Sandman in Slavic folklore and mythology. Nanosleep and microsiesta

Preface

The character Drem and the state of slumber that he personifies are mentioned in many genres of Slavic folklore: spells, lullabies, play songs, wedding and lyrical songs, in ethnographic descriptions, which gives us quite a lot of information about them. However, in works on Slavic mythology, Drem is considered extremely rarely, sparingly, incompletely, which, of course, impoverishes our ideas about the Slavic picture of the World.

Probably with the best intentions, some authors fill the gaps in Slavic mythology with fictional gods such as Vyshen, Kryshen, who have nothing in common with folk Slavic culture and beliefs. And authentic Slavic mythological characters, including Drem, remain in the shadow of oblivion and misunderstanding. An example of incompleteness and distortion of the image is found in the book “Russian Legends and Traditions” (E. Grushko, Y. Medvedev, M. 2007), where Drem is written briefly about Drem, which allows the text to be quoted in full:

“Drema is an evening or night spirit in the form of a kind old woman with soft, gentle hands, or in the form of a little man with a quiet soothing voice. At dusk, Sandman wanders under the windows, and when the darkness thickens, he seeps through the cracks or slips through the door. Sandman comes to the children, closes their eyes, straightens the blanket, strokes their hair; with adults this spirit is not so gentle and sometimes brings nightmares.”

This is what is called a half-truth, which is worse than a lie. The authors described Drema, relying mainly on data from lullabies, without taking into account that the image of Drema is found in the erotic amusements of young people, that special types of wedding bread, Rusal games, Kupala flowers, wreaths and bouquets of various plants, as well as a night bird and a whole class of butterflies sleeping during the day. That in the Ryazan region they celebrated “Dreamy Day”, that in Russia and Belarus there were rituals of “farewell to the slumber”, and the Lusatians called the “drowsy” character of the mummer and the stuffed animal that was thrown into the meeting of girls.

All these data (especially the calling “drema” of flowers, wreaths and bouquets) indicate that the image of the “good old lady”, although very nice, does not correspond to popular ideas about the mythological character Drem. It becomes obvious that an unfortunate gap has been discovered in modern works on Slavic mythology, which I will try to fill below by collecting and putting in order the scattered data about this character.

1. About the word “dream”, its close, distant and possible relatives

In modern everyday speech, the words “drema”, “drowsiness” (and other cognates) are actively used, and new, previously unknown phrases are formed with these words, which indicates the relevance of the topic.

According to D. Salov (Kursk), his non-smoking father called a long break from work a “smoke break with a nap”; students had the definition of a “drowsy lecture”, for example, the famous ufologist F. Siegel, who taught the subject of descriptive geometry at the institute, was impossible to listen to due to the monotony of his speech, the audience was dozing or playing cards; While serving in the army, I had to hear the command “Quit your napping...your mother!” instead of the statutory “Rise!”; At home, the mother-in-law woke up her grandson with the words “get up, sleepyhead!”, but she never woke up her granddaughter with such words (this is an important note, we’ll see why below).

Actually, “to doze” means to be drowsy, to sit half asleep, to fall asleep slightly in the most light sleep; and “drowsiness”, “drowsiness” is a tendency to sleep, drowsiness or the beginning of soporific, the lightest sleep; “dreams” - dreams, dreams, visions; dreams, a play of wandering imagination (V. Dal. Explanatory dictionary of the living Great Russian language. Volume one. M. 1995, pp. 491-492). These ancient, common Slavic words come from the Proto-Slavic form *drěmati (M. Vasmer Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language, volume 1, St. Petersburg 1996, p. 537).

“The Slavic word “drema” has the Germanic cognates dream (English) and Traum (German) with vowels in the same place. I would venture to suggest that drema is one of the ancient Indo-European words that has been preserved in almost its original form since the time of Slavic-Baltic-Germanic unity. Dream(dri:m) - in English this is a dream, a dream, a dream, a dream. “I have a dream” - without context, it can mean both “I have a dream” and “I am dreaming.” Traum is a dream in German” (V. Zhernakov, from personal correspondence). In Scandinavian countries there is the concept of drømmehagen - “garden of dreams”; to be in it means to live in dreams.

drømmehagen

All these words are related to Latin ones. dormiō, dormīre “to sleep”, further, Old Indian. drā́ti, drā́yatē “sleeping”, Greek. δαρθάνω “sleep”, aor. ἔδραθε and go back to the Proto-Indo-European *dre- “sleep”.

The Russian expression “dense forest” means a dense (and therefore dark) forest, with rubble, impassable (and therefore restricting movement), a dense forest in which there is silence, which in the totality of influences causes a sleepy state, drowsiness, during which visions may come , as if living in such a forest, compare with Pushkin: “There the forest and the valley are full of visions...”.

Today, the expression “dense forest” is associated with NOT knowledge: “strangers are a dense forest”, “for me physics is a dense forest”; stupid, uneducated people are called dense, “stoeros clubs” (that is, huge oaks, trees growing standing).

The fact that this was not always the case is told to us by fairy tales, in which the forest and individual large, old trees often turn out to be talking, sharing information. For example, in the fairy tale “The Prophetic Oak,” the old man lies to the old woman: “A wonderful thing is happening in the world: in the forest, an old oak tree told me everything that happened and what will happen, he guessed!” The old woman believes, goes to the oak tree, knowing in advance how to communicate with the prophetic tree: “... she fell down in front of the oak tree, prayed, and howled: “Oaky oak, speechful grandfather, what should I do?”” (Russian folk tales by A.N. Afanasyev. M 1957, No. 446, p. 261).

From the point of view of the “human code”, trees (and more broadly, all plants) are, as it were, in a state of dormancy. Judge for yourself, dozing people are most often in an upright position, sitting (see V. Dahl’s definition: “dozing” - ..., sitting half asleep..) or even standing (see below photo of an old woman in church). During a nap, a person may bend over, move his arms, make soft sounds, mutter, whisper, or scream. So are plants, the main feature of which is “stand-upness”, a vertical position in one place without the ability to move, but at the same time the plant can sway, wave branches, bend over, make sounds (creak, “whisper” leaves).

For quite a long time it was believed that the name of the Celtic clergy “Druids” comes from words meaning “tree”, “oak”. It has now been established that the Gaulish form "druides" (in singular"druis"), as well as the Irish "drui", go back to a single prototype "dru-wid-es", that is, "very learned", containing the same root as the Latin verb "videre", "to see", Gothic “witan”, Germanic “wissen”, “to know”, Slavic “to know”.

However, in Celtic languages ​​the words for "science" and "forest" were homonyms (Gaulish "vidu-"). That is, we again return to the fact that the Druids are people not only “very learned” but also “very forest” people who comprehended “forest science”, received their magical knowledge in the dense forest and were in contact with trees (and other plants), and this evokes the idea that “dru-wid-es” can be understood as “seers in slumber,” “seers slumbering in the dense forest.”

