"To Sleep, Perchance To Dream"

Next to the most often quoted of all of William Shakespeare's words, "To be or not to be", is "To sleep, perchance to dream", both from Hamlet's famous soliloquy, Act 3 Scene 1.

I am no Shakespearean scholar nor do I  desire to be one but there is something about the above quotation that makes me wonder.  Did old William just touch on the two subject matters that frequently occupied the minds of the people during his time - sleep and death? But is it not also even more remarkably so today? More on this in a bit.

Did you know that people can fast for a week and would be fine afterwards but sleep deprivation even for just 2-3 days is considered torture in international law. Gandhi fasted in at least three separate episodes of his life from 1932 to 1943 and the longest on record was 18 days which showed little or no  ill effects on his physical and mental health. On the other hand,

.."staying awake for 24 hours causes similar cognitive effects as a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10%, which is higher than the legal limit for driving."        according to the CDC

 

“Sleep deprivation is a high interest loan with steep payments in the form of health consequences.”      -------- Dr. Abhinav Singh, Sleep Physician

The occasional all-nighter to finish a project, a report, or complete doing something on a deadline may have no ill effects if done only once in a while but "borrowing" hours from each daily pattern of sleep could result in chronic sleep deprivation with serious health consequences.

Then there is a world-wide demand for sleep aid and medications for sleep related issues  that in 2025 reached $84 billion and is expected to rise to $163 billion in 2034, barely half a generation from now.

Apparently, advanced mental capacity notwithstanding, only humans suffer from sleep disorder or, is it because of it that makes us vulnerable? Dolphins and whales deal with it by having half their brains go to sleep while the other half is wide awake in alternating fashion while resting. Mammals that they are, the need to breathe air is dealt with through this awesome biological adaptation in a watery environment. I guess whales and dolphins do not suffer from insomnia.

Let's get back to old William S.

There are many interpretations of Hamlet's soliloquy but even today do we not see the message to the ambitious executive, the startup business entrepreneur, or the rich worrying about losing their accumulated wealth?

    

                     "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

                      The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"..

Or, to the worrier, the heartbroken, or anyone filled with hopelessness in the face of misfortune:

"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them.."

 

".. 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".

Was this grappling with existential questions about life and death? Or, was it contemplating the fear of the unknown after death?  And there too are feelings of despair that some of us may suffer.  But, was it not about sleep too?

If we go by the recommended eight hours of sleep per day, it means spending a third of our lives unaware of what is going on around us. Speaking of being unaware, that is what  general anesthesia does to us during surgery or routine colonoscopy (for those of us of a certain age who have undergone this procedure). But did you know that under anesthesia we do not dream? So, not only are we not aware of what is going on under anesthesia, we do not feel pain, we do not remember anything and we do not dream.  Not only are our reflexes and involuntary movements suppressed while under anesthesia, mechanical ventilation is needed to help us breathe.  The anesthesiologist, whose presence during these procedures is a must, ensures that heart and blood pressure and other vital signs are monitored and that the patient is able to breathe. In other words we are totally in a state of unconsciousness; but are our brains deactivated during all that time? 

But what does that mean?  Is our subconscious also offline?  Is that about as close as we can experience - need we say it - death? To sleep but perchance to not dream! 

But death we need not talk about; instead, let's examine sleep.

 

In normal sleep we dream. However, why are our dreams not quite normal? I mean our dreams are often weird, silly at times, but dream we do anyhow.

"No one has a single, definitive answer for why humans dream, but neuroscience has moved well beyond guessing. The brain is intensely active during sleep, cycling through stages that each produce different kinds of mental experiences. The leading explanations point to several overlapping functions: consolidating memories, processing emotions, rehearsing threats, and fostering creative thinking. Rather than competing, these theories likely each capture a piece of what dreaming does for us".

