Dream

Dream (pronounced dreem)

(1) Mental activity, usually in the form of an imagined series of events, occurring during certain phases of sleep.

(2) The sleeping state in which this occurs.

(3) To have a dream.

(4) A sequence of imaginative thoughts indulged in while awake; daydream; fantasy.

(5) A vain hope; to suffer delusions; be unrealistic you're dreaming if you think you can win

(6) A cherished hope; ambition; aspiration.

(7) A descriptor of a theoretically possible, though improbable assembly or conjunction of people, things or events (dream team etc).

1200–1250:  From the Middle English dreem from the Old English drēam (joy, pleasure, gladness, delight, mirth, rejoicing, rapture, ecstasy, frenzy, music, musical instrument, harmony, melody, song, singing, jubilation, sound of music).  Cognate with Scots dreme (dream), the North Frisian drom (dream), the West Frisian dream (dream), the Low German and Dutch droom (dream), the German traum (dream), the Danish & Norwegian Bokmål drøm, the Norwegian Nynorsk draum, the Swedish dröm (dream), the Icelandic draumur (dream), the Old Saxon drōm (mirth, dream) the Old Norse draumr (dream) and the Old High German troum (dream), the Old English drēag (spectre, apparition), the Dutch bedrog (deception, deceit), the German trug (deception, illusion) and even the Ancient Greek thrulos.  The Old English was derived from the Proto-Germanic draumaz and draugmaz, the ultimate root being the primitive Indo-European dhrowgh from dhrewgh (to deceive, injure, damage).  The modern sense was first recorded in Middle English but most etymologists assume it must have been current in both in Old English and Old Saxon; the sense of "dream", though not attested in Old English, may still have been present (compare Old Saxon drōm (bustle, revelry, jubilation), and was reinforced later in Middle English by Old Norse draumr (dream) from same Proto-Germanic root.

However, among scholars there are pedants who insist the link is not established.  In Old English, dream meant only "joy, mirth, noisy merriment" and also "music" and much study has failed to prove the Old English dream is the root of the modern word for "sleeping vision," despite being identical in spelling.  Either the meaning of the word changed dramatically or "vision" was an unrecorded secondary Old English meaning of dream, or there really were two separate words.  The words for "sleeping vision" in Old English were mæting and swefn, the latter originally meant "sleep," as did a great many Indo-European "dream" nouns such as the Lithuanian sapnas, the Old Church Slavonic sunu, and the Romanic words: the French songe, the Spanish sueño and the Italian sogno all from the Classical Latin somnium, derived from the primitive Proto-European swepno, cognate with Greek hypnos from which Modern English ultimately picked up somnolence.  Dream in the sense of "ideal or aspiration" dates only from 1931, derived from the earlier sense of "something of dream-like beauty or charm", noted first in 1888.

From Aristotle to Freud

Philosophers and physicians have long discussed the nature of dreams and Aristotle (384–322 BC), a bit of both, included as one of three chapters discussing sleep, the essay  De Insomniis (On Dreams) in his Parva Naturalia (short treatises on nature).  Aristotle pondered (1) whether dreams are the product of thought or of sensations, (2) the nature of sleep, the effect upon the body and its senses and (3) how dreams are caused, concluding it’s the residual movements of the sensory organs that create their existence.  A practical Greek, he also noted some dreams appear to be cause by indigestion or too much strong drink.

Dream analysis: Lindsay Lohan on Sigmund Freud’s couch.

In western thought, not much was added for two thousand-odd years, the more cheerful of the philosophers happy to speak of dreams being the minds of men free to explore their imaginings while gloomier types like Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) thought them but things “caused by the distemper of some inward parts of the body.”  It wasn’t until Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) book The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), that a systematised attempt was made to include dreams as part of psychiatry within the discipline of modern medicine.  Freud acknowledged Aristotle's definition of dreams as "…the mental activity of the sleeper in so far as he is asleep..." was empirically superior to any suggestion of them being something supernatural or mystic, a view that advances in modern neurobiology haven’t challenged although Freud’s views have been much criticised.

Freud’s early thinking was that dreams were manifestations of the sleeper’s unconscious wish fulfilment, what he called the "royal road to the unconscious", made possible by the absence of the repressions of consciousness.  In order to conform to his other psychoanalytic theories, he argued our unconscious desires often relate to early childhood memories and experiences, dreams having both a manifest and latent content, the latter relating to deep unconscious wishes or fantasies while the former he dismissed as superficial and without meaning although he did add the manifest often disguises or obscures the latent.  What was never disguised was that Freud regarded most of the latent, regardless of the form it assumed, as inherently sexual but he later retreated from this, just as he did from his early emphasis on the primacy of unconscious wish fulfilment, noting in his 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle that trauma other experiences could influence both the existence and content of dreams.

Freud’s technique of free association

Freud classified five separate processes that facilitate dream analysis.

(1) Displacement occurs when the desire for one thing or person is symbolized by something or someone else.

(2) Projection happens when the dreamer places their own personal desires and wants onto another person.

(3) Symbolization is illustrated through a dreamer’s unconscious allowing of repressed urges and desires to be metaphorically acted out.

(4) Condensation illustrates the process by which the dreamer hides their feelings and/or urges through either contraction or minimizing its representation into a brief dream image or event.

(5) Rationalization (also referred to as secondary revision) can be identified as the final stage of dream-work in which the dreaming mind intently organizes an incoherent dream into something much more comprehensible and logical for the dreamer.

Freud also held there was a universality of symbols in dreams and his list highlights socially undesirable behaviour in euphemistic forms, a subset of which is.

(1) Vagina - circular objects; jewelry.

(2) Penis and testicles - oblong objects; the number three.

(3) Castration - an action that separates a part from the whole (losing a tooth).

(4) Coitus - an action that resembles sexual behaviour (riding a horse).

(5) Urine - anything yellow in colour.

(6) Faeces - anything brown in colour; chocolate

Although, like much of his work, Freud theories on dreams have become less fashionable within the profession, in popular culture, dream interpretation services based on Freudian systems remain widely read and are a staple of self-help books, web pages and the dozens of dream interpretation apps.

After Freud: Not everything is about sex

Animals often represent the part of your psyche that feels connected to nature and survival. Being chased by a predator suggests you're holding back repressed emotions like fear or aggression.

Babies can symbolize a literal desire to produce offspring, or your own vulnerability or need to feel loved. They can also signify a new start.

Being chased is one of the most common dream symbols in all cultures. It means you're feeling threatened, so reflect on who's chasing you (they may be symbolic) and why they're a possible threat in real life.

Clothes make a statement about how we want people to perceive us. If your dream symbol is shabby clothing, you may feel unattractive or worn out. Changing what you wear may reflect a lifestyle change.

Crosses are interpreted subjectively depending on your religious beliefs. Some see it as symbolizing balance, death, or an end to a particular phase of life. The specific circumstances will help define them.

Exams can signify self-evaluation, with the content of the exam reflecting the part of your personality or life under inspection.

Death of a friend or loved one represents change (endings and new beginnings) and is not a psychic prediction of any kind. If you are recently bereaved, it may be an attempt to come to terms with the event.

Falling is a common dream symbol that relates to our anxieties about letting go, losing control, or somehow failing after a success.

Faulty machinery in dreams is caused by the language center being shut down while asleep, making it difficult to dial a phone, read the time, or search the internet. It can also represent performance anxiety.

Food is said to symbolize knowledge, because it nourishes the body just as information nourishes the brain. However, it could just be food.

Demons are sneaky evil entities which signify repressed emotions. You may secretly feel the need to change your behaviors for the better.

Hair has significant ties with sexuality, according to Freud. Abundant hair may symbolize virility, while cutting hair off in a dream shows a loss of libido. Hair loss may also express a literal fear of going bald.

Hands are always present in dreams but when they are tied up it may represent feelings of futility. Washing your hands may express guilt. Looking closely at your hands in a dream is a good way to become lucid.

Houses can host many common dream symbols, but the building as a whole represents your inner psyche. Each room or floor can symbolize different emotions, memories and interpretations of meaningful events.

Killing in your dreams does not make you a closet murderer; it represents your desire to "kill" part of your own personality. It can also symbolize hostility towards a particular person.

Marriage may be a literal desire to wed or a merging of the feminine and masculine parts of your psyche.

Missing a flight or any other kind of transport is another common dream, revealing frustration over missing important opportunities in life. It's most common when you're struggling to make a big decision.

Money can symbolize self worth. If you dream of exchanging money, it may show that you're anticipating some changes in your life.

Mountains are obstacles, so to dream of successfully climbing a mountain can reveal a true feeling of achievement. Viewing a landscape from atop a mountain can symbolize a life under review without conscious prejudice.

Nudity is one of the most common dream symbols, revealing your true self to others. You may feel vulnerable and exposed to others. Showing off your nudity may suggest sexual urges or a desire for recognition.

People (other dream characters) are reflections of your own psyche, and may demonstrate specific aspects of your own personality.

Radios and TVs can symbolize communication channels between the conscious and unconscious minds. When lucid, ask them a question.

Roads, aside from being literal manifestations, convey your direction in life. This may be time to question your current "life path".

Schools are common dream symbols in children and teenagers but what about dreaming of school in adulthood? It may display a need to know and understand yourself, fueled by life's own lessons.

Sex dreams can symbolize intimacy and a literal desire for sex. Or they may demonstrate the unification of unconscious emotions with conscious recognition, showing a new awareness and personal growth.

Teachers, aside from being literal manifestations of people, can represent authority figures with the power to enlighten you.

Teeth are common dream symbols. Dreaming of losing your teeth may mark a fear of getting old and being unattractive to others.

Being trapped (physically) is a common nightmare theme, reflecting your real life inability to escape or make the right choice.

Vehicles may reflect how much control you feel you have over your life - for instance is the car out of control, or is someone else driving you?

Water comes in many forms, symbolizing the unconscious mind. Calm pools of water reflect inner peace while a choppy ocean can suggest unease.

Nightmare

Nightmare (pronounced nahyt-mair)

(1) A terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow etc.

(2) A condition, thought, or experience suggestive of a nightmare.

(3) A monster or evil spirit once believed to oppress persons during sleep.

1250–1300: From the Middle English nightmare, from the Old English nihtmare, the construct being night +‎ mare (evil spirit believed to afflict a sleeping person).  It was cognate with the Scots nichtmare and nichtmeer, the Dutch nachtmerrie, the Middle Low German nachtmār and the German Nachtmahr.  Another Old English word for it was niht-genga.