At the other “pole” of the Indo-European ecumene, the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, was born under a tree with soothing, drowsy properties, and gained spiritual knowledge and wisdom in a grove, meditating under the tree. Images of Buddha in a state of meditation show us a dormant figure.

Currently, it is believed that the words “drema”, “tree” and “druid” come from different Indo-European roots, which does not exclude their relationship at a deeper, for example, Nostratic level, but this is a matter of separate linguistic research. We will only pay attention to their inclusion in the general semantic circle, in which people and trees in a state of slumber exude and receive knowledge.

The proverb “it is seen in a dream, it seems in a dream” tells us about the Russian people’s understanding of the difference between sleep and sleep. And indeed, what a person sees in a dream during sleep perceives it as reality, but this is an illusion, and when dreaming in a state of drowsiness, a person thinks that he sees an illusion, a miracle, but these dreams, dreams are the conscious activity of his brain, which, if desired, can be directed, like Buddha, on the right path.

As you know, the meaning of a word does not exhaust its meaning. “The true meaning of a single word is determined, ultimately, by the richness of all the motives present in the mind and related to the thought expressed by a given word” (B. Köpetsi “Sign, Meaning, Literature” in the collection “Semiotics and Artistic Creativity”, M. 1977 , p.45). Below we will try to penetrate into the meaning, into the essence of the Slavic phenomenon of Sandman in the broad context of reality. Let us also take into account that in some Slavic languages ​​the word “sense” means “sensation”.

2. Feelings of drowsiness or Drowsiness as a growth stimulator

IN textbook for universities “Russian ritual songs” by Yu.G. Kruglov, considering game songs, writes: “... The image of Sandman, for example, is unclear in the songs; Drema was contacted:
...Enough, Dremushka, take a nap...
Take, Drema, whoever you want...
Kiss, Dreamman, as much as you can!” (M. 1989, p. 139).

This is a quote from a youth round dance game, part of the “kissing” group - the “Dream” player is in a circle, chooses a couple of the opposite sex, kisses and sits him or her down or puts him (her) in his place. The misunderstanding (even among specialists!) of the image of Sandman in youth games is due to the fact that he is associated primarily with the “sweet couple” from lullabies for children Sleep and Sandman: “Sleep and sleep, come into the child’s eyes...” (Rhymes , counting rhymes, fables, M. maj1989, No. 246, p. 93).

In lullabies, the presence of Sleep and Dozing is quite understandable - young children need to sleep a lot or doze serenely for full physical and mental development. Let's try to figure out why the “harmless” Sandman from children's lullabies suddenly appears in the erotic games of village youth. And is this the same Sandman? To do this, let's turn to the texts that mention the character in question.

In the wedding “banter” of the guest girl we find a situation almost similar to the above-mentioned kissing game: Drema (the guy) is looking out for one of the girls:

“A sleepy man walks on the floorboards,
Looks at the girls:
All the girls are white
Everything is red, blush -
There’s only Nastenka here...
Sits dumb,
Neutera sits!
Grigoryushka came to her...
Brought her a joint of soap:
- Here, Natalya, wash your face...
You'll be whiter
And it’s nicer to me!” (" Ritual poetry. Book 2, family and everyday folklore.” M. 1997. p. 404).

Despite the fact that the song in question is marked by the collector as “coril”, it has the form of a “scenario” and could well be a game that ends not with a kiss with the chosen one, but with the gift of soap to her, which in folk tradition was included in the list of obligatory gifts from the groom to the bride, that is, this text is not related to hygiene, but to gender relations.

Among the Upper Lusatians, as well as among the Russians, the character drēmotka is related to youth amusements; spinners dressed up in games of dozing (Slavic Antiquities. Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. Volume 5. M. 2012, “Dream”, p. 121).

We see a version of the round dance game with a similar character in the Ufa province:
“Drema is sitting and dozing herself.

- That's enough, Dremushka, take a nap,
It's time, Dremushka, get up!
(The guy gets up.)
- Look, Drema, at the girls!
(Pren goes around the girls.)
- Take, Drema, whoever you want!

- Sit down, Drema, on your knees!
(The guy puts the girl on his lap.)
- Chatter, Drema, on the head!
(The guy strokes the girl’s head.)
- Kiss, Drema, for love!
(They kiss; the round dance begins the song again; the role of Sandman is played by a girl and the words of the song change accordingly.) "(Abridged. Ritual poetry. Book 1, family and everyday folklore." M. 1997. pp. 335-336).

It has long been established that such playful actions were carried out with the magical purpose of strengthening the reproductive forces of Nature, as is directly stated in other folk songs:
“...Yes, kiss the guy on the mouth:
There will be rye often
Yes, the threshing…” (recorded in the Vologda province. Yu.G. Kruglov “Russian ritual songs”, M. 1989, p. 139).

“Kiss me on the mouth, girl,
So that the rye is thick...” (Recorded by the Russians in Latvia. Yu.G. Kruglov “Russian ritual songs, p. 139).

frame from the film "The Young Lady-Peasant"

That is, the Dream of kissing games is associated not only with the arrangement of the personal life of young people, but also with the strengthening of the vitality of plants, and this function coincides with the purpose of the Dream's calls to babies in lullabies, since in tradition it is believed that children grow better in their sleep:

“Sleep at your hem, so you’ll grow more…” (Rhymes, rhyming rhymes, fables, M. 1989, No. 246, p. 93).

Or:
“Our Tanya will fall asleep,
It will grow in a dream,
Bye-bye-bye-bye.
Soon a big one will grow,
Yes, it will be a trick...
...to play with the guys” (Rhymes, counting rhymes, fables, M. 1989, No. 246, p. 89).

Interestingly, the function of Sandman as a growth stimulator has an analogue in ancient Indian mythology: the god Savitar (Stimulant) was originally the personification of the abstract principle of stimulation; its connection with the sun is the result of later development (V.N. Toporov).
The observation of the positive influence of Doze on the growth of those who need to grow (babies and plants) proves that in the genre of lullabies for children and play songs of youth, Doze is one and the same character, despite his obvious eroticism in the games of adults, and maybe thanks to her.

Let us pay attention to the fact that Drema in youth games treats the opposite sex in the same way as children are usually treated: “... The guy puts the girl on his lap... The guy strokes the girl on the head.” And according to the lullabies with children, Drema behaves in the same way as adult youth communicate with each other: “...Drema came, / She lay down in Polya’s cradle, / She hugged Polya with her hand.” That is, Sandman is equally tangibly affectionate with children and adults.