So the brain does really want to remain active while much of our physical body is at rest?  But why the silly scenarios, such as, being on a business trip in some unknown city and not able to find your way back to the hotel; or, getting ready for a business presentation and you have no clue about what to present; or, finding yourself with business colleagues ready to board the plane and you are the only one without a boarding pass; or, how about witnessing an airplane crash and when you get to where it fell, you only find a burning chicken, etc. Except for one, those are some of my dreams, long after I've  retired, mind you.

What about nightmares? Is the brain merely trying to scare us?  Or, left alone without our conscious supervision, is the brain just being naughty or capricious while we are sleeping, to get something out of our system and relieve us of daytime stress?

Or, does the brain do it to free us of wild ideas about talking spiders where some have the ability to detect gravity waves, lions and hyenas debating theology, and marauding witches, or conversations between an angel and the devil, etc.  Wait, I wrote those, and if the reader cares(d) to read about them from some of my earlier blogs, you'll know what I mean. So, it's not that. I do hope it's not that.  We'll leave that to the neuroscientists and psychiatrists.

According to one U.N. estimate, 16% of the world's population suffer from insomnia, more among women than men, while those 65 years old or older suffer the least. Shall we guess that women are typically the worrier and those past 65 don't worry too much because they've "been there, done that"?

Granted insomnia is not a permanent malady for most, we are still talking about a billion people having problems with sleep at one time or another.  No wonder sleeping medications and other sleep aids are a booming business.

Aside from sleep aids and medications, we get a host of advice, "proven" techniques and tricks to getting a good night sleep from friends, from doctors, from  media influencers, etc. 

The reader will get one from me as well. Part of a questionnaire our primary care doctor used to ask me during my annual physical is about how well I sleep at night. I told him what my wife usually says about my sleep pattern - that I fall asleep at the flip of the light switch. At each physical since, he'd remember about it and he kept telling me that it is a blessing to be able to do that. He did ask me once how I do it. I told him that I don't think much about how I do it other than actually using a mental switch the moment I close my eyes.  

Of course, falling asleep at the flip of a switch is an exaggeration but it is pretty close. Then I told him that there  is one interesting question; "What do I do when on rare occasions when sleep eludes me after several minutes when the switch has been flipped and I'm still awake.

I would imagine myself lying along a narrow and gently flowing stream, water slowly cascading over rocks and stones and there's a small fire nearby.  The doctor asked if I'm inside a sleeping bag or on an air mattress. That is never part of the scenery, besides, I've had no experience in real life doing it, not once ever, so the discomfort of the stony ground or wet grass are not in the realm of my imagination. I do imagine  being under a blanket but not worrying about mosquitoes and other night flying insects, snakes slithering by or some nocturnal rodents passing through.  No mosquito nets either. It's the stream, the fire and the blanket that do the trick, a mere stage scene with no basis in reality, yet it works. 

But there is the question of falling back to sleep after waking up for one reason or another. A trip (or two) to the bathroom is a common reason - guys of a certain age know what I mean.  Well, I read somewhere a while back, or was it a YouTube presentation, that there is a trick that works all the time when falling back to sleep is an issue.

Here's how it works.

1. Think of a word, with perhaps 4-6 letters.

2. Starting with the first letter, think of as many words as you can that start with that letter, then do the same with the next letter, with the aim of doing all the letters.

Example, you thought of the word - "cover" - starting with 'c', you think of:

cup, cobra, capsule, Cuba, etc., then followed by 'o': ocean, oven, optical, ox, overnight, etc. and on to the remaining letters v, e, r.

The more unrelated the words are to each other, the more effective it is because, we are told, the brain is set up that way during sleep. It goes through all kinds of unrelated scenarios - a disorganized calisthenics of thoughts (my description) - and that's what makes our dreams weird and unreal; a warm up for the brain to take over the landscape of a dreamful sleep.

But it works. You are likely not able to complete the entire exercise before falling back to sleep.  

All that being said, I caution the reader that I am not a sleep psychologist (if there is such a thing as sleep psychology) and I am just relating what I read or saw.  Worth a try though.  It just might surprise you.  

