Where the mountains touch the sky

Hamlet says, in the 1st Act of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, that “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. Shakespeare was trying to convey, to the reader, the message that what one sees in reality must be believed, even if one had held another view in the past. Human imagination is limited, and there are many things which people do not know, things that have yet to be discovered, and, in fact, things one has not even dreamt of.

A contemporary of Galileo, who was jailed for believing that the Earth was not at the centre of a perfect and unchanging Cosmos, Shakespeare exhibited a timeless and universal understanding of profound things which he put into the mouth of his characters.

To the average person, life is full of challenges and hurdles. It is like a river one wades through with strong currents, whirlpools, easy and smooth stretches, and the occasional thrill in the shape of a waterfall, though that may come with the inevitable risk. The rough comes with the smooth. The travails of human existence are, however, rewarded, when hard work, persistence and determination pay off in the shape of anticipated concrete rewards.

The only realm, where extraordinary good fortune can befall one, without even the least of effort, is the land of dreams. The theory of dreams, put forth by Sigmund Freud, brilliant neurologist and founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis, propounded that dreams represent unconscious desires, thoughts, wish fulfilment, and motivations. People, said Freud, are driven by repressed and unconscious longings, such as aggressive and sexual instincts.

Dreams have remained a source of mystery for scientists, psychiatrists and doctors. One supposition as to their origin is the speculation that they represent unconscious desires and wishes. Dreams fall under several categories inspired by different theories. The physiological theories suggest that dreams help forget unnecessary information. And also that they help aid memory and consolidate things that were previously experienced.

According to psychodynamic theories, based on Freud’s ideas that dreams have meaning and that their main function is wish fulfilment, dreams contain deep desires buried under the unconscious.

Cognitive theories of dreaming, on the other hand, are based on the principle that dreams have important psychological functions and help people solve ongoing problems being faced by them.

Dreams, usually, are pleasant experiences, though there can be disturbing dreams associated with negative feelings, such as anxiety or fear, that awaken one. Common mostly in children, although they can happen at any age, they are called nightmares. They are a common and ordinary phenomenon not to be considered a serious disorder.

The likelihood of dreams having a relationship with real life, the past, the present and the future has also intrigued scientists for long. It is, for example, quite common for dreams to reconstruct a past event, either renewing the pleasurable sensation associated with it, or, sometimes, even causing pain if the event was unpleasant.

A dream can also sometimes take the shape of a bridge, between something that has just happened, and something which is imminent, like, for instance, a series of examinations or a cricket match played over a number of days.

There is little scientific evidence, however, to suggest that dreams can predict the future. But there are remarkable instances recorded in history, where people had premonitions about future events, which, in the event, came true. For instance, President Abraham Lincoln reportedly dreamt of his own death. Likewise, one Kathleen Middleton, first reported a premonition of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, and continued to have dreams of that event, until on 5 June 1968, Kennedy was actually shot dead.

What is possible in dreams rarely happens in real life, which is why when a wild fancy or hope is realised, it is called a ‘dream come true.’ And then there are people who specialise in offering them possible for virtually no price, the ‘dream merchants’. Also called ‘Sapnon Ke Saudagar’ in Hindi, they are people who, according to a Telugu saying, will show you heaven in the palm of your hand. Highly persuasive, and extremely efficient, in putting across a completely credible proposal, such people are capable of, and, in fact, known for selling Charminar in Hyderabad or Eiffel Tower in Paris! The term is also used to refer to persons such as movie maker, or advertisers, who pander to the public’s craving, for luxury romance or escapism. They show things which are extremely strange, and unlikely to happen, things which are usually not seen even in ‘one’s wildest dreams’.

Some of the most enchanting, and captivating, fiction, in the realm of literature, as well as the celluloid world, has arisen from dreamland. The evergreen ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, by Shakespeare, the legendary ‘Alice in Wonderland’ of Lewis Carroll, ‘Crime, and Punishment’, the masterpiece of Dostoevsky, the epic ‘War and Peace’ by Leo Tolstoy, the classic ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Charlotte Brontë, ‘1984’, the novel way ahead of its times, by George Orwell, and the raging sensation of recent times, ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ by J K Rowling, all strangely have the world of dreams as their backdrop. There is, as a matter of fact, a cinema theatre, in Secunderabad, called ‘Dreamland’.

And, while on the subject of movies and TV serials and web series, ‘dream sequences’ are a technique used in storytelling, the idea being to set up as a brief interlude from the main story, comprising a flashback, flash forward, fantasy, vision, dream or some other element.

I remember how, as children, way back in the black and white era, we used to await breathlessly the dream sequence in a movie which was invariably in colour, a novelty those days! To that genre belonged the song, ‘Hum Aap Ki Ankhon, me’, from Guru Dutt’s unforgettable ‘Pyaasa’ and the hilarious, ‘Hum Kale Hai to Kya Hua’ enacted by the inimitable Mehmood from ‘Gumnaam’.

Since dreams are associated with the state of sleeping, the word ‘dreamy’ is often used to describe the condition of a person not paying attention to what is happening around him or her. The word can also have a positive connotation, meaning, in certain circumstances, thinking of something pleasant. ‘Dreamy’ can also have a positive connotation as it can mean ‘to be wonderful or nice to look at’.

Dreams have also often come in handy as a medium of unbridled poetic fantasy. Take this couplet, for instance, by an unknown Urdu poet:

Kya qayamat hai ki aariz un ke neeley pad gaye

Hum ne to bosa liya tha khwaab mein tasveer ka!

The poet is telling us that his beloved’s lips had turned blue, although he had only kissed her portrait, in his dream! To end on a lighthearted note, there was this person who had had a dream, which he thought was in technicolor, although it was, actually, in black and white. Evidently, a ‘pigment’ of his imagination!

(The writer is formerly Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh)