Of Firsts

It's easy enough for us present day humans — we know a dream's a dream. Or a nightmare. We can deal with those ... thrashing about, screaming, waking up drenched in sweat or continuing to sleep blissfully with only a beatific smile to punctuate the sequence. And very often being woken up rather rudely just as something pleasant is about to happen. But wake up we do, eventually, knowing whatever it was was only a temporary interlude — sometimes remembering, sometimes forgetting.

If you're me, you also wonder which really is the dream and what is reality.

But what of the very first human who had the very first dream? What did he/she react like?

Or are dreams something that have been programmed into the brain patterns of our animal ancestors such that the first human reacted the same way that we do?


P.S: For those still interested (I'm looking at you especially, Catty), I've picked up The Tale of Genji again. It's going really slow I'm afraid, it's not exactly a page turner and all the footnotes and things keep distracting me. Not to mention the fact that all Genji seems to do is sleep around and behave like a little boy. I know, this is what I signed up for but it'll take a while to finish. It's a 1100 odd page book, the last one I read this size or close to it was World Without End and Amazon tells me that was only 816 pages. But I've got pretty haikus and phrases to keep me interested. I would tell you I'm making notes as I go along but I am not. I like to read when I read, not fuss about making notes and nonsense. So in that sense the 'review' is going to be from the heart and straight off the bat, and take ages. Maybe the next ten years. If I'm not dead by then. Or lose my copy. Or something.