And this “non-separation” attitude towards children and youth speaks of the antiquity of the image of Sandman, since the period of childhood stood out and took shape into a special stage of human development relatively recently. Even in the Middle Ages, a person from infancy, barely getting on his feet, immediately moved into the world of adults, bypassing childhood (the time of imitative games), and began how he could work for himself and society. In folk culture, even the “cradle boy” had his own duties: “Sleep and doze - / This is Vanyushin’s work.” Nursery rhymes, rhymes, fables. M. 1989, No. 1571, p. 63).

Interestingly, both children and young people had no shame in taking a nap during the day, anywhere. In a lullaby about a child: “Sleep and slumber.../Where they find Taisichka,/There they will put her to sleep...” (Rhymes, rhymes, fables. M. 1989, No. 11, pp. 24-25).

In a wedding song about a girl: “... Tatyana took the berries,... / Bramshi berries, fell asleep...” (Ritual poetry, book 2, family and household folklore, M. 1997, no. 800, p. 497). That is, the girl was in a kind of “garden of dreams” (Scand. Drømmehagen).

A girl who fell asleep while spinning was told: “Sleep, girl, the kikimora will spin for you, your mother will weave”; “Sleep, Mokusha will spin yarn for you.” This behavior of girls began to be considered laziness relatively recently, when it was forgotten that kikimora / Mokusha (two forms of one Goddess) helped good girls with spinning, and confused the bad girls with yarn and poured garbage into their eyes. That is, these sayings were initially not a mockery of the unspinner, but a wish for the right girl.

We find the same thing in relation to unmarried young men:
“...Karolushka let the svavo can into the green meadows...
And the little king himself lay down under a bush...
Caroline had a wise dream..." (Collection of folk songs by P.V. Kirievsky. Leningrad 1986, No. 225, p. 105).

However, the total amount of sleep should not exceed certain limits. In the Arkhangelsk province they noted: “If a single man sleeps a lot, he will get himself a crooked-eyed wife” (Efimenko P.S. “Customs and beliefs of the peasants of the Arkhangelsk province,” M. 2009, p. 432). It was believed that large sleepyheads could “give themselves a fever.” That is, such overly dormant people will toil.

In this regard, we are interested in the reconstruction of one of the Indo-European myths, set out by D. Razauskas in his work “Mother Maya...”, in which he writes that the original ideas, assumed to be the semantic basis of the I.-E. tāiā can be summarized as follows: the deity looks with an unblinking gaze at the true reality, but begins to blink and plunges into a dream, into a dream, thereby giving rise to the “illusion of the world.” Next, the deity loses control over his sleep, loses his dominant position in the world and turns into a secondary and dubious wonder, and reality, being, existence begins to be perceived by consciousness as a real torment (in the collection Balto-Slavic Studies XV, M. 2002, p. 293- 294).

Venetsianov, 1824

But taking a little nap during the day was considered quite natural in Slavic folk culture, because at night young people led an active lifestyle:

“I didn’t sleep all night,
I lost at someone else's gate,
I'm with the young guys
With the unmarried, single..." (Collection of folk songs by P.V. Kirievsky. Leningrad 1986, No. 225, p. 105).

3. Girls - butterflies - naps and their connection with the Gods

Our old people still remember that for traditional night festivities in the spring and summer in gardens, groves, oak groves, young people wore white outfits specially made for the holiday: on Trinity “Girls wore white dresses without fail. ...And the slaves wore trousers and a white shirt with a belt. The girls were ordinary with their helmets.” (Traditional culture of the Ulyanovsk Prisurye ethnodialect dictionary. Volume 2, M. 2012, p. 564).

Let us note that among the Western Slavs, the family of nocturnal butterflies called Volyanka moths is called dremotki, because during the day they sit motionless on tree trunks, fences, walls, that is, they seem to be dozing. In this family, we are interested in the goldentail, złotozadkowa drěmotka, a white butterfly that loves to settle in gardens and oak groves with golden hairs on its abdomen, gathered in a tassel at the bottom, like a “brown braid below the waist” on a girl in a white outfit.

Napper (Goldwing)

And the males of this insect have a reddish abdomen, like fellows in white shirts with red embroidery from top to bottom.

Among the lower Lusatians, who have been surrounded by Germans for a long time, in a poem about the departure of huntsmen with dogs (Jagaŕe tšochtaju, / Psy z nimi nochtaju), the appearance of a drowsiness butterfly is associated with the night outing of Chernobog’s “wild hunt”:
… Lej, drěmotka mychańc swój pśestŕejo
A carnego boga ryśaŕstwo
Se pokažo neět
A śěgńo pśez swět.

These ghosts punish the vicious and lazy.

In Bulgarian songs - prayers for rain, “pipiruda zlata” is mentioned, which means “golden butterfly”: “Pipiruda zlata/Pred Perun summer...” (Rakovsky). Perhaps here we are also talking about the ubiquitous goldentail butterfly - a dormant butterfly that prefers to live in oak forests, dedicated to Perun in ancient times.

There is an analogy in the behavior and appearance of the participants in the nightly spring-summer youth festivities in the east of the Slavic world and the white-golden butterfly of the Volnyanka family, called a drowser in the west of the Slavic world, which is mentioned next to Chernobog’s retinue. And among the southern Slavs, a certain golden butterfly asks Perun (God) for water in the fields, “working” for the harvest. We will not fantasize about the connection between Chernobog and Perun, but in Slavic folklore the connection between the golden butterfly pipiruda and the goldentail butterfly - napping with the Gods and their bestowing of good luck (on the hunt or in the fields) is obvious.

In mythology, all butterflies are associated with the soul; the verb to flutter refers not only to butterflies, but also to people who move easily (mostly young women). Against the background of the above Western and South Slavic data on butterflies, the stable East Slavic phrases maiden-soul, darlings are red maidens appear in a new aspect, perhaps initially associated with night rituals in oak groves of fair-haired beauties in white, imitating in their dances butterflies - souls in contact with the Gods .

In the Slavic tradition, it is believed that spring is a time of close contact with another world, with deceased relatives who manifest themselves in the first greenery. Perhaps the nightly youth festivities in white during this period were perceived by society as collective night vigils for all the deceased, similar to the archaic erotic “mortuary games” of the Carpathian highlanders during night vigils at the funeral of a particular person. In these games they tried to “wake up” the deceased - they tickled the nostrils with a straw or inserted a smoldering woolen thread into the nose.

The fact that young people could help the dead with their “correct” behavior is evidenced by the fact that lovers’ meetings quite often took place on bridges. In tradition, many public bridges over streams and rivers, as well as decks “on the dirt,” were built (or paid for) by a person for the people’s memory of him after his death (people will walk along the bridge, remembering me) or by relatives of the deceased for the same purpose. It was believed that everyone who walked across such a structure helped the soul of the deceased bridge builder to cross the mythological bridge to the afterlife. Mothers even specially sent their children to run across such bridges, and young people organized their meetings on them.

