Last night I awoke from troubled sleep with a mysterious and inexplicable Latin phrase drumming on my agitated brain. As best I can remember the dream, I had taken a razor to an essay I was writing and had cut out the two words--and I mean "cut out" as in scissored, not merely deleted--"sursum corda." And then there I was with a slip of paper on which the two words were inscribed -- andnow comes the nightmare part--I couldn't translate the damn phrase. I went so far (still in the dream!) as to hypothesize a past participle "*sursus" of the verb "surgere" (to rise)--although, as everyone knows, the proper form would be "surrectus"--but I still couldn't parse the phrase (*"sursum" or "risen", would be a singular, "corda," "hearts," a plural). I forced myself out of sleep, distressed that I couldn't make sense out of what my dreamatorium was screaming was an important phrase. So there I was in the middle of the night, checking the Latin dictionary to discover that "sursum corda" is a versicle in the Roman mass generally translated "lift up your hearts," but, inasmuch as "sursum," I can now attest, is not a participle but an adverb, might more properly come into English as something like "upward your hearts." OK, now I understand the phrase, but why in the living bejeesus was I a) dreaming in Latin, b) dreaming a part of a mass, and c) slicing the phrase out of some papers of my own composition?
Enough of that. Back to bed, back to sleep and then, holy moly, another weird dream. No more Latin, at least, but now I'm being held responsible for the low rate of pollination of apple trees. Whose apple trees? I can't say. And what is the remedy. Brain surgery -- and on my brain. The surgeon announces to me (somehow we're in a very official looking operating room) that "we're going to remove the smallest bone in the human body, which is in the hinge to the top of your head."He takes his scalpel, cuts through my hinge, and flips opens my skull. Inside the dome (somehow I can observe the interior) right where my brain should be, is a heap of glowing stuff that looks like orange Jell-o.
OK, that's enough. Time to wake up once again.
Unanswered questions. a) why am I responsible for the fruiting of apples? Blame the lazy bees, for goodness sake. b) Who says the smallest bone in the body is this imaginary hinge? The smallest bone is in the inner ear--the stirpes, I think. c) what's with the Jell-o? Just because I couldn't translate "sursum corda," must it therefore follow that my brain is gelatinous? Some of your most intelligent Wall Street investors and bank presidents couldn't translate sursum corda, and they must be the most accomplished people we have, at least to judge by their annual bonuses.
On the whole, I think that both of these dreams put me in somewhat of a bad light. Nevertheless, I'm impressed that my unconscious is so gosh-darned creative. Let's face it - it's a ton more imaginative than my daytime self, which doesn't much concern itself with either the Latin mass or the pollination rates of mali domesticae.
The story seems to be weird and with these kind of dreams the person will not be able to sleep properly and might be possible that he may get addicted to some sleeping pills or some other kind of drug that can provide him a sound sleep.
Karen Walter
Drug Intervention Florida
Posted by: Karen Walter | March 13, 2009 at 09:23 PM