Perchance to Dream
‘Perchance to dream’
Hamlet is working through his dilemma of facing his demons or ending his life, and wondering ‘what dreams may come’ in ‘that sleep of death’ - and whether he’d be better off dealing with what faces him at the present, or evading it by taking his own life. Nevertheless, he worries that the dreams that might come on the other side of death may be worse than his current problems.
But this is not supposed to be a dissertation on Hamlet’s soliloquy - rather an insight into a form of escape that I suggest we all take advantage of from time to time. I know I do. Sleep.
Shakespeare had so much more to say on the topic; in the ‘Scottish Play,’ Macbeth - tormented by his recent murder of King Duncan, understandably cannot rest, and laments his inability to sleep
“Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.”
And again, in King Lear, his favoured daughter, Cordelia, talking with the Doctor about her father’s descent into madness (‘…mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud…’) asks what can possibly help him; the Doctor replies, ‘There is means, madam. Our foster nurse of nature is repose, the which he lacks - that to provoke in him are many simples operative, whose power will close the eye of anguish.’
For those of you who are not familiar with Shakespearean language, this means that ‘he needs a really good sleep, and there are many simple potions that I can give him to help that.’
Why am I concerned with sleep? Apart from the Bard’s profound insights, we all use it to escape in one way or another. The other morning, Sheila said to me that I had an enormous appetite for sleep - perhaps because I was making up for being very tired before we went away, but even so - she was right, as I find a world there that is sometimes so fantastical and amazing that I don’t want to wake up, and try desperately to hang on to my dreams, though wakefulness forces itself upon me.
Creatures, buildings, music, colours…story-lines, abilities (I can fly), harmonies, sensations; I am sure that we are all aware of our dream lives to some extent or another. And sometimes there are the bad dreams that recall past experiences that I would prefer not to re-live.
Jung would say that our dream lives reflect the activity of our soul’s searching; the bible would allow that young men will see visions and old men will dream dreams - as outpourings of the Holy Spirit (Joel and Acts). Who are we to say it isn’t so?
Perhaps we should pay more attention to our dreams. I’ll leave Shakespeare’s Caliban, from The Tempest, to have the last word:
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.”
Philip+