1 EAGLETON NOTES: A Very Strange Night Indeed

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Friday 4 September 2009

A Very Strange Night Indeed

It's all disappearing so quickly now that I am properly awake and up and about.  But I have just spent seven and a half of the strangest hours I can recall for a long time.  In fact since a year ago when I've just realised I posted on Dreams and Things.

Before it all started:  Last evening I went to Pat (Spesh Who Comments) and Dave's across the valley for dinner.  A dinner of homemade tomato and smoky (I thought there was an e in smokey but the spillchucker says not) bacon soup,  souflé topped fish pie with salmon and prawns and all sorts of other goodies topped with a cheese crust (wonderful), meringue with raspberries and strawberries and cheeses and biscuits followed by coffee.  How good was that?  Then I had a coffee.  Early on in the evening  I had two small glasses of wine (I was driving). By 9.30 I was full and sleepy with that fullness.  By 1030 I was on my way home after a lovely evening with Real Friends.

I decided that I would not spend any time in the study with Henry, Palin and Samantha but would take Samantha into the living room and wind down by watching an episode of West Wing on DVD (I'm now towards the end of Series 4 where Zoe is kidnapped.  I've seen most of it before, of course but when it was on TV). I decided to pour a very small armagnac (I'm not a great lover of spirits - I prefer wine) but it helps with a very full tum.  I never actually finished it as it happens.

When I opened my emails there was one from a friend who had just had a rather unpleasant experience and was hurting.  That upset me.  In fact various things that have happened over the last few days have upset me.

Why have I told you all that?  Well it may hold a key.  Although I think not.

Now I have never taken a recreational pharmaceutical in my life.  Given that I was a teenager in Liverpool in the 60s and went to The Cavern with The Beatles that may surprise you.  But it's true.

So just before midnight and, my earlier lethargy having left me, feeling wide awake I went to bed.  I decided to play Granados' Escenas Romanticas quietly on the bedside speakers.  The iPod was timed for 30 minutes.  I am usually asleep within 2 or 3 minutes at most.  I sleep very deeply indeed as a rule.  But not last night.  The first 30 minutes came and went.  The last of the music faded into the distant past and still I was awake.  And then I was asleep.  At 0200 I woke from a dream.  Got up for a few minutes to clear my head and went back to bed and sleep. Then I had a bizarre sequence of dreams, apparently in real time, involving a journey with Gaz to see family and which involved me buying a scooter because we couldn't get a taxi, a drunken driver on the pavement, police, stolen scooter and many more things I've forgotten already.  It went on and on (just like this posting!).  Each time I woke and went back to sleep the dream resumed.  Or did it?  Did I wake up?  And then at 0400 I was wide awake again.  This time there was no return to sleep.  I decided against getting up but put on Brahms' Fourth Symphony.  Eventually I drifted into a sort of sleep but was woken by more dreams just after 0600 and gave up bed for the night.

Life can be such a puzzle.  But now I am reassured again.  It's a grey, wet morning.  The birds have been fed and all's well with the world.

11 comments:

  1. A strange night indeed. Last night was full moon, maybe that's why you couldn't fall asleep? That happens to me too sometimes. And then you get the strange mix of dream and reality. When one wakes up in the morning there is the strange feeling of having so much done and seen, when in fact you have been lying in your bed the whole time...

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  2. Yes, Mersad is right about that full moon, GB....especially in men. So many people think I'm crazed and roll their eyes at me, or think that I'm getting off track when I speak of the full moon effects but "whatever". One thing I know is that God has molded me with a few extra senses, ones that others may not have. I don't know why but from what I've seen, it is factual.

    With that said...I also know "Spiritually speaking" that those restless nights of dreaming and waking are purposeful. Remember the history of Samuel learning to hear God's voice? I LOVE that...I love that he didn't know and thought it was Eli, how many times? I think a few more than one. hahaha.

    The dreams...well, don't forget that there may be purpose in those too...maybe ask for clarity :).

    Glad that you spent a warm fellowship with your dear Real Friends - if only we lived closer, I could be one of those :).