Night was from the Middle English nighte, night, nyght, niȝt & naht (night), from the Old English niht, neht, nyht, neaht & næht (night), from the Proto-Germanic nahts (night), from the primitive Indo-European nókwts (night).  It was cognate with the Scots nicht & neicht (night), the West Frisian nacht (night), the Dutch nacht (night), the Low German & German Nacht (night), the Danish nat (night), the Swedish & Norwegian natt (night), the Faroese nátt (night), the Icelandic nótt (night), the Latin nox (night), the Greek νύχτα (nýchta) (night), the Russian ночь (nočʹ) (night) and the Sanskrit नक्ति (nákti) (night).  Mare had a second etymological track from the sense of the female horse (mare from the Old English mīere).  The sense of “nightmare, monster” is from the Old English mare from the Proto-Germanic marǭ (nightmare, incubus) and can be compared with the Dutch dialectical mare, the German dialectical Mahr from the Old Norse mara which produced also the Danish mare and the Swedish mara (incubus, nightmare).  The ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European mor (feminine evil spirit).  The English and European forms were akin to the Old Irish Morrígan (phantom queen), the Albanian merë (horror), the Polish zmora (nightmare), the Czech mura (nightmare, moth) and the Greek Μόρα (Móra); doublet of mara.

The original meaning (incubus, an evil female spirit (later often called a goblin) afflicting men (or horses) in their sleep with a feeling of suffocation) dates from the thirteenth century, with the meaning shift from the incubus to the suffocating sensation it causes emerging in the mid sixteenth century.  The sense of "any bad dream" is recorded by 1829; that of "very distressing experience" is from 1831.  Nightmare and nightmarishness are nouns, nightmarish is an adjective and nightmarishly an adverb; the noun plural is nightmares.  The adjective nightmaresque is non-standard but use is not infrequent.

Bad dreams

Waking from a bad dream, Lindsay Lohan in Scary Movie 5 (2013).

Nightmares are regarded by mental health clinicians essentially as part of the human condition.  In this they differ from night terror (sometimes called sleep terror), a disorder inducing panic or feelings of morbid dread, typically during the early stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and usually brief in duration, lasting no more than 1-10 minutes.  Sleep terrors appear most often to begin in childhood, decreasing (usually) with age but their frequency and severity can be affected, inter alia, by sleep deprivation, medications, stress, fever and intrinsic sleep disorders.  Evidence does seem to suggest a predisposition to night terrors may be congenital and there may be an increase in prevalence among those with first-degree relatives with a similar history but the link to inheritance is dismissed by some academics as "speculative".

The Nightmare (1781), oil on canvas by the Swiss-English painter John Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), Detroit Institute of Arts.  It's a popular image to use to illustrate something "nightmare related".

When the political activist Max Eastman (1883–1969) visited Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in Vienna in 1926, he observed a print of Fuseli's The Nightmare, hung next to Rembrandt's  (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) The Anatomy Lesson.  Although well known for his work on dream analysis (although it’s the self-help industry more than the neo-Freudians who have filled the book-shelves), Freud never mentions Fuseli's famous painting in his writings but it has been used by others in books and papers on the subject.  The speculation is Freud liked the work (clearly, sometimes, a painting is just a painting) but nightmares weren’t part of the intellectual framework he developed for psychoanalysis which suggested dreams (apparently of all types) were expressions of wish fulfilments while nightmares represented the superego’s desire to be punished; later he would refine this with the theory a traumatic nightmare was a manifestation of “repetition compulsion”.  The juxtaposition of sleeping beauty and goblin provoked many reactions when first displayed and encouraged Fuseli to paint several more versions.  The Nightmare has been the subject of much speculation and interpretation, including the inevitable debate between the Freudians and Jungians and was taken as a base also by political cartoonists, a bunch more nasty in earlier centuries than our more sanitized age.

The current diagnostic criteria for sleep terrors

The fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5, 2013) revised the diagnostic criteria for sleep terror disorder, requiring:

(1) Recurrent periods where the individual abruptly but not completely wakes from sleep, usually occurring during the first third major period of sleep.

(2) The individual experiences intense fear with a panicky scream at the beginning and symptoms of autonomic arousal, such as increased heart rate, heavy breathing, and increased perspiration. The individual cannot be soothed or comforted during the episode.

(3) The individual is unable or almost unable to remember images of the dream (only a single visual scene for example).

(4) The episode is completely forgotten.

(5) The occurrence of the sleep terror episode causes clinically significant distress or impairment in the individual's functioning.

(6) The disturbance is not due to the effects of a substance, general medical condition or medication.

(7) Coexisting mental or medical disorders do not explain the episodes of sleep terrors.

Largo

Largo (pronounced lahr-goh)

(1) Slow; in a broad, dignified style.

(2) A movement in this style in music; performed slowly and broadly.

1675-1685: From the Italian Largo (slow, broad), from the Classical Latin largus (large, abundant).  In music, as an adjective it generally means "slow in time" and, as a noun, a movement to be performed in such style.  Composers use the modifying adjectives larghet′to to indicate "somewhat slow; not so slow as long; a movement in somewhat slow time & larghis′simo for "extremely slow".

Context matters

In music, largo is an Italian tempo marking.  It translates literally as “broadly”, hence the name of Florida’s Key Largo island chain but to a conductor or musician, it means “play at a slower tempo”.  In composition, the language of tempo markings is nuanced for while both largo and adagio signify a slowing of pace, they convey different meanings to which composers can also add refinements such as the emotionally manipulative bolt-ons giocoso (merry), mesto (sad) and nobilmente (noble).

