To die, to sleep–to sleep, perchance to dream…(Hamlet)

“Roger. Wake up. You’re having a bad dream.” My wife, Alison, is shaking me to snap me out of yet another episode of sleep paralysis. My eyes are wide open, but I cannot move my limbs. I’m in a catatonic state. Over in the open doorway to the bedroom, there is a terrifying presence. It evinces evil, yet I cannot see any form to it. Eventually, once my arms and legs become free to move, I make my way to the washroom to shake off this awful episode.

I have this kind of dream once in a while. There is no obvious correlation between having them and my state of mind at the time. But, the more common type of dream that I have is one that has a storyline embedded within it–a storyline that is rooted in my past, mostly my childhood, with present day figures thrown in for good measure. Accordingly, the setting for most of these dreams is Sheffield, England. I am attending High Storrs Grammar School or Sheffield University, either as a pupil, teacher, or visitor. I often forget that I’m supposed to be teaching a class or taking an exam, so that I adopt the characteristic of ineptitude. In one dream, the semester was almost over before I realized that I was supposed to be teaching the class.

Not all of these dreams are situated in my childhood. Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) and less often, Simon Fraser University (SFU), feature in some of them. While I am just as forgetful and neglectful about my responsibilities as I am if I were teaching in England, the Newfoundland dreams take an odd twist. I persuade the Head of the Biology department, a department that I was a member of between 1971 and 1997, to give me an office so that I can recommence my teaching and research programs. Of course, the 2020 Roger Gordon knows hardly anyone in a department that has undergone a complete change of personnel in the 23 years since I left. But, there are people whom I do know, ones who drop in to see me. These include my former postdoctoral Supervisor at SFU. John Webster, and a good but deceased former friend and colleague of mine, Bill Threlfall.

A fair number of my dreams about Sheffield University embody a sub-theme of rejection. I decide to return to Sheffield to study a different discipline than Biology, my area of expertise in real life. I encounter two of my former friends, fellow members of the Addy Street Five jazz band that I used to belong to–that is, until a guy who was so much more accomplished than me took my place in the ensemble. Just as in real life, I am rebuffed in my dream. My trumpet playing is not of the calibre of the guy who had actually replaced me in the band all those years ago in real life. I felt deeply hurt then and still feel that way in my dreams. Since this dream replays so many times and given the depth of feeling that I undergo within the dream, perhaps I was affected by the actual incident more than I had realized.

 In my SFU dreams, I am a contented researcher in its Biological Sciences’ department. Strangely, I have not dreamt about the University of Prince Edward Island, where I was happily employed as Dean of Science from 1997 to 2006.

Benign dreams, in which I am eating, are common within my repertoire. Usually, I am at a scientific conference. John Webster is there, as are a large number of people whom I do not know. Other than the fact that food is important to me, and that much of the business at conferences occurs at the dining table, I can’t attach much significance to these dreams.

The types of dreams I have discussed are all connected with my career. I have many dreams that involve my past as they bring into play my unhappy childhood. In a weird combination of the past with the present, Alison, my young children, and I decide not only to live in England, but in the actual corporation estate house in which I spent my teen years–the house of unhappiness in which my parents’ marriage broke up. I can’t recall anything significant happening after we move into the home, nor can I offer insight into why we decide to do it. Many dreams have an element of absurdity built into them and this is just one of those.

“To die, to sleep–to sleep, perchance to dream (Hamlet).

All of my dreams are vivid and in technicolor. That’s the result of the panoply of antidepressant medications that I take. I don’t know what to make of them, nor do I think it useful for me to ponder and analyze. There are experts who analyze dreams; others think they are just random experiences stored in the hippocampus. For me, they just happen. When I go to sleep at night, I embark upon an adventure. For better, or for worse.