The Mousetrap Scene, Hamlet’s Lucid Dream
Ş. Kaya
ANQ. A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews September 7, 2020 DOI: 10.1080/0895769x.2020.1814686 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Lucid dreaming |
| Key points | Argues that Hamlet's soliloquy and his word 'Nothing' reflect a literal desire for sleep and dreams, influenced by sleep deprivation, rather than solely a metaphor for suicide. |
Abstract
The words uttered by the eponymous protagonist of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1599–1601), “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” (3.1.64–67), are almost always read as thoughts of suicide that analogize dreaming sleep to death. 1 Yet it seems possible to take them also in the literal sense, as an outright expression of thoughts of sleep, during which one floats in a void bodiless, and the dreams the experience brings in the process. By reason of the conundrum of revenge for his murdered father, coupled with the sorrow of loss through which he is trying to work, Prince Hamlet is unable to sleep, at least regularly, 2 and is yearning to do so, for sleep is the medium to induce pleasant dreams. Sleep deprived, and so in a miasma of somnolence, he may have furthermore failed to ward off a sudden sleep attack, as he lay with his head in Ophelia’s lap, perhaps no sooner than he says “Nothing” (3.2.114) to her. The term in question, tantamount to a little grunt of vexation, bespeaks that he feels too lazy, or drowsy, to chat even with the girl dearest to him; alongside “not thing,” with Fitzmaurice splitting the word (20), which can be construed positively as a “living void” (FitzMaurice 19), relatable to sleep, not reduced to blankness or nullity but productive of vivid dreams. To add to these interpretative explications, “less sleep means more dreams,” as Christie Nicholson puts it. Hamlet, though taking just a small, quick nap, may therefore have straight away entered into REM, the deepest stage of sleep, during which, Morley explains, “brain capacity is [. . .] enhanced” (107) and the sleeper can practice lucid dreaming (108). basis for the above set of interrelated assertions is the fact that the Mousetrap
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on lucid dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| What I make up when I wake up: anti-experience views and narrative fabrication of dreams | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| New perspectives for the study of lucid dreaming: From brain stimulation to philosophical theories of self-consciousness | 2010 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Lucid dreaming: Evidence and methodology | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |