Essay Midsummer night's dream By Tony Laszlo	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
真夏の夜の「夢」 人はなぜ寝ているときに夢を見るのか。 それは悟りへの道だという者がいれば、単に脳が昨日のことを記憶しているのだという者もいる。 いずれにせよ、私たちが夢を見ることができるのは、個人的に楽しむことができる「おもちゃ」を与えられたようなものではないかと筆者は考えている。

About four hours after I'd gone to bed I felt myself being tugged back into consciousness. Well, it was more of a buzz than a tug: A mosquito had gotten into my room and was apparently trying to decide which of my two ears looked more appetizing. While fighting off the attack it occurred to me that I had been in the middle of a dream. I tried to recall the story.

My niece was visiting. She was standing on the stoop at the back of my house and looking out at my garden. That was quite a feat, as I have neither backyard nor stoop. As it happens, I do have a niece. But the woman who stood before me didn't look remotely like her. Everything was so distant from my life that I began to suspect that I might somehow be watching someone else's dream.

Still in a daze, I began having a mild anxiety attack over what such a mistaken transmission like this one implied: How was this other person's vision spilling over into my realm? Through a neighbor's WIFI? Would I have to pay to watch (or might it be free if I stopped viewing now)? And my highest concern: Who might be picking up my own dream this evening, if not me?

But grogginess was getting the better of me. I was drifting off into a proper slumber, having concluded that neither the dream nor the mosquito were worth any more of my time. Then I felt another tug. This time it was someone speaking out to me from the dream. A bodyless voice. Could it simply be that this dream had a narrator?

The voice spake, nay boomed. It said, "Know this: something is truly perfect only when it is completely free of hinges!"

Now, though in a stupor, I knew that this had to be either the most profound, poetic or preposterous thing I had ever heard in my life. It could mean everything, it could mean nothing. But which? I could only hope to know if I got out of bed and scribbled down the particulars of the dream, and quickly.

When morning came I awoke baggy-eyed and bug-bitten. After struggling to make sense of my notes from the night before, I concluded that the voice might have a point, on some level too deep for me to fathom. But there was one painfully obvious hole in its logic. If perfect things were all free from hinges, what would the perfect hinge look like?

No one knows why mankind generates dreams while sleeping. Some claim it is a road to enlightenment, others suggest it is simply the brain recording the previous day's events. I, for one, suspect our dream-machine is a toy provided to us chiefly for our personal entertainment. And — perish the thought — just maybe for that of our neighbors.

Like any media, though, busy people will want to think twice before indulging in the luxury pastime that is midnight dream analysis. If you've got things to do the next day, just ignore the vision. Getting a good night's sleep is the better deal.

Shukan ST: Aug. 3, 2007

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