I was watching those digitally remastered Cosmos episodes today on the Science Channel, just loving how great they look now and thrilled that Carl Sagan’s voice is once more warbling out of the TV into the universe at large. He is still so very valid. The beauty of Cosmos is now dreamily breathtaking.
In a related story…. Tonight, as usual, I wasn’t sleeping and so was browsing the Internet and reading. I recently received two books for review, one The Lost Civilization of Lemuria, which despite its provacative title is a good, studied work of anamolous archaeological findings, and the other, Dream Culture of the Neanderthals is a rather wild ride down the evolutioanry track of psychology. I can’t decide if I like it or hate it (must be my two warring Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon halves, as the author states) but I happened upon a section in a chapter on “Artists, Poets, and Priests” that features Carl Sagan. Stan Gooch, the author of the book, says of Sagan, “With luck, Carl Sagan will soon be considered a visionary scientist and a poet.” Amen, brother.
But back to the book. In part it says:
In his book The Dragons of Eden, Sagan first dismisses dreaming (along with many kinds of what we can call “alternative” phenomena) remarking: “perhaps those people who can do with only a few hours sleep at night are the harbingers of a new human adaptation that will take full advantage of the twenty-four hours of the day. I for one freely confess envy for such an adaptation.”
However later he comments, uneasily (because he is too intelligent not to see the important implications): “The fact that mammals and birds both dream while their common ancestor, the reptiles, do not, is surely noteworthy. major evolution beyond the reptiles has been accompanied by and perhaps requires dreams.”
Well, yes, Dr. Sagan.
Hmmm. Now, my father was one of those non-dreamers and yet, he wasn’t such an evolutionary leap forward. I used to sleep and love to dream, but for many a year now I have foregone sleep because late night is my only time to read, write, and think. So is that an evolutionary leap or just force of will and a detrimental habit? I fear the latter. In fact, I know it is choice not evolutionary advancement. Maybe if i could check back in on my descendents a few thousand years from now it would be different. But for now, it’s just my remedially poor choice.
Note however that the military loves the concept and funds its research. I saw recently where they have successfully developed medicines that allow soldiers to stay awake 24/7 supposedly without harm. Yeah. Ever see Jacob’s Ladder? That’s how I feel about military programs and sleepless soldiers. The world could deal with some proper alignment.
Is a world without dreams the next evolutionary step? Imagine the productivity that corporations could get out of a sleepless labor force. They already semi-achieve this by rotating work shifts. But what of the lost dreams? Where do abandoned dreams go? Would a dreamless person become neurotic or psychotic or maybe just a drone. Imagination is vital to human existence and advancement. Could we truly exist without sleep?
Perhaps. Maybe the answer is that the mind and body would simply adapt. Dreaming or a like function would occur in a different form during the waking cycle. Who knows. I think there is danger in tampering with the dark recesses of the mind.
In closing the above quoted chapter of his book on Neanderthal Dream Culture, Gooch quotes some fantastic poetry and captures my feeling completely. Peter Redgrove, in awesome Lovecraftian verse, writes:
And in their slithering passage to the sea
The shrugged-up riches of deep darkness sang.
Then it hits me. This is the echo of another lost dreamer. This is pure Robert E. Howard. And something dark and massive is looming up out of my creative unconsciousness, slouching towards the light of recognition.