Failing that, get up, get out of the bedroom and read the entire Hamlet soliloquy, and see if it will not put you to sleep. Or, at least you'll see proof that language evolved and why some words succumbed to inevitable extinction. 

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. 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—there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

Well, it's time to say, "Tonight I bid you to sleep, let your brain clean up the clutter and toss them out, and keep only those worth remembering the next morning.

 

Are We Still Talking About Socialism?

Yes, we are still talking about it. Seriously sometimes or perhaps within the bounds of good humor we toss a good dollop of truth in our conversations with snippets of funny stories.

1. Just a month before Nicolas Maduro was given free passage to his current residence in New York, a reporter asked him about the status of the worldwide state of Capitalism.

Maduro responded: "You know, my dear friend and predecessor, Hugo Chavez, told me what he learned from his friend Fidel Castro who learned it from Nikita Khrushchev who in the sixties said that Capitalism was standing on the very precipice of absolute disaster"!

Another reporter then asked about the status of  Socialism in the world.

Maduro responded: "What I learned, as you should know, is that Socialism is always one step ahead of capitalism!"

If that is not the most succinct explanation of the fate of socialism we will be hard pressed to find another one.

2. And, of course, Ronald Reagan had another one of the many stories he had collected on the subject.  Here's another one.

Mikael Gorbachev was told by one of his aides that a woman outside his office refused to leave until she had an audience with the president. "Send her in", Gorbachev said. 

When the woman came in, Gorbachev said, "What's on your mind"?

"Please tell me, who invented communism - a scientist or politician"?

"A politician invented communism", Gorbachev replied.

"Well, that figures, doesn't it"?

"Oh, how so?"

"Well, a scientist would have experimented on mice first."

(I merely embellished stories 1 & 2 that had been around for a while.  I made up story no. 3 below).

3. Through another cosmic oddity, a debate was arranged somewhere. Ayn Rand was picked as the moderator. At one particular moment, already on stage were Fidel Castro, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot waiting in front of their individual lecterns. Then Ronald Reagan appeared from behind the curtain.

Reagan:  I must apologize for being late.  It took me a while to come down the stairway.  I didn't realize how far above I was.

Ayn Rand: Thank you Ronnie, may I call you Ronnie?  Actually where we are right now is about halfway between two places.  These gentlemen had to climb up to get here.  Oh, and don't worry, we have an elevator for you, Ronnie, on the way back up.

Castro: Typical of a capitalist who is used to a life of luxury on the backs of the proletariat. Do you know how rich the capitalists have become building elevators?

Reagan:  Has the debate started already?

Ayn Rand: No, no, not yet.  Although Mr. Castro had already used up his opening remarks.

Mao:  Wait, wait, for a minute.  Let's start this properly. Comrade Stalin, do you care to comment?

Ayn Rand:  Gentlemen, gentlemen, please. Ronnie, who is by himself and there are four of you, will make the first opening remarks.

Reagan: I was expecting my friend Mikhail Gorbachev to come, where is he?

Stalin: I vetoed his presence here.  He was way too soft to be a true communist.

Reagan: Okay.  Josef Stalin. Wow! Imagine if I had to say, "Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili", your real name before you became Stalin.  Mao, we may yet know who actually tailored your own personal Mao jacket. I remember it well when its popularity surged in the late sixties, early seventies. I know the Mao attire started in the forties - mostly from coarse cotton. But by the time of the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966, fashion houses in the west started promoting them.  We knew that coarse cotton was still the go-to material for the common Chinese at that time but yours were from fine silk.  Perhaps after tonight you will tell me who your designer was? Pol Pot,  a name that used to be Saloth Sar, to be honest, why are you here, if not perhaps because of your alliterative name?

Pol Pot: Who are you calling illiterate?

