Sleep

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Oops and Dreams

Because I do not learn from past mistakes, even the most recent ones, I have a recent one to oops on. The admonition to trust but verify is valid. Something I have known and mostly applied. The times I don’t apply I pay the price. So do you in this instance. The last post contained ranting about The Odyssey. The ranting maintained that the essentials were omitted from the film. They were not.

Odysseus does indeed spend time on an island. Eight years in fact which does extend the trip a bit. With a real babe. And the Cyclops monster does appear. He does have a single eye which is indeed poked out by our hero. (This is to remind us never to run with sharp pokey objects.) The only rant that was correct is the part where the monster is told that Odysseus’ name is No-man.

Maybe this is enough about Greeks and Myths and Time for now.

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As for the Precious

Last night as I lay sleeping, I was awakened by a soft, light, unusual pressure in my stretched-out hand. It was that it was unusual which awakened me I’m sure. Coming out of the depths I realized it was the precious paw of my sleeping partner, the littlest cat, Lizzy Fig. One sweet paw placed ever so gently in my palm. Next the other front paw. I wrapped my hand lightly over hers. We lay like that then, until we each fell asleep in our time, safely. And that is the name of Joy. Beyond all words.

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Sleep & Bill Hayes

A new discovery for me in Bill Hayes, the paramour of our own Oliver Sacks whom I must have written about in here somewhere. That’s not the point of it of course but only an anchoring place. Somewhere for us to tether a reference. Not so much for the reader as for my own needs I’m afraid. I’m not at all sure that’s a universal need. Although it (a reference tether) makes sense.

From Bill, as reported in Marginalia: “I was born dreaming. Deep in REM sleep, I was taken from the womb, my closed eyes furiously scanning for images that could never be retrieved, redreamed, or remembered. In this regard, I was identical to every baby. With a slap to the ass, it was over. Birth jolted me from a state of sublime unconsciousness to which I’ve spent the rest of my life struggling to return.”

And there it is. So well put. Hence our struggle for the illusive, the dream, Death. The Big Sleep.

Bill writes about this in Sleep Dreams which I have already ordered, naturally. A simple turn of some screw in the mind that allows me to act without thought when it comes to the purchase of some book that will further allow me to enter into that Other of the sublime—the right book with the right words. I’ll report back on the read, though I fully expect it to be delicious.

Before closing, a further thought. Did you know that Nietzsche believed that dreams are an evolutionary time machine for the human mind? Oh my. So much to think about. So much to dream about.