Unanswerable Sufferings of Sleep, a Q&A

lovers on an island by Anna Chromy

Q:

I am wondering what you would say about someone who wakes up with having recalled no dreams .. are we always dreaming and just can't recall and what does that mean??? last night again I was woken up by my spouse yelling in his dream .. it's amazing that he does not awaken but I do .. I guess that has to do with what type or cycle of sleep you are in..

A:

I've heard that we do indeed always dream, though it's a problem of memory whether we can remember the substance of our subconscious imagination during REM cycles. For certain cultures and traditions of varying times and origins, reflecting on dreams is an essential daily practice, as common to us as reading, watching TV, exercising, etc. It is a belief that such dream reflection, if you will, opens doors and provides keys to otherwise hidden aspects of ourselves. In our history, western psychology only caught up to the wisdom of interactive dream cultures existent throughout human history and still remote corners of the globe, based on the work of Carl Jung, who purported to exercise the notion that dreaming is the reality and our waking consciousness is made up entirely of myth, symbol, and such inert vanities as are controlled by our subconscious drives.

________

The night before we were to leave for the states I clicked purchase on my laptop while sleepwalking. The next day I called my mother. “A forty dollar purchase!” I spent the entire morning trying to return it. Meanwhile, my wife and I prepare to travel across the border from Canada. This has not been an easy for us in the past. Unbeknownst to me, she prepares her computer. As usual, in the final minutes before we leave my wife begins to mind our departure. As she walks into the bathroom, my mother and grandparents surprise us in our house. Simultaneously, my wife zips through the washroom doorway, shirtless. I talk my relatives down as I begin to re-assess our travel preparations. Trouble stews in the bathroom. She is cornered by border patrol in our own private bathroom! They threaten to confiscate her hard drive for security purposes. She goes into shock. I can feel her anxiety and fear, nightmarish and certain as day. I can’t help but accompany her in distress. Walking through an unknown labyrinth in my bathroom, I’m unable to see any one. I’m lost. The shower emanates with an opaque quagmire of steam. Groped thighs and high chests creak like wood in unspoken sexual majesty. Forbidden flights breach a proud, open humanity with a love forsaken beyond scrutiny, to instinctual rites of passionate floundering in the cruel pain of the body’s lowering, prehistoric travesties. Weak with sanity, I become raw with self-doubt, admiring and at once twisted inside. Where is my Love? We are far from family.  

_______

Computer

"The computer is saying 'put the pieces together to understand the overall meaning'...if you use a computer a lot during your waking life for work or play, your dream could be telling you to get out more and take a break from the screen."

_______

The unchallenged lurch into an Olympian fire,
brushing off the wintry air with a scent of northern herbs
collected by remote, yearning hands

The woman-philosopher, seated in absolute disguise behind a curtain of folk knowledge
beguiles the most aware onlookers, who know of the perfect scrutiny of knowledge
as an aspect of a specific place.”

“Knowledge is a performance for the Spirits!”

Light sparks rescind the importance of global community to a physical presence
holding each of our bodies with local sacrifice.

Fumes of wonderment & bewildered attraction fuel the traveler’s possessions with cathartic activity.

“And Life, is ongoing pleasure!”

“…What about suffering?”

Respect, communicated through body language, reciprocates

“I don’t have all the answers…”

- excerpt from "Catatonic Body Language"