Adagio (music performed in a slow, leisurely manner, borrowed circa 1745 from the Italian where the construct was ad (at) +‎ agio (ease), from the Vulgar Latin adiacens, present participle of adiacere (to lie at, to lie near), the noun sense in music to describe "a slow movement" dating from 1784) is used also in Italian traffic management (one of public administration’s more challenging assignments), appearing on Italian road signs to suggest a lower speed but drivers would never see a sign urging largo.  Except in musical notation largo means broad, a word of dimension or perspective, the use in music metaphorical as one might speak of the voice of a soprano “darkening” as they age and thus it can be baffling when composer uses largo in its ordinary sense.  In Gioachino Rossini's (1792–1868) The Barber of Seville (1816), a famously fast-paced aria is called "Largo al factotum" but this is not an instruction to the conductor but just a title; the translation being “make way (ie provide a broad space) for the servant”.  Factotum, known in English since 1556, is from the Medieval Latin factotum (do everything) and is used usually to describe a servant or assistant assigned to general duties.  Even in musical notation, the use of largo and adagio wasn’t always consistent among composers.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), remembered as the philosopher who loomed over the French revolution, was also a composer and in his 1768 Dictionary of Music insisted largo was the slowest of all tempo markings but for others it lay somewhere between adagio and andante (in musical direction meaning "moderately slow", a 1742 borrowing from the Italian andante, suggesting "walking" present participle of andare (to go), from the Vulgar Latin ambitare, from the Classical Latin ambitus, past participle of ambire (to go round, go about), the construct being amb- (around), from the primitive Indo-European root ambhi- (around) + ire (go), from ei- (to go)).  Rousseau's definition is now preferred.

While Rousseau didn’t expand on this, largo does by his era seem to have come to be used to signify an expression of emotional intensity, Ombra mai fù, the opening aria from Georg Friederich Händel's (1685–1759) 1738 opera Serse being such an exemplar it’s known famously as “Handel’s Largo from Xerxes”.  A hint of Handel’s intention is his marking on the original score being the diminutive larghetto.  Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) restricted largo only to the personal, emotional passages whereas Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) could use it also as a device of controlled tension, a slowing of tempo almost to a pause.  Others followed Handel, even if the largo became, after Beethoven, less fashionable, the cor anglais-haunted largo from Anton Dvořák's (1841–1904) 1893 Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World) as illustrative of the technique as any.

Comrade Shostakovich (Dmitri Shostakovich 1906–1975) followed the textbook.  Having his own reasons for needing to write something to make people feel rather than think, on its first performance in 1937, the largo in his Symphony No 5 brought tears from the audience.  Pleased to have pleased the Kremlin, Shostakovich subsequently drew lachrymosity where he could, both the first movement of Symphony No 6 (1939) and three movements of the Eighth Quartet (1960) claw slowly at the emotions.  The motif is familiar from his earlier cello & violin concertos, other symphonies and a piano sonata.

Tangerine Dream, Zeit (1972).  Largo in four movements.

Zeit was one of the more starkly uncompromising pieces of the "dark ambient" music European experimentalists would explore for a couple of decades.  Four often languid movements, each a side of the two vinyl disks, it was underpinned by the then still novel Moog synthesizer and the jarring interruption of the strings of the Cologne Cello Quarte.  Whatever Zeit was, it proved to be either unique or the final evolution of the form, depending on one's view of earlier experiments with the possibilities offered by electronics.  Tangerine Dream certainly never pursued the concept but their work impressed film director Bill Friedkin (b 1935) who commissioned them to produce the soundtrack for Sorcerer (1977); at the time, the music was better received than the film although views have changed in the decades since and Sorcerer now enjoys a cult-following.  Friedkin later remarked that had he earlier known of the band, he'd have used them for The Exorcist (1973).  

Austere and gloomy, Zeit ("time" in German) was interesting experience if listened to in darkness, on headphones; acid helped.  Efforts by some to find a connection between this and the implications of inherited guilt on a generation of German youth again dabbling with amoral technologies were never convincing, Ziet just an hour and a quarter of electronica to be enjoyed or endured.  There were critics who found both but, as even the unconvinced seemed willing often to concede, in the milieu of the sometimes willfully obscure electronica of the era, the Tangerine Dream crew were fine exponents.

Lindsay Lohan story (2 September 2022) in the on-line edition of Die Zeit (The Time) a national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg, Germany.  A broadsheet (literally and editorially), it's a liberal publication and was first published in 1946, one of the earliest of the new newspapers which emerged in the immediate post-war years while Germany was still under allied occupation.  Hamburg was in the British Zone of Occupation until 1949 when it was merged with the US & French zones to constitute the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, the old West Germany) which lasted until the 1990 unification with the German Democratic Republic (GDR, the old East Germany). 

Hypnopompic

Hypnopompic (pronounced hip-nuh-pom-pik)

Of or relating to the state of consciousness between sleep and becoming fully awake.