Not participating in youth night festivities was condemned: “Why, Sashenka, isn’t it a shame / to go to bed early in the evening?...” (Pereslavl Zalesye...p. 162). During active evening-night communication between the sexes, a sleepy state was indecent and punished: “It is not uncommon here to meet dozing, half-asleep party-goers, who in a more lively girl cause the so-called joke to prick the hassle. To do this, they roll up a woolen thread and stick it into the dormouse’s nostrils...” (Efimenko P.S. “Customs and beliefs of the peasants of the Arkhangelsk province,” M. 2009, p. 396). Let us remember that among the Lusatians, Chernobog’s retinue, which began its activities with the appearance of the twilight slumber butterfly, punished those who behaved incorrectly.

From my personal observations, I note that the older generation still has a strong idea of ​​the admissibility and correctness of a youth nap during the day: once I was traveling during the day, standing on a crowded bus. Elderly people crowded around me, and a young girl was dozing on the nearest seat. Someone made a remark to her, she did not react. An old woman stood up for her, saying: “Leave the girl alone. It’s so difficult for young people - they work and study, and they also have to arrange their personal lives. She’s tired, poor thing, let her sleep.” I thought that they were relatives or acquaintances, but at the final stop it became clear from their behavior that these were complete strangers. The girl silently left through one door, the grandmother through the other.

That is, the old woman sacrificed her own comfort for the sake of resting in an unknown place for a tired girl, probably subconsciously considering a girl’s daytime nap to be a justified and useful thing for society. Or maybe deliberately, because for many centuries in the folk culture of the Slavs, maiden naps were a “highlight”, a distinctive, ethnically defining feature. More on this below.

4. Maiden nap as one of the aspects of Slavic ethnic behavior

In a decent Slavic family, girls of marriageable age were pitied (to certain limits) and allowed to sleep longer. The lamentations of the brides mention “the late maiden awakening.” (I. Shangina “Russian Girls”, St. Petersburg, 2007, p. 287). This ancient rule of folk life on an intuitive level continues to this day: above we cited a message from D. Salov from Kursk that his mother-in-law woke him up with the words “get up, sleepyhead!” only the grandson, but not the granddaughter, that is, as if she reproached the boy for his sleepiness, but not the girl.

A. Venetsianov “Sleeping Girl”

We find the opposite attitude towards sleep in the old Danish ballad “The Morning Dream of a Girl,” which tells about the orphan Vessa, her unhappy life in her aunt’s castle and her happy marriage with the prince of the Wends (Western Slavs). This girl, unlike the other inhabitants of the castle, loved to sleep in bed in the morning, for which she received rods, because among the Germanic peoples girls were not supposed to sleep for a long time:

She (the aunt) wakes everyone up with a kind word,
And Vesse wakes him up with a hard rod...

“You will indulge in dreams like this,
I won’t give it up for the young knight”...

“I saw so many morning dreams,
How many colorful updates do girls have..."

Note that in ancient dream books the importance of morning dreams is noted: “Dreams preceding the morning are incomparably more important than sleep at the beginning of the night” (“Sleep and Dreams”, Warsaw 1912, p. 6). Vesse's dreams are filled with mythological Slavic symbolism - she swims across the sea in the form of a duck, covers entire fields in the land of the Vendians with her wings, a linden tree receives an overseas guest on its roots and bends its branches towards her.
It is interesting that Buddha found Awakening while meditating in a doze under the ficus sacred tree, whose leaves are surprisingly similar to the leaves of the linden tree - the sacred tree of the Western Slavs, under which the bride of the Wendish prince strove in her morning dream: “...I sat down on the root of the linden tree, / Bowed the branches my linden..."

Ficus sacred

The aunt is jealous of her niece’s dreams; she “doesn’t know how” to see them and offers to exchange the dream for clothes sewn during the summer. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the Wendish king, who demands that Vesse be given to him as his wife. The aunt talks about the “wrong” behavior of the royal darling, which is not traditional for a Danish woman, who, “in shame” - a long sleep, or rather, slumber, “is looking for happiness” - is trying to see her betrothed:

“Girls sew with gold all day long,
And Vesya is sleeping, it’s obvious she’s too lazy to sew.”

...She began to pull Vesya by the hair:
“There is no point in looking for happiness in the shame...”

But for the Slavic king, the girl’s long sleep is not at all an obstacle to marriage:
“I’m not used to going back on my word,
You can sleep as long as you want... (Scandinavian ballad, Leningrad, 1978, pp. 169-171.).

Judging by the name, Wesse had Slavic roots - the double Danish “s” in her name could convey the Slavic sound “sch”, that is, the name Wesse is “speaking”, and means “Prophetic”, seeing prophetic dreams. Although the ballad does not have specific historical prototypes, there are numerous examples of marriages between the nobility of the Slavic and Germanic peoples. For example, Eric of Pomerania, king of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, at the beginning of his journey was Boguslav of Pomerania, the son of Wartislaw VII and Mary of Mecklenburg.

We will also take into account the fact that in southern Denmark there are place names of Slavic origin, which “... with a high degree of probability indicates the presence of a Slavic (Polabian or Vendian) community on these islands (Lolland, Falster, Møne). In addition, there is reason to assume the absence of a compact Danish community on these islands at least until the 13th century...” (Slavic linguistic and ethnolinguistic systems in contact with non-Slavic surroundings. M. 2002, p. 156). In any case, the Danish ballad “Morning Dream” bears clear traces of close Slavic-Danish contacts in the Middle Ages.

From ancient times among the Germanic peoples, the Slavs were known as lazy people. This is due to the fact that the Slavs’ attitude to sleep did not coincide with the German one: among the Russians, for example, until the beginning of the twentieth century, in folk culture it was customary to sleep after dinner, which for the Germans was wild.

However, it was believed that the visions that came in ordinary daytime sleep were not prophetic: “Dreams during the day in most cases cannot be given significance, and in general daytime dreams very rarely come true,” according to an ancient dream book (“Sleep and Dreams,” Warsaw, 1912 , p. 7). Also, the ordinariness (not the sacredness) of “quiet hour” for adults is evidenced by the fact that, if necessary, it was easily canceled: “If anyone starts any work, he should not sleep after lunch, because otherwise the work will not go well” ( Efimenko P.S. “Customs and beliefs of peasants of the Arkhangelsk province,” M. 2009, p. 435). In such situations, they said: “Dreamka doze, get away from me!”

It is interesting that the situation described in the Danish ballad about the prophetic morning dream of a girl before her wedding is typical of East Slavic wedding folklore. In many Russian weddings, the “prophetic dream of the bride” on the last night of her girlhood is an almost obligatory “common place”:
“What a good night I had, mother,
I haven't slept much,
The little ones slept - saw a lot:
What a wonderful dream I had!” (“Wedding. From matchmaking to the prince’s table.” M. 2001, pp. 191-192).

