To sleep, perchance to dream . . .
. . .
I've been meaning to post this for a couple days (since I didn't include it in my previous ponderings post).
I've been chewing on the why of Sam's not sleeping being an indication of soullessness. Sammy No-Soul does not sleep. Which means, he does not dream. No REM for him. It's pretty commonly held that dreams are our subconscious's way of processing information. There is also lore that connects souls to dreaming. (For example, the Native American belief I remember hearing about as a child, that you should not move the body of a sleeping person, because when a person dreams, their spirit leaves their body to go on walkabout, and if you move the body, then the spirit won't be able to find it and return to it in the morning.)
In DaLDoM, Jeremy was driven to murder so that he could continue dreaming after a lifetime of living without dreams. Dream root allows you to enter another person's dream and help them shape it, which can have consequences in the real world. Dean was thrown into a dream world in WIaWSNB, a dream world that he had to purposefully decide to rip himself out of. Dean dreamed of Hell. He dreams of Lisa. Cas and Anna both used Dean's dreams to talk to him secretly.
Then there's Sam's visions, which started out as dreams. He also dreamed of Jessica, and both YED and Lucifer went poking around in Sam's dreams to talk to him. Sam killed Jeremy with a dream.
Both Sam and Dean have had very active dreamscapes during the course of the series.
And now, Sam is missing his soul, and he's not dreaming. Because without a soul, he's incapable of dreaming.
If Sam's not sleeping, he's not processing. He's not processing what's happening to him now, either here or in the Cage. Neither can anyone (read: angels or demons) visit him on the dream plane. Heck, we don't even know if Sam can be rendered unconscious, do we? Dean was knocked out by the alpha vamp and received telepathic dream images of the recruitment drive (complete with REM). Would Sam have been able to receive such a message if he'd been turned?
Oh! Which leads us back to the djinn in EoMS. Because the double dose of the poison rendered Dean unconscious and he dreamed. Which means Sam probably only received the standard dose . . . but did he hallucinate? Or did he know that something was wrong and just ask for the antidote from Samuel? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
But what about resting his body, you might ask. We've actually been given no information that Sam's resurrected body needs rest. (Dean needed a lot of rest when he came back, but he also had a soul.) It's also possible that as long as Sam was with people (such as the Campbell clan) who didn't know about his condition, he might have gone through the motions of "sleeping," lying down and closing his eyes and resting his body without actually sleeping. But now that Dean knows Sam doesn't sleep, there's no need to pretend.
Or something along those lines.
Mirrors, dreams, and Sammy's soul. Dean's got his work cut out for him.
Also, do you think there will be leprechauns in the upcoming epi? Because those little dudes are scary. Small hands.
And finally, I was listening to my Addams Family cast recording on the way to work (I'd love to see the show again; it was such fun), and a couple of lyrics struck me as being particularly Winchester-appropriate:
. . .
When you're an Addams
You're obligated to the clan
It's family first and family last
And family by and by
When you're an Addams
the standard answers don't apply . . .
And you know what? It made me want someone to write a SPN/Addams Family x-over . . . perhaps along the lines of "Changing Channels," or maybe . . . a very vivid dream . . .
I've been meaning to post this for a couple days (since I didn't include it in my previous ponderings post).
I've been chewing on the why of Sam's not sleeping being an indication of soullessness. Sammy No-Soul does not sleep. Which means, he does not dream. No REM for him. It's pretty commonly held that dreams are our subconscious's way of processing information. There is also lore that connects souls to dreaming. (For example, the Native American belief I remember hearing about as a child, that you should not move the body of a sleeping person, because when a person dreams, their spirit leaves their body to go on walkabout, and if you move the body, then the spirit won't be able to find it and return to it in the morning.)
In DaLDoM, Jeremy was driven to murder so that he could continue dreaming after a lifetime of living without dreams. Dream root allows you to enter another person's dream and help them shape it, which can have consequences in the real world. Dean was thrown into a dream world in WIaWSNB, a dream world that he had to purposefully decide to rip himself out of. Dean dreamed of Hell. He dreams of Lisa. Cas and Anna both used Dean's dreams to talk to him secretly.
Then there's Sam's visions, which started out as dreams. He also dreamed of Jessica, and both YED and Lucifer went poking around in Sam's dreams to talk to him. Sam killed Jeremy with a dream.
Both Sam and Dean have had very active dreamscapes during the course of the series.
And now, Sam is missing his soul, and he's not dreaming. Because without a soul, he's incapable of dreaming.
If Sam's not sleeping, he's not processing. He's not processing what's happening to him now, either here or in the Cage. Neither can anyone (read: angels or demons) visit him on the dream plane. Heck, we don't even know if Sam can be rendered unconscious, do we? Dean was knocked out by the alpha vamp and received telepathic dream images of the recruitment drive (complete with REM). Would Sam have been able to receive such a message if he'd been turned?
Oh! Which leads us back to the djinn in EoMS. Because the double dose of the poison rendered Dean unconscious and he dreamed. Which means Sam probably only received the standard dose . . . but did he hallucinate? Or did he know that something was wrong and just ask for the antidote from Samuel? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
But what about resting his body, you might ask. We've actually been given no information that Sam's resurrected body needs rest. (Dean needed a lot of rest when he came back, but he also had a soul.) It's also possible that as long as Sam was with people (such as the Campbell clan) who didn't know about his condition, he might have gone through the motions of "sleeping," lying down and closing his eyes and resting his body without actually sleeping. But now that Dean knows Sam doesn't sleep, there's no need to pretend.
Or something along those lines.
Mirrors, dreams, and Sammy's soul. Dean's got his work cut out for him.
Also, do you think there will be leprechauns in the upcoming epi? Because those little dudes are scary. Small hands.
And finally, I was listening to my Addams Family cast recording on the way to work (I'd love to see the show again; it was such fun), and a couple of lyrics struck me as being particularly Winchester-appropriate:
. . .
When you're an Addams
You're obligated to the clan
It's family first and family last
And family by and by
When you're an Addams
the standard answers don't apply . . .
And you know what? It made me want someone to write a SPN/Addams Family x-over . . . perhaps along the lines of "Changing Channels," or maybe . . . a very vivid dream . . .