1897: The construct was hypno-, from the Ancient Greek ὕπνος (húpnos) (sleep) + the Ancient Greek πομπή (pomp(ḗ)), (a sending away) +‎ -ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); a doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The word was coined in the sense of “pertaining to the state of consciousness when awaking from sleep” by Frederic WH Myers (1843-1901), the construct being from hypno- (sleep) + the second element from the Greek pompe (sending away) from pempein (to send).  The word was introduced in Glossary of Terms used in Psychical Research, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. xii (1896-1897 supplement), an organization founded by Myers.  Hypnopompic & hypnopompia were thought to be necessary as companion (in the sense of “bookend”) terms to hypnagogic & hypnagogia (Illusions hypnagogiques) which are the “vivid illusions of sight or sound (sometimes referred to as “faces in the dark”) which sometimes accompany the prelude to the onset of sleep.  Hypnopompic is an adjective and hypnopompia is a noun; the noun plural is hypnopompias.

Frederic Myers was a philologist with a great interest in psychical matters, both the orthodox science and aspects like the work of mediums who would “contact the spirits of the dead”, the latter, while not enjoying much support in the scientific establishment, was both taken seriously and practiced by a remarkable vista of “respectable society”.  Mediums enjoyed a burst in popularity in the years immediately after World War I (1914-1918) when there was much desire by grieving wives & mothers to contact dead husbands and sons and some surprising figures clung to beliefs in such things well into the twentieth century.  In the early 1960s, a reunion of surviving pilots from the Battle of Britain (1940) was startled when their wartime leader and former head of Royal Air Force (RAF) Fighter Command, Hugh Dowding (1882–1970), told them: “regularly he communicated with the spirits of their fallen comrades”.  Myers also had what might now be called a “varied” love life although it’s said in his later life his interest was restricted to women, including a number of mediums, all reputed to be “most fetching”.

In the profession, while acknowledging the potential usefulness in things like note-taking in a clinical environment, few psychologists & psychiatrists appear to regard hypnopompia & hypnagogia as separate phenomena, both understood as the imagery, sounds and strange bodily feelings sometimes felt when in that state between sleep and being fully awake.  In recent years, as the very definition of “sleep” has increasingly been segmented, the state in some literature has also been referred to both as “stage 1 sleep” & “quiet wakefulness” although the former would seem to be most applicable to falling asleep (hypnagogia) rather than waking up (hypnopompia).  Still, the distinction between what’s usually a late night versus an early morning thing does seem of some significance, especially that most in the discipline of the science of sleep (now quite an industry) seem to concede wake-sleep & sleep-wake transitions are not fully understood; nor are the associated visual experiences and debate continues about the extent to which they should (or can) be differentiated from other dream-states associated with deeper sleep.

Waking in a hypnopompic state: Lindsay Lohan in Falling for Christmas (Netflix, 2022).

One striking finding is that so few remember hypnopompic & hypnagogic imagery and that applies even among those who otherwise have some ability to recall their dreams.  What’s often reported by subjects or patients is the memory is fleeting and difficult to estimate in duration and that while the memory is often sustained for a short period after “waking”, quickly it vanishes.  An inability to recall one’s dreams in not unusual but this behavior is noted also for those with a sound recollection of the dreams enjoyed during deeper sleep states.  What seems to endure is a conceptual sense of what has been “seen”: faces known & unknown, fragmentary snatches of light and multi-dimensional geometric shapes.  While subjects report they “know” they have “seen” (and also “heard”) more fully-developed scenes, their form, nature or even the predominate colors prove usually elusive.  Despite all this, it’s not uncommon for people to remark the hypnopompic experience is “pleasant”, especially the frequently cited instances of floating, flying or even a separation from the physical body, something which seems more often called “trippy” than “scary”.

For some however, the hypnopompic & hypnagogic experience can be recalled, haunting the memory and the speculation is that if “nightmarish” rather than “dream-like”, recollection is more likely, especially if associated with “paralyzed hypnogogia or hypnopompia” in which a subject perceives themselves “frozen”, unable to move or speak while the experience persists (for centuries a reported theme in “nightmares).  Observational studies are difficult to perform to determine the length of these events but some work in neurological monitoring seems to suggest what a patient perceives as lasting some minutes may be active for only seconds, the implication being a long “real-time” experience can be manufactured in the brain in a much shorter time and the distress can clinically be significant.  For this reason, the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) regards hypnagogia & hypnopompia as something similar to synaesthesia (where a particular sensory stimulus triggers a second kind of sensation; things like letters being associated with colors) or certain sexual fetishes (which were once classified as mental disorders) in that they’re something which requires a diagnosis and treatment only if the condition is troubling for the patient.  In the fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5 (2013)), hypnagogia anxiety was characterized by intense anxiety symptoms during this state, disturbing sleep and causing distress; it’s categorized with sleep-related anxiety disorders.

The Nightmare (1781), oil on canvas by the Swiss-English painter John Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), Detroit Institute of Arts.  It's a popular image to use to illustrate something "nightmare related".

When the political activist Max Eastman (1883–1969) visited Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in Vienna in 1926, he observed a print of Fuseli's The Nightmare, hung next to Rembrandt's  (Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn; 1606-1669) The Anatomy Lesson.  Although well known for his work on dream analysis (although it’s the self-help industry more than the neo-Freudians who have filled the book-shelves), Freud never mentions Fuseli's famous painting in his writings but it has been used by others in books and papers on the subject.  The speculation is Freud liked the work (clearly, sometimes, a painting is just a painting) but nightmares weren’t part of the intellectual framework he developed for psychoanalysis which suggested dreams (apparently of all types) were expressions of wish fulfilments while nightmares represented the superego’s desire to be punished; later he would refine this with the theory a traumatic nightmare was a manifestation of “repetition compulsion”.  The juxtaposition of sleeping beauty and goblin provoked many reactions when first displayed and encouraged Fuseli to paint several more versions.  The Nightmare has been the subject of much speculation and interpretation, including the inevitable debate between the Freudians and Jungians and was taken as a base also by political cartoonists, a bunch more nasty in earlier centuries than our more sanitized age.

