“Ain’t it Funny How the Night Moves”
I hope you aren’t feeling cheated by the title — like the old bait and switch. This is more about night magic courtesy of the brain, rather than Night Moves, à la Bob Seger.
Recently, in our Women Rowing North-Our Life Stories Alumni writing group, facilitated by our sage guide, Helen, we were tasked with writing about everyday magic. Incredible stories were shared. Listening to this group of wise women is one of my greatest sources of inspiration during The Precious Days. I decided to write about the magic of every night. After writing and sharing my story, it got me thinking about another extraordinary feat of the brain — memory. I focused my last blog on that. I’ve had time to flesh out and polish up the writing group piece, and it feels like the right fit for this Friday’s blog — another testimonial to the brain’s amazing functions and a little trip to dreamland.
Think about it. What earthly magic can compare to the otherworldly wonder of the dreams created by the human mind? Shakespeare got it. A Midsummer Night’s Dream continues to be one of his most enduringly popular plays, with the hapless humans’ succumbing to the bewitching antics of fairies, all in a dream-like slumber (or so says Puck). And if you have not seen the John Cusack movie 1408 based on Stephen King’s short story by the same name, you have not experienced the thrill of a bizarre and terrifying twist on lucid dreaming. And I would be remiss not to mention that The Shining wouldn’t have had us all scared witless if it hadn’t been for one of King’s own dreams. Magic? Sorcery? Madness? Fantasy? Any and all of these can result from the alchemy of merging the conscious and unconscious mind somewhere between the time of fluttering lids, eyes rolling back heavy with sleep, and then hours later, a rheumy-eyed awakening into the real world. Upon waking, sometimes we are relieved; sometimes we are disappointed. But, you have to admit that the fantastical landscape that exists in that “in between” is nothing short of miraculous. Indeed, dreams reign supreme in the world of everyday magic.
My dreams haven’t always been a source of enchantment. A tumultuous relationship with dreams started when I was small. My mother recited poems to me at bedtime, and one of my favorites was Eugene Fields’ Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. The fantasy of sailing off in that wooden shoe seemed like a lovely journey to dreamland. But between toddlerhood and age eight, while “sailing on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew,” night terrors featured heavily. Bedtimes were full of tears and the fear of what awaited me.
As a small child I wanted my mother to explain why something that scary happened to me at night. I was so young that it was hard for me to conceptually understand dreams, especially such vivid ones. I was sure someone real was pursuing me in my sleep. But who was the monster under the bed? Was it my Aunt Hetty? She terrified me with her nurse’s command of sharp tweezers, gaggy tongue depressors, and stinging peroxide, not to mention the creepiness of that long stringy bun she unraveled each night before bed. Often at bedtime, she knocked on the wall from the other side of our duplex intoning a haunting, “Bye for now.” Maybe it was the specter of the local telephone operator who had scolded me every time I picked up that heavy black phone’s receiver, then remained mute as she snapped, “Number PLEASE!” two or three times before loudly disconnecting me. Or was it Lord Jesus, whom I prayed to every night “my soul to keep”? Just in case, I tried saying my prayers in a pious plea rather than a hurried chant. My mother was sympathetic and consoling, even taking me to the pediatrician to see what could be done. Nothing. Could. Be. Done. Time will tell. Wait and see.
Eventually, I did outgrow the nightmares and the terrifying prickling that traveled up my spine into the base of my skull that accompanied them. Every person who has ever touched me on a certain area of my back has heard me admonish, “Don’t touch my spine!” That’s how powerful a force those dreams were from my childhood. I saw a neurologist once for something unrelated, or so I thought, and he was fascinated by my opposite handedness in sports, the closing of what seemed like the “wrong eye” to sight something, and that recurring, electrically-charged, spine-tingling dream, which I decided to share. Were they all connected in my brain? Who knows. But I am fine. My brain signals are fine. Thankfully.
