When Dreams Come True
In C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (one of my favourites of the Narnia series) they find themselves sailing towards the island where dreams come true.
They are all delighted: though one of the crew is trying to point something out to them, they are too excited to listen.
Only when they get near the island and see its grey horror do they listen to what their crewmate is saying, and it is this:
“It’s the island where dreams come true! Not daydreams. Dreams!”
They all start sailing away from the island as fast as possible, and escape just in time.
I’ve don’t remember dreams very often but I’ve had a few really bad ones in my time. All my earliest bad dreams were of the men in big boots who came to take you away in the night – I would wake up as they came up the stairs. Strange, since this must have happened to most of my Eastern European relatives.
The scariest dream of my childhood, however, was meeting an old lady, dressed all in black, on a long road.
“Who are you?” I asked
“The Dead of the Dead,” she replied. It still scares me.
The worst dream of my early adulthood was about my cousin, who had recently been killed in an horrific cave-diving accident. Dreaming, I forgot she had died and I rang her up and started talking to her. I chatted for ages, telling her in detail everything I had been doing and that had been going on since we had last met. Finally, I realised that I’d been doing all the talking.
“And how are you?” I asked.
Silence.
I still remember the horrible, sinking feeling of realisation.
Dreams sum things up, put things together. Last night’s neatly drew together two of the huge things in my life: losing my first baby, and not being listened to.
In my dream my baby boy had died and he was being brought to me in an open coffin so I could say goodbye before the funeral. A crowd of people – none of them people I knew – were all around the coffin, waiting for me to finish.
As I looked at the baby, he turned pink and started breathing and frantically waving his arms.
“Look!” I said, “he’s alive!”
“So you say, dear,” they said, “but we’re going to bury him anyway.”
They are all delighted: though one of the crew is trying to point something out to them, they are too excited to listen.
Only when they get near the island and see its grey horror do they listen to what their crewmate is saying, and it is this:
“It’s the island where dreams come true! Not daydreams. Dreams!”
They all start sailing away from the island as fast as possible, and escape just in time.
I’ve don’t remember dreams very often but I’ve had a few really bad ones in my time. All my earliest bad dreams were of the men in big boots who came to take you away in the night – I would wake up as they came up the stairs. Strange, since this must have happened to most of my Eastern European relatives.
The scariest dream of my childhood, however, was meeting an old lady, dressed all in black, on a long road.
“Who are you?” I asked
“The Dead of the Dead,” she replied. It still scares me.
The worst dream of my early adulthood was about my cousin, who had recently been killed in an horrific cave-diving accident. Dreaming, I forgot she had died and I rang her up and started talking to her. I chatted for ages, telling her in detail everything I had been doing and that had been going on since we had last met. Finally, I realised that I’d been doing all the talking.
“And how are you?” I asked.
Silence.
I still remember the horrible, sinking feeling of realisation.
Dreams sum things up, put things together. Last night’s neatly drew together two of the huge things in my life: losing my first baby, and not being listened to.
In my dream my baby boy had died and he was being brought to me in an open coffin so I could say goodbye before the funeral. A crowd of people – none of them people I knew – were all around the coffin, waiting for me to finish.
As I looked at the baby, he turned pink and started breathing and frantically waving his arms.
“Look!” I said, “he’s alive!”
“So you say, dear,” they said, “but we’re going to bury him anyway.”
posted by Daphne at 10:13 pm
3 Comments:
Impossible to comment. Just wanted you to know I'd read it.
Dear gods. I really will get involved with the "Critical Friends" group at the hospital. This kind of shit has *got* to stop. Dear gods.
*Opens and closes mouth for a while. Finds has nothing to say. Goes away.*
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