the gates of bone and ivory

[written because it needed to be, and because my English teacher happened to want it - how convenient for one under the influence of the syndrome.]

It occurred to me, not a month ago, that I really dislike sleep. I dislike that I need it; I dislike that it consumes me; I dislike what seems like the majority of my dreams. I often find myself the last of my friends awake at night, and I dislike sleep because it takes them from me. Sleep is comforting to them when I cannot be.

All of this occurred to me before I realized the incredible literary value of sleep as a metaphor for existential unawareness, especially as demonstrated in Hamlet. The extent to which I share both literal and figurative feelings towards sleep with our tragic hero is fascinating and –– I cannot tell a lie –– somewhat creepy. (I am not, as it were, suicidal, although perhaps a tiny bit hyperaware. No need to call the parents.)

Hamlet’s issue with sleep comes up in two main places. The first is Act II, scene 2, in which he relates to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the brief but heavy line “O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” Ignoring for a moment the implications for his relationship with this pair, let’s look to the “to be or not to be” soliloquy in Act III, scene 1:

“. . . To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: . . .”

Taking these two references to sleep together, we see that Hamlet finds “sleep” comforting, while “dreams” are the root of all his problems. Sleep is strongly connected to death and blissful existential unconsciousness, as it is in Sartre’s No Exit; dreams, on the other hand, do not signify mere life so much as living awareness.

As we see in both examples, Hamlet is (understandably) sick and tired of being aware. In the famous soliloquy, he contemplates suicide –– or, as the case may be, existential suicide, abandoning his prescribed purpose in favor of what he views as a “normal,” untroubled life. The possibility of an afterlife, continued awareness after his literal or figurative death, troubles him immensely, as awareness is exactly what he seeks to escape.

Although we haven’t covered it in class, the movie Waking Life, to which I bore delighted witness in company of the Cinema and Fine Tea Club, provides one example of what life after death –– an afterlife very literally taking place in dreams –– might be like. (I imagine Hamlet would have found such a dream of philosophizing and contorted imagery harmless, if not out and out dull, compared to his life as depicted in these four acts.) Persistent “waking dreams,” or dreams from which one believes oneself to have risen only to discover one is still dreaming, are an important characteristic of the film. One is introduced, by way of the movie, to an interpretation of the play which would suggest that Hamlet the younger died on his way home from school, but was ironically unaware of his own demise. This would explain the more absurd aspects of the play, such as the ghost’s appearance and the enforced story-arc ending, as well as Hamlet’s hyperaware state of mind, since, at least in my experience, no living human being is so constantly troubled, quick-thinking, and silver-tongued as he.

Poor guy –– thinking about killing himself, and he’s already dead. I don’t think it gets much worse than that.

On the other side of Hamlet’s issue with sleep and awareness, we have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are cruelly kicked around by the plot until their death. As they first talk with Hamlet, they strike the reader –– provided the reader is in the tragic hero’s camp –– as hollow men. They persistently misread the melancholy Dane’s highfalutin metaphors, such that he eventually just gives up and makes fun of them for it –– not that they’re aware of it, of course. His reference to being bound in a nutshell is, to me, a dry joke at the expense of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Evidently, they suffer from no bad dreams: their concerns are worldly and they are content, although they are only dimly aware of their own insignificance in the grand scheme of things. In this, they count themselves kings not only in spite of but because of their smallness.

Shakespeare’s habit of laying an equally dark cast over all his characters lets the reader’s (or watcher’s) own prejudices fill in who the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are, and it’s a matter of dispute who is more admirable: Hamlet, for dwelling on his consciousness, or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, for cheerfully eschewing issues of the metaphysical. Although I sympathize with Hamlet more, I have some degree of respect (and some degree of envy) for the ever-together pair, who sleep without dreaming.

Below find an effort to further explain the theme and possibly exorcise the Hamlet-geist rattling about in my ribcage. Enjoy. (Also note well that I had to go back and correct the horrific, exhaustion-induced hanging prepositions previously contained in this and other journals. I apologize for any I may have missed. Zzzzzz.)

i -

my eyes are tired and my mother is asking
why I’m still awake, and I gently refer her to
a haiku I had to scribble down
before turning out the light to avoid
the customary lecture, roaring whisper:

three in the morning
filled with beautiful thoughts
ruining my health

ii -

when I was younger, I liked
hiding in small places
warm, dark, with everyone looking for me

so tell me:
is it cozy in there?
is there room for me to lie curled into you
like a walnut
draped around its better half?

iii -

if I am your hell
and your dream, then sleep is
your silent mistress waiting wide-eyed ––
she creates a velvet dark as I lonely stand
at your threshold, fingertips too weak
too worried, too cold
to turn on the light.