So why would a child tormented by such dark and frightening visions grow into an adult who looks forward to remembering every detail of every dream before they evaporate into the daily routine? First, it is precisely because of the recurring nightmares of childhood, so vivid and visceral, that as an adult I am able to recall my dreams in such detail. Second, thanks to my own “comes in handy” degree in psychology, the theories of the brilliant Gestaltist, Frederick “Fritz” Perls, and my own therapist, I learned that not only did I actually script everything that happened in my dreams, but that I might actually be able to control the narrative of my dreams through self-coaching before sleep (a toe-dip into lucid dreaming). Finally and most importantly, as the years have progressed, my brain has produced some of the most thrilling, fantastical dream scenarios that could ever be imagined … although I did, in fact, imagine them. They are worth remembering and working through to more deeply understand conscious, subconscious, and unconscious me. This deeper meaning comes through my own version of Gestalt dreamwork, which I sometimes write about in my Morning Pages.
“For some must watch, while some must sleep...so runs the world away”
These grown-up dreams can be categorized as what Gretchen Rubin calls “adult wonder.” Rubin explains this as “wonder that comes from experience and understanding.” And that fits for me because the wonder of these dreams has been made more marvelous with the knowledge of what is happening both to produce them and understand their meaning. Dreams as adult wonders should matter. You wouldn’t poo-poo 8 hours of what your conscious mind produces during your waking hours, so why wouldn’t you pay attention to 8 hours of what your mind is doing while you sleep? By paying attention, one thing I’ve found out is my adult dreams have pretty regularly fallen into three recurring patterns in the land of Nod.
PATTERN #1
The first is the discovery dreams, which started shortly after we moved when I was in elementary school. The initial dreams included opening a door in our new house that led to yet undiscovered secret passages revealing intricately designed rooms, furnished with unfamiliar and odd pieces. These kinds of dreams have continued through every phase of my life. Apartments and homes I have lived in or visited reappear with new rooms. Corridors and winding staircases connect to larger floors with other units full of high, old world ceilings and cosmopolitan amenities. There have also been years of dreams in which I discover an entirely new section of my hometown as I turn the corner on a familiar street. There are new clothing stores, bustling restaurants and bars, all kinds of entertainment venues from movie theaters to opera houses, new neighborhoods, and streets teeming with people living this exciting unfamiliar life I am just coming to know. The same dream pattern plays out on my own street, as I take a walk up to an actual neighbor’s house and behind it find New York City style brownstones alongside Maine cottages and multi-story metropolitan glass-clad libraries.“Wow” is all I can think at the time, awestruck by these discoveries and the anticipation of living in these new worlds.
PATTERN #2
The second is the “White Nights” dreams. These began after I visited the former Soviet Union in July during the 1980’s. In these dreams, I wake up to an outdoor world where the middle of the night isn’t dark, and I inhabit an unfamiliar world that is a cross between polar day and full moon magic. I find myself under a tree reading a book well after the night hours have descended. In the glow of the midnight sun, I find backyard neighborhood parties taking place as I stroll on a 2:00 a.m. walk, greeting other nocturnal neighbors and visitors for whom this illuminated life has continued into the wee hours of the morning. And it’s all so vivid, so possible, so real.
PATTERN #3
The final pattern, which I learned to work on in therapy, is to take narrative control of my dreams when my deceased parents enter. This has allowed me to have a loving, albeit oneiric relationship with my parents, one where my father is free of Alzheimer’s and my mother and I no longer play out a complicated, hurtful dynamic. Now I look forward to the dreams in which my mother and I again laugh together, the familiar sights and smells of home anchor the setting, and my father helps me solve a problem nestled somewhere deep in my subconscious.
Over the years, dreams have transformed from my tormentors and nemeses to the muses and oracles in my life. Their particular brand of mystical intelligence and wondrous wisdom is fleeting in the face of the morning sun, as the more practical enchantments of the everyday take center stage. So I am grateful that the night magic of my imagination continues its strange moves, waiting to reveal some marvelous new dreamy drama, one Precious Night at a time.
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—
Never afraid are we!"
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam,—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home:
'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