    They put together quite a fancy meal, don't they though?

    Love to you, my friend - oh, and if you start breaking into a sweat, grow a few more hairs, some whiskers and howl...definitely write about it when you snap too :)

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  3. Now I feel like I am trying to get you to read my whole blog from the beginning... You don't have to! but in case you are interested here are two posts of mine on the topic of dreams. (I have had many a strange night myself...)

    http://islandofvoices.blogspot.com/2009/03/recycling-dreams.html

    http://islandofvoices.blogspot.com/2009/02/dream-come-true.html

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  4. Yes. Although it was very overcast during the night it was still very bright and I realised that it was a full moon. In New Zealand I will stand on the deck for ages gazing at the moon. Here it's usually too cold and windy or too midgy or, in the summer, too light all night anyway. I've never thought about the cycle of the moon and dreams but I never rule anything out without knowing more about it.

    I have to say that these particular dreams were very bizarre and rather unpleasant and I'm not sure that I see what I might learn from them. Sometimes one could see that there might be a lesson but these. Hmmm. I didn't mention the rock pigeon that flew straight into the study window and exploded. That was veryunpleasant.

    Now I'm off to read what Dawn Treader has to say.

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  5. Oh, nights like that leave me tired and edgy. I wonder too, what am I supposed to learn from this?

    Usually it is situations that I am concerned about in real life, that are bizarre in my dreams.

    LOL!

    You take excellent photos GB, I don't think any kind of camera could hold you back - even a pinhole! :)

    I regret buying my little Nikon point and shoot. I did no research prior to getting it, my DSLR was in for service, and I needed a camera for a trip. I forced myself to NOT be extravagant, and only get the bare necessities of what I needed it to do (for example, I have to be able to shoot in black and white) and whole I got a good one that was within my budget...it was only after that I learned how good the Olympus superzooms are...

    darn it! LOL!
    :)

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  6. Thanks Dawn Treader. I've read your postings. I have a few problems. Firstly I rarely recall my dreams once I am properly awake and even if I recall parts of them as I can today they are very sketchy details whereas the dreams were detailed and extensive - and unpleasant. I certainly can't recall details of location although I know that it had some relevance at the time. All in all I'd have severe difficulty trying to describe the dream never mind find an explanation.

    Fortunately nights such as this are, for me, very rare.

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  7. Jen. As you will have gathered I'm not sure how I could relate a dream to reality and they certainly were unpleasantly bizarre last night.

    It's very kind of you to say that about my photos Jen. Thank you.

    I keep a Canon point and shoot in my pocket just for those moments when my Olympus is not to hand.

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  8. As a "great sleeper" I know how frustrating a night of broken sleep and weird dreams can be. I believe they do mean something but I've given up trying to analyse and understand. These days I just shrug and accept that "something is going up on there" (inside my head where sometimes nothing much happens). I agree with Heather about the moon and men but give thanks the moon doesn't bother my nights as much as it does my dog's. If you slept as badly as he does around a full moon I don't think you would be capable of posting about it. He's totally whacked today!

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  9. Wow! What a lot to comment about! ;^)
    I have a lot to say, but I think that I will just go with,
    "Ditto" along with all the other comments.
    ;^)

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  10. GB, I hope you slept better the next night? Dreams are tricky, and you are seldom able to recall every detail, they fade away quickly. I have not known you for very long and only through a few blog post. But from what I do know it seems more than likely to me that your dream is at least partly connected to the awareness that in a month or so it will be time to break up from one home and set of friends and family and go back to another. You have been writing about that, you know! And with that in mind, I'd say that to dream about your son and family, a journey with different means of transportation, and unexpected crazy events on the way - is not really strange at all...

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  11. Yes. Thank you for suggesting an explanation. I can see the connection. I am also trying to plan my trip South from the Island to see my Brother (Scriptor/CJ) and a Goddaughter via friends on the way up and back: a logistical challenge!

    Anyway I slept perfectly last night. Bed 0100; sleep 0101, woke 0725, up 0725 - my ideal kind of night! I think I did have a vague dream but a 'proper' one which went as soon as I woke.

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