Wet & Dry

Wet (pronounced whet)

(1) Moistened, covered, or soaked with water or some other liquid.

(2) In a liquid form or state.

(3) Something that is or makes wet, as water or other liquid; moisture.

(4) Damp weather; rain.

(5) In historic (US prohibition era) use, a person in favor of allowing the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages; still used as a descriptor of political candidates or activists in “dry” counties who advocate the status be changed to “wet” but now substantially a retronym.

(6) To make (something) wet, as by moistening or soaking (sometimes followed by through or down).

(7) To urinate on or in (applied usually to pets or children).

Pre 900: From the Middle English wet wett & wette (past participle of weten (to wet)), (wet, moistened), from the Old English wǣtan (to wet, moisten, water), replacing the Middle English weet, from the Old English wǣt, from the Proto-Germanic wētijaną (to wet, make wet), from the primitive Indo-European wed- (water, wet), also the source of “water”.  It was cognate with the Scots weit, weet, wat & wete (to wet), the Saterland Frisian wäitje (to wet; drench) & wäit (wet), the Icelandic væta (to wet) & votur (wet), the North Frisian wiat, weet & wäit (wet), the Old Frisian wēt, the Old Slavonic vedro (bucket), the Swedish and Norwegian våt (wet), the Danish våd (wet), the Faroese vátur (“wet”) and the Old Norse vātr; akin to water.  Wet is a noun, verb & adjective, wetter, wettability & wetness are nouns, wetly an adverb, wetted & wetting are verbs, and wettish, wetter, wettest & wettable are adjectives.  The noun plural is wets and the homophone whet (in accents with the wine-whine merger).

Words in some way related to wet include damp, drench, misty, drizzle, mizzle, humid, dank, fog, mist, muggy, rain, slippery, snow, soak, sodden, soggy, stormy, dip, douse, drench, hose, irrigate & liquid.  For all related words, context and the history of use define the relationship (of extent, type etc).  For example, to drench or soak something implies saturate whereas moistening means only some degree of dampness whereas to soak something suggests an immersion of extended duration until saturated.  With reference to rain, which can always be referred to as wet weather, mizzle & drizzle are expressions of graduation which suggest a lighter fall.

The multi-media US personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) with Australian architect & model Bianca Censori (b 1995) in "Wet" themed top, Huacai Intercontinental Hotel,Beijing, China, September 2024.

The word wet has proved convenient shorthand for many technical purposes including in calligraphy and fountain pens where it referred to depositing a large amount of ink from the nib or the feed.  To audio engineers, a “wet sound” recording is one to which the audio effects have been applied.  In aviation, it’s a reference to having used the afterburners or water injection for increased engine thrust (maximum wet thrust can be more than twice maximum dry thrust (afterburners consuming huge quantities of fuel)).  In mining a “wet extraction” is a method using fluids whereas a dry extraction relies on the employment of dry heat or fusion.  In soldering, to wet is to form an intermetallic bond between a solder and a metal substrate.  In bench-top science, to wet is to employ a liquid (typically water) as a method of chemical analysis.  A wetback (also called a wet-heater) was a form of heater which in addition to radiating heat to an external space was also attached to the building’s hot water supply, thus providing in whole or in part the energy used to maintain its temperature (wetback was applied also from 1924 as a derogatory description of undocumented Mexican immigrant to the US, a reference to their usually sodden state after crossing the Rio Grande.  There presumably have been bed-wetters (involuntary urination while sleeping) since there have been beds but etymologists can find no instance of the term bed-wetting prior to 1844 (it has also gained an idiomatic identity in politics (qv)).  In ecology, a wetland is an area where water covers the soil, or is present either at or near the surface of the soil all year or for varying periods of time during the year, including during the growing season.  The wet-nurse, though an ancient profession, was first so described in the 1610s.

As vulgar slang, as applied to women, it referred to the sexual arousal indicated by the vulva being moistened with vaginal secretions (which may or may not be related to the word “moist” being often rated as the most disliked in the English language).  The sexual slang associated with men is the “wet dream” which most etymologists insist dates only from 1851 although Middle English in the same sense had ludificacioun (an erotic dream), these nocturnal adventures mentioned by Henry VIII in letters as proof of his virility, called into doubt by his inability to be aroused by one of the wives he didn’t wish to keep.

Wet is widely applied in idiomatic use: To be “wet behind the ears” is to be inexperienced; a “wet blanket” (from 1871, from use of blankets drenched in water to smother fires (the phrase is attested in this literal sense from the 1660s)) is someone who spoils the fun of others by failing to join or disapproving of their activities; to “wet one's whistle” is to have one or more alcoholic drinks, an allusion to the idea intoxicants stimulate sociability; in politics a “bed wetter” is a politician who reacts nervously to every passing vicissitude, the label usually applied by those with safe seats to those holding marginal electorates; to be “all wet” is (1) to be mistaken or (2) a really bad idea, both used since the early 1920s (thought built on the earlier sense of “ineffectual”, perhaps ultimately from the circa 1700 slang meaning "drunken"; in computing there’s hardware and software and those working in AI (artificial intelligence) refer to the human brain as wetware; In crime and espionage, wet-work is a euphemistic reference to jobs involving assassination and known also as a wet affair, a wet job & wet stuff, all phrases alluding presumably to other people’s blood.  In historic UK slang, a wet was someone thought ineffectual, feeble or with no strength of character, a weak or sentimental person (although this use faded as the specific political construction (qv) which emerged in the 1980s prevailed.