In this regard, the possibility arises that the Danes borrowed the plot of the song from the Slavs. The coincidence of pre-wedding “schemes” (a girl's nap in the morning - a dream - his story - marriage) in folk art of places quite distant from each other is hardly accidental. I think that this is an example of general girlish ethnic behavior, which among the Slavs was considered natural, correct, and useful, due to which in some regions of Russia it became a mandatory pre-wedding ritual.

5. Drowsy prophetic dreams of girls on the eve of the wedding

“Above all else they believe, especially women:
into dreams and dreams, giving them meaning..."
(Efimenko P.S. “Customs and beliefs of peasants of the Arkhangelsk province”, M. 2009, p. 423).

The last morning of girlhood, the wedding morning, in many Russian weddings began with lamentations in which the bride told “her” prophetic dream (or three dreams) to her mother and girlfriends, received in a state of drowsiness, often while sitting. And this is very significant, since the difference between normal sleep and dozing in general is this: they sleep mainly lying down in a calm state, and doze, as V. Dahl noted, while sitting or even standing. For example, during a bachelorette party, the bride told her dream that she saw when she “could not lie down”:

“...I feel so young,
I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t lie down,
Yes, I’ve seen a lot of dreams” (Russian family ritual folklore of Siberia and the Far East. Novosibirsk, 2002, p. 101).

Unfortunately, none of the folklore collectors found out from the performers whether real dreams could be told in the recitation, as Vesa told them in a Danish ballad. However, competent ethnographers note “The song text is relatively mobile in its lexical composition - it always “responds” to the urgent emotional request of the performer...” (E.V. Minenok. Variability as a textual factor. In the collection “Current problems of field folkloristics”, M. 2002, p. 78). That is, the performer could improvise in the score:

“Tell me, my friends,...
How did you sleep and lie down?
And for me, bitter soul,
I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t lie down,
Yes, I forgot a little!
I only saw three dreams...” (Once upon a time...Russian ritual poetry, St. Petersburg, 1998, p. 131).

Lizievsky “Sleeping girl with a candle”

These dreams must be interpreted. The mother, also voicing, explained to her daughter the meaning of what she saw during “forgetting,” that is, dozing. Sometimes the dream was explained by the bride herself, and sometimes a request was made to call a special interpreter, which emphasized its importance:
“Please go
You are with Osip the Beautiful,
Behind the sleepy and reasoner,
A storyteller for good people!...” (“Wedding. From matchmaking to the prince’s table.” M. 2001, p. 286).

It is significant that attention to girls’ morning doze dreams is found not only in folklore, but also in modern works of authorship. In M. Matusovsky’s poem “Cruiser Aurora” we see Aurora (Dawn) dozing on a cloudy morning and the author’s interest in what she sees:

“A quiet northern city slumbers,
Low sky overhead.
What are you dreaming about, the cruiser Aurora,
At the hour when morning rises over the Neva?

And it doesn’t matter that in reality Aurora is a warship, in the song she is a dreaming maiden. And, following the archetype (and not just knowledge of history), we understand that Aurora dreams of “suitors” - revolutionary sailors.

The drowsy visions of East Slavic brides consisted of symbols widely known in folk tradition: a falcon (groom), a duck (the maiden herself), a she-wolf with cubs (mother-in-law and sisters-in-law), a cuckoo (a married woman, the bride herself in the future), etc.

The dreams themselves in the tales varied according to the places they lived, but the circumstances of their “reception” (an anxious, drowsy state on the morning of the wedding) were the same in all recorded cases. All this suggests that before the “petrification” in songs - the parables of the bride’s dreams, there was a ritual of listening to and interpreting real girls’ dream visions. In order for visions to come, special practices were used, which are discussed below.

6. Ritual methods of causing things to fall asleep in maidens and pullets

In unison with the Danish ballad about the choice of a West Slavic prince as a wife of a girl who loves to sleep and dream dreams of marital content, the oral folk art of the Eastern Slavs is replete with examples of girlish dreams about guys and upcoming marriage. Moreover, these examples are drawn to us various ways causing such visions:

a) Rocking

“Like in a kindergarten, in a garden,
On an apple tree, on a branch
The cradle is hung;
In this cradle
Light Daria is sleeping...
Around the cradle of a girl...
Daria spoke to the girls...
- Jump (swing), girls, higher...
So that I can see further away
Where is my separation walking?...” (Kostroma province, lyric. Ritual poetry. Book 2, family and everyday folklore. M. 1997. p. 419).

The cradle in which the adult girl fit was obviously in the form of a hammock, like the one we see in the old photo of the mid-twentieth century:

In the song, Daria is “sleeping,” that is, her eyes are closed, but at the same time she “talked,” and this is a clear indication of the “lightest sleep,” that is, dozing. And the fact that Daria, with her eyes closed, is going to “see where her separation is walking” speaks of a desire for vision, and not about real vision. Obviously, Daria’s entourage, as if her “girl retinue,” fulfills the request of the “central” person.

Compare with an infant lullaby: “Bay-bya, I need to sleep... / Everyone will come to rock you...” (G.M. Naumenko “Ethnography of Childhood”, M. 1998, p. 144).

We see another example of the same treatment of infants (the centers of the world for the family) and youth, in which the infant and the maiden are collectively rocked by persons well disposed towards the object of the rocking. The difference between infant and girl swings is that the installation of swings for adults was a ritual among the Slavs dedicated to the spring holidays. The swing itself was perceived by the people as a magical act “for health”, “for long life”, for the growth of life. Children were also rocked during their infancy “for health”, for normal growth in their sleep. These were witchcraft rituals.

Sometimes old people also used the magical power of swinging, apparently for rejuvenation: “He (the old man living in the forest in a hut on a chicken shank) brought a scoop, hung a shaky pole, lay down himself (in the shaky one) and made the girl swing it...” (D.K. Zelenin. Great Russian fairy tales of the Vyatka province. St. Petersburg, 2002, No. 82, p. 257).

The fact that swinging (not only on a swing) is closely connected with the state of blissful slumber and contact with the Other World is clearly visible in the description of Muhammad’s feelings during his Ascension: “I was overcome by such joy and happiness that I began to swing right and left, as if I were drowsiness prevailed" (M. Eliade. Sacred texts of the peoples of the world. M, 1998, p. 500).

In this regard, it should be noted that words derived from the Proto-Slavic form *drěmati are similar to the verbs of Indo-European languages ​​which can denote, among other actions, actions with a swing (swinging, shaking, swaying, movement): “Proto-Slavic (mainly southern. ) *drьmati *drьmjǫ /* dрьrmajǫ “to fiddle with,…, shake”, …-, has a very exact correspondence in Latvian drimt drimu “to tremble, stagger, shake”…. It is necessary to take into account the Latvian trimet trimu “to move” (cf. ne trimet trim = ne drimet nedrim), ..., Latin tremor “trembling”... Ukrainian tremtiti “to tremble, tremble” (A. Anikin “Towards the study of Balto-Slavic lexical connections "in the collection "Ethnolinguistic and ethnocultural history of Eastern Europe", M. 1995, pp. 57-58).