Ayn Rand: Calm down Pol, may I call you Pol. Saloth is hard on my accent. Alliterative simply means that your name  involves a repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of closely connected words, like Big Bang or Criss-Cross, and Saloth Sar falls in that category as well, which has nothing to do with your ability to read or write. Ronnie was not being condescending.

Reagan: My apologies Pol, if you misunderstood. Although I must say that you almost drove all of Cambodia to illiteracy when you pushed every intellectual in your country to hide their literacy by pretending to be illiterate to avoid the ire of the proletariat, as our friend Fidel here alluded to.

Fidel: I need to say something. In Cuba, even today, our resourcefulness and intelligence are responsible for why the Chevrolet Bel Aire still runs on the open road in Cuba while your wasteful people only see them in museums.

Stalin: What is a Chevrolet Bel Air?

Ayn Rand:  It's an American made car way after you were gone, Josef. You are more familiar with the Pobeda model made by the now defunct Russian automaker, the Gorky Automobile Plant that was established in 1932. I used to live in the Soviet Union, as you know, so the Pobeda compared to the Chevrolet Bel Air is like comparing a toaster to a Magic Chef oven.  Anyhow, let's move on, please.  Ronnie?

Reagan: I came prepared because I knew Fidel will bring up the Chevrolet story again. So, for  Joseph Stalin's benefit, here is a photo of a 1954 Bel Air with your favorite color - red.  I do not have a photo of a Magic Chef oven but it does cook like magic compared to a toaster.

Fidel: Like I said, we still have them running in Havana today.

Reagan: Sure, and I must admire the resourcefulness of the people of Cuba.  I am just not a fan of how the government works for them. 

Mao: How should the government work, may I ask?  China today is an economic power and has military power to reckon with and run by the CCP - Chinese Communist Party.

Reagan: But do you know how modern China attained economic power?  By running its economy as a capitalist system and executing the powers of government as a Communist regime.  Fidel, if you must know, the number of Chinese billionaires is second only to those in the USA.  So, I ask you, just ninety miles across the Florida Strait is a country where Cubans live a life a thousand times better than Cubans in Cuba. Don't you want your people to live free and enjoy the blessing of capitalism?  Your neighbors in the Caribbean are enjoying a brisk tourism industry.  Your people could be driving a 21st century vehicle powered by direct fuel injection engines instead of the ones with carburetors as your Chevy Bel Air, that requires to be cleaned every so often. And have you heard of disk brakes and air conditioned cars? Josef, if you must know, cars now have navigation systems that led road maps into mass extinction.

Stalin: How do you air condition cars? And how do they deal with the Russian winter.

Reagan:  Josef, I have so much to show you after this. We'll talk.

Pol Pot: Wait, wait. Indeed, as Reagan asked, why am I here?

Ayn Rand: Pol, I too will show you how Cambodia had progressed since you were gone.  It is now one of the emerging tourist destinations in Asia. I will have you and Fidel talk to tour companies who promise to bring more people to visit your countries. 

Reagan:  Fidel, I will have you know that Cuba will become not just as a tourist destination but a manufacturing hub that will only succeed because of its proximity to the most successful capitalist nation in the world.

Ayn Rand:  You know what, why don't we go to the audio-visual room where we will show, side by side, the difference between how capitalist-run countries stack up against socialist/communist run governments and we'll let the debate continue there. I think it is best to show actual images of people living in capitalist countries and those in communist nations.  By the way, Josef, if you must know, your comrade Nikita Khrushchev was wrong when he predicted during his time:

1. Khrushchev emphasized the superiority of communism over capitalism.

2. He claimed that the inevitable triumph of communism would lead to the downfall of democratic nations.

3. The phrase "we will bury you" was meant to convey confidence in the communist ideology.  He said that at the Communist Party Congress in 1956. Just about that time the Chevy Bel Air produced an optional V-8 engine over what was then an inline six-cylinder engine. I thought I'd mention that. 

I ask you, how many nations today still identify as adhering to the communist ideology?  Think about that as we head to the other room.  Appetizers and drinks will be served and dinner will follow after the debate.

