From Far & Near: 16.SING WITH SHAKESPEARE-10

16.SING WITH SHAKESPEARE-10

National Portrait Gallery, London.

Dreams have always fascinated and intrigued mankind. There is no part of the human race which has not had an idea or theory of dreams. Sages and elders have been busy interpreting dreams.

Religions have always attached importance to dreams, of which many types are recognised.

Dreams and states of consciousness

Like in most other things, Hindus have the most elaborate theory and system of knowledge built round dreams. Dream (Swapna ) is recognised as a state of existence (Consciousness)- one of four, the other three being waking,(Jagrat ) deep sleep (Shushupti) and the state beyond dreamless sleep, which is called Turiya. Our Jnanis say that our waking life itself would be understood to be like a dream, if we wake up from the dream we call life! [ ie life based on the ego and the senses. ]

Modern fancy theories

Modern man has built many fancy theories about dream, the most notorious being the ideas of Freud. A whole system of pseudo-science - psychoanalysis- was built on it, which gained the status of a fanatical cult or religion. Freud's own students pointed out its limitations. There are many books offering not only interpretations but showing ways to control our dreams! As if they could be caused to order!

Are dreams premonitions? Are they caused by our unfulfilled desires or secret wishes or fears? Are they merely the result of undigested food? Are they reflections of past events ? Are they intimations form unknown regions, higher powers? Many such theories abound. People know by experience that there is a reality attached to it, though we cannot say this of all dreams.

In Romeo And Juliet, there is an important passage about dreams. Romeo has had a bad dream and confides to his friend Mercutio. Mercutio launches into a long sally on dreams.

Romeo

I dreamt a dream tonight.

Mercutio

And so did I.

Romeo

Well, what was yours?

Mercutio

That dreamers often lie.

Romeo

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

Mercutio

O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agot-stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomi

Over men’s noses as they lie asleep.

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out a’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.

Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs,

The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,

Her traces of the smallest spider web,

Her collars of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams,

Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film,

Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;

O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on cur’sies straight;

O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;

O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,

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Copyright ©2005-2017 by PlayShakespeare.com.
Visit http://www.playshakespeare.com/license for details.

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breath with sweetmeats tainted are.

Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail

Tickling a parson’s nose as ’a lies asleep,

Then he dreams of another benefice.

Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,

And sleeps again.

This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night,

And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage.

Romeo

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Thou talk’st of nothing.

Mercutio

True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

Which is as thin of substance as the air,

And more inconstant than the wind, who woos

Even now the frozen bosom of the north,

And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,

Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

Romeo

I fear, too early, for my mind misgives

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night’s revels, and expire the term

Of a despised life clos’d in my breast

By some vile forfeit of untimely death.

But He that hath the steerage of my course

Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen!

Queen Mab

This is a fairly long passage.

Queen Mab is the queen of the fairies, drawn from the pre-Christian folk lore. She is no bigger than the stone on a ring, and her chariot of hazelnut shell is drawn by tiny insects.

Mercutio begins in a jovial manner, but towards the end, the speech becomes serious. He means to say that Queen Mab causes people to dream according to their inclinations: lovers dream of love, lawyers dream of their cases and earnings; ladies dream of kisses, courtiers of making money; soldier dream of fight with enemies, of Spanish swords and big cups of liquor. He is frightened and wakes up at the sound of drums, says a prayer and resumes his sleep. She tangles the manes of horses which bring bad luck if untangled. She causes dirty dreams in maidens.

When restrained by Romeo, he says, perhaps to brighten up Romeo that dreams are caused by idle minds, they are nothing but silly imagination, thin as air. Romeo is not convinced, and he has forebodings. He commends himself to " He who has the steerage" of the course of his life. In the light of how the play concludes, we know that Romeo's dream did portend some sad developments.

Whatever may be the theory that so called modern learned men advocate about dreams, practical religion prescribes some measures to ward of the evil effects of a bad dream. Not all seemingly bad dreams imply that bad things would happen. There are various types of dreams and we do not know to distinguish them. Hence it is prudent to take some steps against bad dreams, and the most common is prayer.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A scene from the play.Joseph Noel Paton. From Wikipedia.

The whole play 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is a merry mix-up between waking and dream! We have a scene where Demetrius wonders about the differences between dream and waking state:

‘Are you sure

That we are awake? It seems to me

That yet we sleep, we dream.’ (4.1.192–93)

At the end of the play, a character suggests that the whole play is like a dream, and that it was the audience which was sleeping!

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this and all is mended:

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream. -

This is a far cry from our philosophical insight that for a man who has realised his real nature - ie woken from the reality of this world- this world itself ( the waking state ) is like a dream! This is not a matter of verbal argument, but personal experience.

Short of that, poets would continue to wonder about the reality of dream and waking states, as Shailendra did:

ज़िंदगी ख़्वाब है, ख़्वाब में झूठ क्या
और भला सच है क्या

Zindagi Kwab hai, kwab mein jhoot kya,

Aur bhala sach hai kya !

Life is a dream

In this dream, what is false

And what is true! Who can say?

Chinese Taoist Master Zhuang Zhou once said :

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. (Translated by Lin Yutang )

There is surely more to dreams than men can make of them!

NOTE:

History has recorded many instances of valid and fruitful dreams. Some famous instances are noted below.

1. Mary Shelly and Robert Louis Stevenson wrote their famous novels Frankenstein, and Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde based on dreams. Frankenstein was the first science-fiction novel.
2. Paul McCartney got a complete song in a dream. Our own R.D.Burman had said that he was inspired by dreams in getting some fine tunes.
3. Scientist Niels Bohr got the structure of the atom in a dream.
4. Albert Einstein got his idea of the speed of light in a dream.
5. Our mathematical genius Ramanujam was inspired by dreams in getting his mathematical equations.
6.Scientist Otto Loewi got his idea of chemical transmission of nerve impulses in a dream.
7.August Kekuki got the structure of Benzene molecule in a dream.
8.Frederic Banting discovered about the Insulin treatment for diabetes in a dream.
9. Elias Howe got the idea of the eye of needle of the sewing machine in a dream.

visit www.world-of- lucid-dreaming.com for more information.

Wednesday 19 April 2017

16.SING WITH SHAKESPEARE-10

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