Probably the words tree, tree come from the same verbs. For example, a village is not a row of wooden buildings, but a place cleared of trees, dereben, tereben, derebnya from the verb to tug, and a tree is an object that is tugged, pulled, shaken (to collect fruits, branches, clear the territory) and which can itself shake, stagger, tremble leaves.

This coincidence is hardly accidental, for example, shamanic rituals, well studied by science, include, among others, shaking, jumping, swaying to induce a special state of half-sleep in which the necessary visions come, among others, a journey to Heaven along the World Tree.

E. Berezina “On the swing”

On the other hand, we all know well from personal experience that uncontrollable rocking can also lead to unpleasant sensations - nausea, dizziness without drowsiness and dreams. Such states are not noted in folklore, and this suggests that folk culture knew the limits of permissible swinging, so to speak, its “dosage” necessary to achieve the desired state of drowsiness with dreams. We see that the knowledge of these kind of “shamanic practices” among the Slavs was collective, not secret, but sacred, since they were used not only in everyday life, but also in rituals.

It is interesting that among the German peoples the state of drowsiness was associated not with rocking, but with bad weather, fog, rain: “in German dialects: Silesian. – Holsht. Drisseln "to drizzle (of rain)" and "to doze", Mecklenb. Drusen “to doze”, drusig “cloudy (about the weather)” (D. Razauskas. Mother Maya. Reflections on two Lithuanian homonyms. In the collection “Balto-Slavic Studies XV”, M. 2002, p. 318 with reference to K Polyansky).

In Slavic dialects, the names of bad weather such as gloom, morok - “clouds”, “fog” are etymologically associated with fainting, loss of consciousness, that is, states, although similar to drowsiness, are opposite to it in sign (drowsiness +; fainting -).

That is, linguistic data at a certain period in the development of German dialects reflected the purely physiological influence of bad weather on people, noticed by the people - in cloudy and rainy weather it is boring and you want to take a nap. And among the Slavs, the state of drowsiness was associated with a wider range of phenomena and states; among them, the “theme of drowsiness” was more developed and had a positive and magical character.

b) Meditation by the window in the evening/morning dawn

Drowsiness was also caused by long periods of looking out of the darkness of a room into the light of a small window (such were the windows in the old days) or, conversely, looking into the distance at an open window in the evening and morning dawns.

In the fairy tale “The Feather of Finist Yasna Falcon”, a girl in the evening, after meeting her beloved at the church: “she locked herself in the small room, ... opened the window, and looked into the blue distance” - her beloved appears to her in the form of a falcon (A. Afanasyev “Russian Folk Fairy Tales” ", M. 1957, p. 241).

photo Ronin

In the pre-wedding song, just like in the fairy tale, the groom flies to the window of the obviously dozing girl, because she is the only one who sees the falcon:

“The young clear falcon flew in,
He sat on the window,
On the painted platband,
No one saw the falcon...” (Ritual poetry. M. 1989, p. 325).

The method of contacting the Other World through a window is very dangerous, since not only suitors, but also deceased relatives or messengers of Death could appear in the form of birds (descriptions of such visits are constant in the genres of lamentations and tales). That is why in the fairy tale Finist Yasny Sokol, the heroine’s sisters try to ward off the guest from the window by sticking knives into the frame, because the sister is hiding the visitor from them, they do not know who is coming through the window into their house.

We find a clearer connection between staring out the window at dawn and drowsy dreams in the wedding lamentations of brides. On the last night before the wedding, the girls also kept vigil at the window, causing drowsiness and visions of their future life:

“...I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t doze!
I looked out the window -...
I forgot myself above the white dawn,
I had a dream, I saw it…” (“Wedding. From matchmaking to the prince’s table.” M. 2001, pp. 44-45).

The sensations that arise at dawn are wonderfully described by the founder of Moscow conceptualism D. Prigov in the poem “And even this bird is a nightjar...”. By the way, the nightjar in the south of Russia is called the dormant for its ability to fall into a drowsy stupor during the day and emit monotonous rattling sounds all night from evening to dawn, causing drowsiness in listeners. So, a poem about the essence of the morning dawn:

And even this nightjar bird,
Who milks the goats at dawn,
He doesn’t know why it’s like this at dawn,
Mignonette smells so deadly.
…
This way the danger is felt less.
…
So I no longer have the strength to control myself.

Dremlyuga (nightjar)

According to East Slavic folklore, ethnography, artistic creativity reflecting Slavic specifics and linguistic data, “a girl dreaming by the window”, “a girl looking out the window” are stable stereotypes, and we can conclude that in reality girls are quite This dangerous method of inducing dreams was often used at dawn.

Let us also note their ability to control the process of entering and remaining in drowsy visions, the fact that, unlike modern men, conceptual poets at the dawn, they had the strength to control themselves, that is, they could evoke a vision on the topic they needed, get out of this state and tell it together about what he saw, discuss the information received with elders for a more complete understanding. In other words, these were ritual meditations of mentally healthy people.

That is, a mentally ill person accidentally stumbled upon a method of causing visions, but could neither describe the vision nor apply the information received in a dream to benefit himself and others. For us, this scientifically recorded case from medical practice confirms the reality of the method described by folklore of entering an altered state at the window at dawn.

In ancient Indian mythology, the Gayatri mantra of the Rig Veda, read at dawn, is dedicated to the god Savitar, with whom the Slavic Dream has a common function of stimulating growth: “We meditate on the radiant glory of the divine Light; may he inspire our minds" (Interpretation by S. Radhakrishnan) (Mythological Dictionary/Chief editor E.M. Meletinsky - M.: "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1990, p. 672).

Teaching this mantra was one of the main tasks of the sanskara of initiation for the twice-born. It is obvious that the pre-wedding maiden dreams of Slavic women at dawn were ritual actions of the same type. It is interesting that in ancient India this mantra and the actions described in it were forbidden for women, but among the Slavs it was the opposite.

c) Inactivity and monotonous work in a confined space

The betrothed girl stopped attending youth games, stayed at home (from 1 week to a year) and was busy preparing for the wedding. It was painstaking, monotonous work (sewing, embroidery, knitting) with poor lighting (a window covered with a bubble or a splinter), naturally causing a state of drowsiness, during which the girl dreamed of a future unknown life.

Her girlfriends came to her every morning to help make wedding gifts, and they had to wake the bride from her slumber:

“Get up, get up, Maryushka,
Get up, my friend, don't sleep!
You need a lot of lessons:
Forty to forty pairs of towels...
There are money on the tubs,
And there are tablecloths on the tables” (recorded in the Kursk Region. I. Shangina “Russian Girls”, St. Petersburg 2007, p. 269).

