembering some details of dreams. I'll not rehearse them all for you, but last night was something typical.

A mixture of places in my life. At Kent State's Satterfield Hall (where Joyce and I met 51 years ago this summer), and some other places I knew so well (but can't remember now). On the same stage. The same set. Why?

People from my life mixed together--as if Hamlet were to wander onto the stage and find Willy Loman there and commence a conversation as if nothing were ... untoward. In one dream last night (I had several that I sort of remember) our teenage son (he's 48 now!) was there, some friends from my own junior high, Joyce--jumbled together in the "story"--as if some author had populated her novel with characters from Moby-Dick, Infinite Jest, Jane Eyre, The Sun Also Rises, Frankenstein, Watership Down, and, okay, Hamlet.

Yet I don't recall (in the dream) thinking that anything was amiss.

I shouldn't be surprised: Our minds are crammed with all the people we've known, all the places we've been, all the things we've done (including, of course, those we desperately wish we could forget).  It shouldn't really surprise us that when we lose control (i.e., when we sleep) all these things and people come out to mingle--to entertain or alarm us. And our minds, at rest, simply accept it. 

Until we wake up and think, Now, that was weird! Or: Whew! Just a dream!

Indeed.

I'm not sure I've ever believed that dreams "mean" more than what they are--the doors to the past swung wide. But I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, so what do I know?

Not much more than Hamlet, who said of death and dreaming:

"Who knows what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil / Must give us pause. ... the undiscover'd country from whose bourn [border/boundary] / No traveler returns ...."

Like Hamlet, I wouldn't mind if all my dreams rehearsed things I've enjoyed, loved, accomplished.

But they don't, do they? At least, mine don't.