Dry (pronounced drahy)

(1) Free from moisture or excess moisture; not moist; not wet.

(2) In climatic matters, having or characterized by little or no rain.

(3) Characterized by absence, deficiency, or failure of natural or ordinary moisture.

(4) Not under, in, or on water.

(5) Not now containing or yielding water or other liquid; depleted or empty of liquid.

(6) In dairying and other forms of animal-based milk production, a beast not yielding milk (also used by analogy for oil wells).

(7) The absence of lachrymosity, free from tears.

(8) Drained or evaporated away.

(9) Desiring drink; thirsty; causing thirst.

(10) A food (typically toast) served or eaten without butter, conserves (jam, jelly), honey etc.

(11) Of food, lacking enough moisture or juice to be satisfying or succulent.

(12) Of bread and bakery products, stale.

(13) Of or relating to non-liquid substances or commodities (usually as dry goods, dry measure; dry provisions etc).

(14) Of wines (though now also used of beer, cocktails and other beverages), not sweet.

(15) Characterized by or favoring prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors for use in beverages (mostly prohibition-era US but still a term used in political debates in “dry” counties).

(16) As a general descriptor, anything plain; bald; unadorned; something expressed in a straight-faced, matter-of-fact way.

(17) Dull; uninteresting:

(18) Indifferent; cold; unemotional.

(19) An unproductive period.

(20) Of lumber, fully seasoned.

(21) Of masonry construction, built without fresh mortar or cement.

(22) Of a wall, ceiling, etc in an interior, finished without the use of fresh plaster.

(23) In ceramics unglazed (if deliberate) or insufficiently glazed (if in error).

(24) In art, hard and formal in outline, or lacking mellowness and warmth in color.

(25) To make something free from moisture (or with its moisture substantially reduced.

(26) Something tedious, barren, boring, tiresome, jejune.

(27) Of wit, shrewd and keen in an impersonal, sarcastic, or laconic way.

(28) In sheep farming, a ewe without a lamb after the mating season

(29) In electronics, an imperfectly soldered electrical joint (where the solder has not adhered to the metal), thus reducing conductance

(30) In food preservation, to preserve (meat, vegetables, fruit etc) by removing the moisture.

(31) In chemistry as anhydrous, free from or lacking water in any state, regardless of the presence of other liquids.

(32) In audio engineering, a sound recording free from applied audio effects (especially reverberations).

(33) In animal breeding, an impotent male beast (applied especially to bulls).

(34) In the rituals of certain Christian denominations, of a mass, service, or rite: involving neither consecration nor communion.

In acting (especially on stage, to forget one’s lines.

Pre 900: From the Middle English drye, dryge, drüȝe & drie (without moisture, comparatively free from water or fluid), from the Old English drӯge, from the Proto-Germanic draugiz (source also of the Middle Low German dröge, the Middle Dutch druge, the Dutch droog, the Old High German truckan & trucchon, the German trocken and the Old Norse draugr), from the Germanic root dreug- (dry), from the primitive Indo-European dherg (to strengthen; become hard), from dher (to hold, support).  Dry is a noun, verb and adjective, dryable, drier, driest, dryer (or dryest) are adjectives, dryly an adverb, dries, drying & dried are verbs and dryness is a noun.  The noun plural is drys or dries; the spelling drie is long obsolete.

The meaning "barren" dates from the mid fourteenth century.  As applied to “persons showing no emotion, use emerged circa 1200; of humor or jests (delivered without show of pleasantry, caustic, sarcastic), it’s of early fifteenth century origin (and implied in dryly).  The sense of "uninteresting, tedious" was from the 1620s.  Of wines, brandy etc which were "free from sweetness or fruity flavor", use dates from circa 1700.  Dry was first used of places prohibiting alcoholic drink in 1870 (although, ad-hoc, there had been “dry feasts” & “dry festivals” at which no alcohol was served since the late fifteenth century and the colloquial dry (prohibitionist) entered US political slang in 1888.  Prior to and during the prohibition era in the US, the “drys” were those who supported prohibition and in the isolated counties in the US where it’s still imposed, they remain a (local) political force.  Dry goods, first so named in the 1560s were those dispensed in dry, not liquid, measure.  Dry land (that not under the sea) as a concept (first in the law of real property) was from the early thirteenth century.  The dry-nurse (a back formation from wet-nurse) was “one who attends and feeds a child but does not suckle it", use dating from the 1590s.  The dry-run (rehearsal) dates from 1941 and was adopted by the military and just about everyone else dates from 1941.  Dry ice "solid carbon dioxide" became available in 1925.  Dry out in the drug addiction sense is from 1967.