During a Bulgarian wedding, which sometimes lasted several days, “... the newlywed spent whole hours... in a corner specially designated for her, silent and motionless with her eyes half-closed” (E.S. Uzeneva “The character “bride” in the scenario of a Bulgarian wedding” in the collection “ Slavic and Balkan linguistics...", M. 2003, p. 290).

The bride-to-be in a headscarf with a frown. Yaroslavl region

Obviously, in such conditions, a state of drowsiness set in, into which the young woman was deliberately immersed, since she was dangerous to others. It was believed that the bride and young woman possess magical powers, the inept use of which could harm both society as a whole and individuals. Among the Eastern Slavs, this custom of “containing” the power of the young was preserved in a “softer” version - the newlywed was supposed to remain silent at the wedding and “not raise” her eyes (not look at others), and the Russians also had traces of a ban on the bride for 40 days after the wedding talk to her husband’s relatives: “Six weeks have passed, / It has become possible to talk...” (Pereslavl Zalesye...p. 166).

e) Narcotic plants

Dream - grass

Ethnography gives us examples of the use of plants to induce prophetic dreams: “Dream-grass. This herb is collected by sorcerers in the month of May with yellow-blue blossoms, with various rituals and incantations. The villagers believe that she has prophetic power - to predict good and evil to people during sleep. Collected by the sorcerer with the morning dew, dropped into cold water, it comes out during the full moon and begins to move. At this time, the villagers put Dream grass under their pillow and fall asleep with fear and hope” (Russian people, their customs, rituals, legends, superstitions and poetry. Collected by M. Zabylin. Reprint 1880. M. 1992, p. 431).

“Datura…acts on the brain and eyes…produces different visions” (Ibid., p. 436). “Sleepy stupor, belladonna...The berry of this plant, black and shiny, looks a lot like a cherry, which is why children in villages often gorge themselves on the fruits of this narcotic plant, considering them tasty berries” (Ibid., p. 437).

Belladonna, "strong berries"

Against the background of this message from 1880 by M. Zabylin, folklore texts like:
“Our little pole is dozing
It gave birth to strong berries...
Tatiana took the berries...
Bramshy berries, fell asleep..." (Ritual poetry, book 2, family and everyday folklore, M. 1997, p.
497).

This “strong berry” is a sleepy stupor “..., like Datura, produces, depending on the temperament, cheerful and pleasant delirium. It turns out that during large receptions there is hibernation and weakness of the members. All objects also seem to increase, ... for example: a puddle seems like a lake, a straw seems like a log...” (Ibid., p. 437).

Compare this information with Wesse's dream from the Danish ballad:
“I was a little duck......
The wings are wide,
I covered the heather fields...” (“Scandinavian Ballad”, Leningrad, 1978, pp. 169-171).

Perhaps Wesse's talent for seeing wonderful dreams, in which the scale of objects radically shifts, is associated with knowledge of such plants and the ability to use them.

“Polyushka is dozing” with sleepy stupor

One of the Russian wedding songs describes the state of dependence on a narcotic plant - a girl, missing her sweetheart, admits that she will not be able to reach him, since on the way there will be a clearing with a sleepy stupor, which she cannot ignore:

“I’ll go when I’m young and I’ll never come back.
There is a sleepy little pole there,
Wine berries were born in the polepole.
Having picked the berries, I'm tired,
Tired, I fell asleep..." (Pereslavl Zalesie. Folklore and ethnographic collection of S.E. Elkhovsky. Issue 2. M. 2012, p. 104).

“Wine berry” is now called a fig that contains a certain percentage of alcohol. In Russian folk tradition, this is the name given to any berry that can cause intoxication in the person who eats it, similar to what occurs after drinking wine. It is interesting that nowhere, in any genre of Slavic folklore, will we find a description of the special induction of slumber to obtain visions (or for other magical purposes) with the help of alcoholic drinks.

On the contrary, one can find descriptions of the refusal of offered alcohol, for example, by a bride before her wedding night, during which the young husband is likened to the active Heaven, and the young Mother is likened to the Raw Earth, which is characterized by passivity, a dormant expectation of fertilization (more about the dormant Earth below). In this ritual, the wife refuses alcohol, motivating her refusal by the fact that she loves, that is, it is not alcohol, but love that will bring her into the desired state:

“...Grushenka lies on the feather bed,
Matveyushka stands in our heads,
He holds green wine in his hand,
In the other he holds some sweets.
“Drink some wine, Grushenka,...”...
“I don’t drink wine, Matveyushko...
I love...Matvey Vasilyevich"" (Ritual poetry, M. 1989, pp. 326-327).

Heroes of Slavic folklore drink honey, beer, wine in various ritual situations (feast, wedding, end of the harvest), but this does not happen to induce a state of slumber and prophetic visions. Sometimes heroes are drugged by villains to achieve their bad intentions, but the heroes themselves drink only “for health”, “for health”, that is, for the purposes of, so to speak, “medical magic”, and not for recognizing the future in an altered state. This is one of the features of Slavic ethnic behavior that sharply distinguishes it from the traditions of some other Indo-European peoples in which sacred texts and prophecies appeared only after the authors used the “honey of poetry” or soma.

There are few examples of the use of narcotic plants to induce drowsy visions in Slavic folklore and ethnography. It is also characteristic that none of these plants is actually called “drema,” although under this name in the Slavic “herbarium” we will find many other flowers, which will be discussed in the chapter “All the flowers and colors of Drema.”

7. Slumbering Goddess

Knowing the universal formula of traditional cultures “as the Gods did, so we do,” let us ask ourselves the question of who did Russian girls and young women imitate in their sleepy slumber with visions?

It is known that the vast majority of the gods of all mankind are characterized by a lack of sleep, this is the ancient Indian idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe unblinking “God’s eye”, and the ancient Greek Zeus, to whom Hypnos was afraid to even approach, and the Supreme Deity in Kabbalah does not have eyelids, which is why his eyes never close and Christian “Watching Eye” and many others. Prophets, for example, Buddha, whose name translates as “awakened,” and mythologized rulers are often thought of as being awake: “The daughter breathes in a warm slumber. / Stalin looks from the wall, / Guarding in this house / All the peace of the country” (V. Lugovskoy , 1939 “Dream” for the 60th anniversary of Stalin). It is characteristic that all these persons are men.

