{"id":70079,"date":"2014-04-21T14:32:55","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T18:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=70079"},"modified":"2014-04-21T15:10:35","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T19:10:35","slug":"sleep-of-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/21\/sleep-of-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep of Reason"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tatiana_Larina's_dream_by_Volkov_(1891)\"<\/a>

Volkov, Tatiana Larina\u2019s Dream<\/i>, 1891<\/p><\/div>\n

When Edith M. Thomas wrote \u201cTalking in Their Sleep\u201d in 1885, she was already regarded as one of America\u2019s foremost poets. Well into the last century, her poems were part of the canon\u2014and this one, in particular, was a common inclusion in grade-school readers, memorized and recited by generations of students.<\/p>\n

If you look at the 1919 textbook Wheeler’s Graded Literary Readers, with Interpretations<\/em><\/a>, you\u2019ll find \u201cTalking in Their Sleep\u201d presented as a straightforward story of plants and trees sleeping through the winter: \u201cIn the spring, just as boys and girls awake in the morning, they will awake again.\u201d As a child, I found the poem terrifying. That something should seem dead when sleeping was scary enough; that the seeming-dead should also speak only made it worse. But then, sleep-talking has always frightened me. <\/p>\n

You see, by day, I am caution personified. The self-designated peacemaker in a volatile family, I have always seen words as potentially lethal things to be managed with care and forethought. I rarely speak without considering what I say\u2014will it offend someone? Anger them? Sound foolish? And I am morbidly self-conscious about my speaking voice; even into my thirties, I am regularly mistaken for a child on the telephone, which I avoid using with even my closest friends. Given these sensitivities, it has always struck me as both cruel and somehow fitting that my worst nightmare should come true on an almost nightly basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talk in my sleep,\u201d I\u2019ll tell someone nervously if I know we are to share a room, and the person will laugh\u2014but no one has ever known what\u2019s to come. Even I don\u2019t, exactly, though I\u2019m told my late-night soundtracks encompass everything from singing to screaming to fully intelligible monologues.<\/p>\n

Anyone who hears such things is understandably alarmed\u2014listeners will usually rouse me from what they assume to be a horrible night terror brought on by the buried memory of some early trauma. But in fact, my dreams are deadly dull. More often than not, when awoken, I\u2019ll be in the midst of debating someone about a book, or a recipe, or arguing over the best place to buy a terry-cloth bathrobe. I just do it all at top volume. All the quotidian situations, I guess, in which I constantly, exhaustingly, needlessly police my words and thoughts.<\/p>\n

Somniloquy affects 4 percent of adults. According to Wikipedia, \u201cdepending on its frequency, it may or may not be considered pathological.\u201d I suspect mine might be pathological. In any case, those who love me are counseled to wear earplugs.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cYou think I am dead,\u201d
The apple tree said,
\u201cBecause I have never a leaf to show\u2013
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!
But I\u2019m still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away\u2013
But I pity the withered grass at my root.\u201d
\u201cYou think I am dead,\u201d
The quick grass said,
\u201cBecause I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground
I am safe and sound
With the snow\u2019s thick blanket over me laid.
I\u2019m all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here\u2013
But I pity the flower without branch or root.\u201d
\u201cYou think I am dead,\u201d
A soft voice said,
\u201cBecause not a branch or root I own.
I never have died,
But close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.
Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again\u2013
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Edith M. Thomas wrote \u201cTalking in Their Sleep\u201d in 1885, she was already regarded as one of America\u2019s foremost poets. Well into the last century, her poems were part of the canon\u2014and this one, in particular, was a common inclusion in grade-school readers, memorized and recited by generations of students. If you look at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[13621,13617,13620,7221,13616,13619,13618],"class_list":["post-70079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-talking-in-their-sleep","tag-dreaming","tag-edith-m-thomas","tag-poems","tag-sleeping","tag-somniloquy","tag-talking-in-your-sleep"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOn Talking in One\u2019s Sleep<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on Edith M. 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