Reagan:  I have more photos to show you and Fidel.  And Fidel, those cruise ships that I hope will soon be docking at your harbors that will bring tourists willing to spend money there, are built by capitalist entrepreneurs that employ thousands upon thousands of people.  The proletariat you refer to are going to be rich proletariats if you allow American and European manufacturers to do business in Cuba. Oh, and do you know that the current American Secretary of State is of Cuban descent?  Let's talk some more, okay?

 

There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere

President Ronald Reagan had to have been the most eternal optimist of all the U.S. Presidents who ever served. If he were just an ordinary person he had to have been a good example of someone who always looked at a half filled glass as half full, as opposed to the other  equally accurate description - that the glass is half empty.  Technically, either description would be accurately correct. The difference is ruled by the rule of perspective.

President Reagan told and re-told this story about the difference between optimism and pessimism. Those around his circle said this was his favorite joke that he often re-told  over and over a few times. 

"The joke concerns twin boys of five or six. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities — one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist — their parents took them to a psychiatrist."

The psychiatrist first took the pessimist child to a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. Moments later, the psychiatrist checked in on him. Instead of enjoying the toys the little boy burst into tears. Asked why he didn't seem to enjoy playing with the toys he replied “Yes, but if I did I’d only break them.”

Next the psychiatrist treated the optimist. To dampen the boy's spirits the psychiatrist took him to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. ”What do you think you’re doing?” the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist. “With all this manure,” the little boy replied, beaming, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!”

The rule of perspective is what gives most situations their definition depending on how one individual looks at it.  However, even in the most dire conditions, the rule of perspective would still have profound influences,  affecting individuals to varying degrees.  Afterall, when things go bad, pessimism does not help, while optimism opens a door through which one may begin to alleviate the ill effects of a bad situation while setting the stage to make things better.

However, that is not to say that pessimism is completely and thoroughly bad because  to be so totally optimistic all the time as to ignore every conceivable possibility that things can go wrong  is also not such a really good thing. From my last musing I did mention about the universal duality as the governing rule that defines purpose.

I wrote too from an earlier topic, ("The Thorny Sides of Impatience", 04/23/2023), that perhaps Col. Custer's total optimism may have caused his and his troop's lives at Little Big Horn on June 26, 1876.  A dose of pessimism, if allowed to prevail, could have delayed Custer's push to the battlefield had he waited for reinforcements that were a mere day away. 

Field Marshal Montgomery ("La Vie En Rose 2", 02/28/2025) was way too optimistic when he pushed so hard to launch Operation Market Garden in Sept. 1944 in an attempt to capture key bridges in the Netherlands as a quick way into German territory.  Instead, it delayed the invasion of Germany when the operation failed at the cost of so many lives of the Allied forces; tragically more so when so many of those were from the 101st Airborne Division that heroically performed so well for the Allied forces in the preceding hours of the Normandy landing three months earlier.

In our personal lives not only is it a good idea to have a healthy mix of optimism and pessimism but that when it comes to relationships between people and particularly between husband and wife, opposing views may help in decision making.  But it must not lead to paralysis. A healthy mix could help when excessive optimism is tempered by a dose of pessimism  to arrive at a balanced decision.

For example, a lofty desire by one partner for a nice luxury vehicle can be prevailed upon when the reality of affordability is brought up by the other. Recognizing  what such an undertaking will do to the family budget may belong in the domain of the pessimist but it is a good balance against the unmetered desires of the insouciant optimist.  Perhaps marriage is not so much about "horse and carriage"' as in an old Frank Sinatra song, but that it is more about polar opposites meeting halfway across the room between the optimist and the pessimist - a prelude to a waltz into a happy solution.

But I say...

When the wind is blowing the optimist decides it is the best time to fly a kite; the pessimist worries about a storm that is certain to follow; the pragmatist is the one to open the windows to let in the breeze of fresh air into the house.