March 25, 2008

Queen Mab

In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio's big, dramatic speech begins, "Oh, then I see Queen Mab hath been with thee," and then proceeds to unspool a dramatic yarn about Queen Mab, a fairy who brings specific dreams, all meant to taunt Romeo for his belief in dreams.

I had a bizarre dream last night, so I suppose Queen Mab visited. I dream a lot, and frequently remember my dreams, and that's been true most of my life. Mr. Cool rarely remembers his, although recently he had a great one that concerned arming battling Lillipution-types in our house with toothpicks and cocktail swords. It was pretty funny.

So, last night, I spent a good deal of the night knitting. I knitted for a while on Mr. Cool's Ravenclaw scarf, and then cast on a new project, a "My So-Called Scarf" from Imagiknits in Patons Soy Wool Stripes Natural Earth. It's going okay--it has a bit of a tricky pattern, but good practice, and it should be a nice scarf, if not for me, then as a gift.

I stayed up a bit late working on this new project (I had to cast on three times to get the first row right), and then finally went to bed. I immediately started one of my all-night dreams. These are dreams I fitfully have all night, despite waking up, or getting up. I dreamt that it was the end of the world, thanks to biochemical warfare, and everyone was preparing to die. Planes were passing overhead, there was a general apocalyptic feeling, and I was gathering together my bags of knitting WIPs (works in progress), because I was pretty sure I could take those with me. An interesting thought--somehow, I was confident that books and money would not be permitted in heaven, but the Lord would surely let me have my knitting.

Curious, no? I woke up this morning and completed a few quick rows on my scarf, just in case.

7 comments:

Hannah said...

Abby's so mean because she won't let me tell my dreams. She has zero tollerance, thinks it's the stupidest practise (I don't, though).

I like that your dreams are actually stories. Or maybe you left out that you were headed for a bomb shelter that was actually the Cheyenne mall and your cousin Laura and Lenny Davis or Lenny Dykstra were there, but they were communists.

Here's a new knitting project you may aspire to, from another knitting aficionado, Eden: http://edeng.blogspot.com/2008/03/knitted-mug-cozy-for-good-cause.html

Amanda said...

Hannah, I will gladly listen to your dreams. I feel that they are typically detritus from the day, reworked in an interesting way. I'm no Freud, but perhaps my dream meant that knitting has become very important to me, and I'd like to go somewhere quiet to work on it!

Very cool project--thanks!

Anonymous said...

Intersting honey...makes me think I should keep working nights for a little while longer. Anyway, how did the end of the world work its way into your dream from the detritus of your day?

Amanda said...

Short answer for that, Mark: I'm still slowly reading through Revelation!

Hannah said...

I had to look detritus up, and I'd never had guessed on the pronunciation.

The Coach said...

"dreamers often lie/...in bed asleep, while they do dream things true."

I've got to say that I love Shakespeare and I appreciate knitting. At least I appreciate that it is more difficult than it looks to be good at it despite its apparent simplicity.

Remembering dreams, however, is stunningly difficult. I am usually left with just a single image from the dream, and it haunts me in some strange deja vu sort of strange deju vu sort of way until something triggers that image into revealing more of the dream.

Am I crazy? Mr. Cool does not have to answer that.

Amanda said...

Coach--
Not crazy at all--it took years of prctice to remember my dreams, and I also connect with that deja vu feeling. Even this morning, as I thought about lunch, I realized that part of my dream last night concerned packing my lunch.

Hannah--
Yes! Vocab. work continues!