We sleep for the 1/3 of our lives…. Sleeping Beauty slept a little bit longer… and in our sleep, we enter into a world that is entirely our own. The one of dreams…
“…but the other holds in her arms Sleep the brother of Death, even evil Night, wrapped in a vaporous cloud. And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods.” As Hesiod mentions in Theogony, Sleep was the son of Night and Erebus, twin brother of Death, but also brother or father of Morpheus and Dream. In the Transfigurations of Ovidius, Sleep sent his sons to the dreams of the mortals with the main character being Morpheus, who appeared only in the dreams of heroes, kings and nobles, taking the form of elite people. From him came the phrase “in the arms of Morpheus”, as well as the name of the painkiller morphine.
The view of the ancient Greeks regarding the affinity of Sleep and Death coincides with its original view as a state of inactivity, but as dreams and intense eye movements prove, it is anything but an inactive state. Sleep is divided into phases and levels of consciousness which alternate. Two of them are the stages of deep sleep during which the person rests as well as the stage of REM, in which dreams are “played” with the body functioning as if it was awake! This explains why they are really experienced by our mind and body even though they last a few minutes. Afterall, whatever happens within our heads does not negate their existence!
So… What are dreams? Dreams are messages and bubbles of the subconscious, to put it simply. Every night, every person has dreams even if he does not remember then when he wakes up. Every day, dreams are a cleansing rejuvenation of the mental and psychic world of someone, as every night the brain arranges the experiences, the information and the memories of the past day while scrapping the unnecessary. Thus, the experiences of the day are mixed with the subconscious and create these short films, with us being the main characters. Many times, specific dreams are repeated showing a fear, a desire or block a human emotion that is expressed through the interpretation and symbolism of the dream.
There are many times in the history, in the world of the imaginary, but also in everyday life where some dreams are given prophetic interpretations. Through his dreams, Harry Potter also saw what happened at Riddle’s house before the Quidditch World Cup, as well as Nagini’s attack on Arthur Weasley, and so he was saved. Although, in that case, there was an additional connection. In every way, however, dreams, beautiful or not, are another world, a world that is the reflection of one’s soul, mind and his “needs”. The first ideas for a story, a book, a love or an invention are born in the lands of dreams. In this world the limits are set by the mind itself and not by nature.
Without dreams, either by day or by night, one cannot evolve because “For in dreams we enter a world that is entirely our own. Let us swim in the deepest ocean, or glide over the highest cloud “(Albus Dumbledore). Without of course being trapped and living only in this world but keeping the balances.
Sweet dreams.
Of Coffee Thoughts 