The first process of dry-cleaning (to clean clothes or textiles without using water) appears to have been advertised first in 1817.  The long-known "fungal decay in timber" was in 1779 first described as dry rot, the figurative sense of "concealed or unsuspected inward degeneration" dating from 1821.  As a hair-drying device, the first use of blow-dry appears to be a surprisingly late 1971.  The process of preserving vegetables as freeze-dried was a wartime development in the US, first announced as a patented commercial process in 1946, the earlier sun-dried documented since the 1630s although the technique dates from early human culture.  The dry sense of humor (with apparent unintentional humor or sarcasm) was noted first in the early fifteenth century, dryly meaning "without moisture" in the 1560s and "without affection" by the 1620s.  The drywall (plasterboard, sheetrock; gypsum-based manufactured panel used in interior construction) was first sold in 1952, the earlier use (1778) of dry wall meaning (a wall built without mortar).  A drier (used since the early fourteenth century as a surname) as “one who dries and bleaches cloth," agent noun from the verb dry (that which dries or is used in drying), dated from the 1520s.  Dryer was used to describe a piece of machinery in 1848 although the first drying-machine appears to have entered service as early as 1819.

Wet & Dry

Wet and dry must be one of the most obvious and commonly cited dichotomies in English and there are a number of noted examples.

Perilli's Dry, Intermediate and Wet tyres for use in Formula One.

In motorsport, there are wet and dry tyres, the former (obviously) used when the track is wet and the latter (also called “slicks”) when the surface is dry.  There are also various flavors of “intermediate tread” tyres for conditions which are damp rather than wet.  The difference is that dry tyres have no tread (the grooves cut into the contact surface) pattern, the purpose of which is to provide passages into which the water is forced to be expelled at the sides.  In the early 1970s, there were competitions with rules which demanded the use of street tyres (ie those used on street cars as opposed to racing rubber) and some drivers discovered a unique property of BF Goodrich’s square-shouldered T/A Radial was that if the tread was (in advance) carefully worn down to a certain point, it would behave much like a slick and last long enough not to have to be replaced for the duration of most races (or until fuel-stop sessions in endurance events).

In the law of real property, there are wet and dry leases, typically issued in conjunction when handling riparian property.  The leases are often divided because it’s not uncommon for the one commercial operation to have part of a business on land and part on water (such as a marina or docking facility) and being very different, may have different operators.  It’s thus normal commercial practice for a head-lessor (perhaps a hotel operator) to enter into both a dry lease (for the hotel property on land) and the wet lease (for whatever happens on the water) and then sub-lease the wet lease to someone with the appropriate expertise.

Wet and dry sandpaper is the tip of the sanding iceberg.  Wet sanding, which is sanding with the addition of water to act as a lubricant, is less abrasive than dry sanding, and results in a smoother finish and whenever possible, it’s best to wet-sand when finishing a project.  Dry sanding removes more material, and smooths rough material more quickly and if the ultimate in smoothness isn’t required, is the choice of many.  So, wet sand for a super smooth finish but the two are of course frequently combined, dry sanding first to remove most of the unwanted material before wet sanding.

Lindsay Lohan in Cynthia Rowley wetsuit.

In diving, wetsuits and drysuits use different engineering but operate on a similar principle.  Wetsuits use a layer of water (heated by the wearer's body) to provide insulation while a drysuit uses a layer of air and is completely water-proof, stopping water from coming into contact with the skin.  Wetsuits are made from rubber neoprene and are designed so the diver’s body heat is retained but, unlike drysuits, are not waterproof.  For that reason, a loose fitting wetsuit is suitable only for warm-water conditions; skin-tight wetsuits are ideal for cold water surf because they are warm and permit more movement than drysuits.  Where the drysuit excels is in predominately out-of-water conditions such as kayaking, paddle-boarding or water-based photography.  For extreme winter conditions a drysuit is really the only choice because for warmth, additional layers can be added beneath the suit, something not possible with a wetsuit.

In northern Australia, the concepts of spring, summer, autumn (fall) & winter really don’t make climatic sense the way defined seasons do in more temperate regions.  Instead, there’s just the wet and the dry.  The dry is long and hot, rain is rare and towards the end of the dry there is the “build-up” which unfolds over a month or more as the air becomes warmer and heavier, the clouds in the evenings begin to darken and the humidity becomes increasingly oppressive.  Locals call it the period of mango madness because as the fruit ripens, emotional instability is apparent in some, mood swings induced by the inexorable rise in heat and humidity.  The wet usually begins in late November or early December and is marked by heavy monsoonal downpours, spectacular lightning, increased cyclone activity and a rise in crimes of violence.

Makita 20 litre Wet Dry Vacuum Cleaner 1000W.

Wet and dry vacuum cleaners are devices regarded with some awe because we’re all schooled to take care to ensure water is kept way from electrical appliances yet the manufacturers of these things encourage us to suck water into them.  They’re obviously of great utility in handling wet floors or sodden carpets but can be used anywhere where something wet is the problem and suction the answer such as cleaning hot tubs or removing surface condensation.

During the 1980s, in the corrosive, gut-wrenching world of Tory politics, the factions became not quite formalized but certainly well-understood as the “wets and drys”.  The origin lay in the use of the term “wet” which the right-wing fanatics (of which there were a few in the Thatcher government) applied to their less hard-line colleagues (defined as those not in favor of repealing the twentieth century).  Wet was an old term of derision in historic UK slang, someone thought ineffectual, feeble or with no strength of character, a weak or sentimental person.  In an effort to retaliate, the wets labelled the fanatics “the drys” but this backfired because the drys loved the idea and were soon describing themselves thus' presumable because while "a bit wet" had long been an insult, "dry humor" had always been thought clever and sophisticated.