Strangest of things that can happen in the dead of night
Country Living with Francis Farragher
THERE are people I know who tell me how they sleep solidly for best part of eight hours per night without as much as one eyelid opening for half-a-second. What’s more, they tell me that they never dream, of maybe if they do, that they have no recollection whatsoever of what might be crossing their minds during the period of shut-eye.
The other morning when greeted by a work colleague who asked me: “How I got the night?”, I had to go into a spiel of waking about every hour or so, in the wake of all kinds of dilemmas and traumas that I had endured the night before from windows being smashed in by wild foxes to trips to the furthest corners of Ireland to cover junior hurling matches . . . and into the bargain being ‘warped’ with the hunger on the way home.
The issue with the wild foxes breaking through bedroom window was exacerbated by the fact that I was in one of those dreams where, when you try to move to avert impending disaster, the legs just won’t stir, with such dire situations often only being relieved when you wake up with a shout. Tough stuff, this sleepin’ and dreamin’!
In some part of my subconscious mind, I’ve developed a strange kind of defence mechanism, where the realisation dawns on me, that I’m actually in a dream and that if I should out loudly enough, that I’ll wake up. All very well and good one might say, only that those respectable people in the dream and standing beside me in the dream like doctors, priests and undertakers, will think I’m crazy to be shouting out loudly in their company. These night-time adventures, where you know that you’re in a dream, as lucid dreams.
There are the ones too where I’m sitting very devoutly at my local Mass only to realise with absolute horror, that I don’t have one stitch of clothes, with even the ‘bare essentials’ not covered. The quandary there is that I leave the church, I’ll only draw attention to myself, while shouting out that I’m only in a dream will have everyone focusing their gaze on my natural state.