As if in contrast to them, in the pantheon of Indo-European peoples there are Goddesses who skillfully induce slumber with visions in themselves and their admirers, while themselves becoming these visions. This is the ancient Indian “illusion of the world” Goddess Maya and Princess Maya – who fell asleep forever after the birth of the ruler of souls, Buddha, in May; Greek Maya, mother of Hermes, a youth whose work includes putting people to sleep with the touch of a rod and accompanying the souls of the departed; Baltic sorceress Laume. And also “The Mother of Roman Mercury, as you know, is also Maya, lat. Māja, the goddess of the earth, identified by the Romans with the Greek Maya and who gave her name to the month of May...” (D. Razauskas “Mother Maya. Reflections on two Lithuanian homonyms: mója “mother” and moja “mach”” in the collection Balto-Slavic Studies XV , M. 2002, p. 295). The ancient Indian god Savitar (Stimulator) was the son of Aditi, a goddess, among other things, related to the Earth. We also note that the planet Mercury is known among Indians under the name Budha, which has the same root as the name of Buddha and means awakening (ibid.).

Among the Slavs, the goddess of the earth is the Mother of Cheese Earth, one of whose characteristics is toil, that is, the Earth toils and suffers. In the Croatian song about the debate between Earth and Heaven: “...You torment me, my Heaven, / With fierce torment...”, in the Russian “Crying of the Earth”: “The mother of the cheese Earth became cold and burst into tears...” (V.N. Toporov “Towards the reconstruction of the image Earth - Mother..." in Balto-Slavic studies 1998-1999, M. 2000, p. 262).

In the month of May, the “Name Day of the Earth” is celebrated - on Simon the Zealot, May 10/23, other names for this holiday are Simon Sowing, Simonovo Zelo (potion, herb), Semik, Earth Day, Holy Day, a maiden holiday. In some places in Russia, the Earth's name day is celebrated on Trinity or Spiritual Day, girls' holidays (Drawings, Rusalia). Apart from church calendar, then this is the time of flowering of rye, in wreaths from which they chased “destructive” mermaids - representatives of the Other World, chaos.

It is interesting that in traditional medicine, blooming rye is used to treat a mental disorder such as schizophrenia, one of the symptoms of which is fantastic delirium, that is, it gives the sick person the strength to control himself, to awaken, to get out of unproductive dreams.

During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), long before its end, there were rumors among the people that the war would end “in 1945,” which many did not believe: “We wondered: they say it’s not very believable; by that time it won’t end - there won’t be enough people” (N.M. Vedernikova “Folklore of the Shadrinsky region”, in the collection Russian folklore XXX materials and research, St. Petersburg, 1999, p. 523).

The fact that this prophecy came true and the final defeat of the invaders on May 9, 1945 coincided with the name day of the Earth, the flowering of rye; the fact that the end of the crazy torment and chaos of the war, the post-war restoration, the “awakening” of the Russian land coincided with the annual awakening of the forces of Nature, with the name days of the Earth during the flowering of rye, confirmed and strengthened the subconscious Slavic mythologeme of the dormant Earth and its emergence from a state of slumber precisely in May .

Mother of Cheese Earth (an illustration that most accurately reflects folk ideas about the Goddess of the Earth - she is dozing)

On the Earth’s name day, they “listen” to it, putting their ear to it - that is, the Earth shares information, collects medicinal and witchcraft herbs (it was noted above that “dream-grass... is collected by sorcerers in May”), digs roots, looks for treasures - that is The earth opens up and gives away what is hidden. On this day, the Earth could open up for a lie - that is, the Earth could take away, swallow up the wicked. On this day, the Earth healed the children - their mothers sprinkled earth on the footprint with a request to correct the clubfooted child - that is, the Earth made the child's gait straight. On this day, the Earth, if a handful of it is applied to the eyes, gives healing to the blind - that is, the Earth “opens” the eyes of the blind, as if awakening the “sleeping”. That is, the Earth is in active contact with people on its name day, which indicates its wakefulness.

However, the Earth is not in this state all the time. According to popular beliefs, the Earth sleeps from autumn until the Annunciation (March 25/April 7). On the day of the vernal equinox, the Earth wakes up, comes out of deep sleep, during which it cannot be disturbed (plowing, digging holes), but does not awaken completely. The period from March 25 to the first days of May (about 6 weeks) is the time of the Earth’s slumber, its dreams of plowing, sowing, and harvesting.

Unfortunately, today there is not a single Slavic folklore text known that directly states that the Earth slumbers and dreams. We only have records of folk beliefs using the phrases “The Earth is sleeping”, “The Earth is waking up”, “The Earth is waking up”. Indirect evidence of the dormancy of the Earth is the testimony of Thietmar, who died at the beginning of the 11th century, about the way the Slavs communicated with the Earth: “Slavic priests dug up the earth with their fingers and WHISPERED some words at the same time...” (V.N. Toporov “Toward the reconstruction of the Balto-Slavic mythological image of the Earth-Mother..." in the collection Balto-Slavic Studies 1998-1999, M. 2000, p. 278). It is quite natural to talk in a whisper with a dozing interlocutor.

Also, the summary “portrait of the Earth” collected from available sources shows that the Earth has: “a face, face, brow, body, flesh, chest, womb, hair, blood, veins, bones. It is characteristic that, with the exception of some very rare and not always sufficiently illustrative examples, the EARTH HAS NO EYES, while the Sky is characterized precisely by eyes...” (Ibid., p. 269).

While the Earth was dormant, it was plowed and sown for the first time in the new year. Translating this into the “human code,” the Earth during this period was in the status of a bride and pullet, whose activity, as shown above, was ritually limited (the same 6 weeks), which caused drowsiness. Girls and young women, with their behavior, were supposed to copy and did copy the behavior of the dormant Mother of the Damp Earth.

By the end of the twentieth century, representatives of academic science came to similar conclusions: “Using cosmogonic terminology, we can say that the Earth is a dormant body arranged according to a divine model. These myths (referred to by M. Eliade - V.T.) describe the Earth as a living organism in a dormant state. This is not just an electrical nervous system, but a dormant system, and earthly events and conflicts are a manifestation of this state” (V.N. Toporov “Toward the reconstruction of the Balto-Slavic mythological image of the Earth-Mother...” in the collection Balto-Slavic Studies 1998-1999, M. 2000, p. 367, note No. 137).

In a poem written in 1890, the famous symbolist Vyach. Ivanov wonderfully noticed the specific East Slavic ability to “correctly” handle dreams, will, and understand the Earth through the prism of these dreams:
Russian mind
…
He comes to life from an abstract dream
The timid will shows the way.
…
He thinks sensibly about the earth
In a mystical bathing darkness...

Returning to Sandman, we can assume that he (she), being the bearer and disseminator in the world of people of the state characteristic of the Great Goddess Mother of the Damp Earth, is her offspring, descendant, son or daughter (about Sandman’s field in the chapter “The Sexual Question with Reference into the archaic").

8. Ways to bring people out of drowsiness and sleep

In East Slavic folk culture, babies were not only put to sleep with special lullabies (often with a mention of dozing), but also woken up by performing magical texts, identified by folklorists as a separate genre of “pestushki”. “A lullaby should help a child painlessly transition from a state of wakefulness to a state of sleep, and a pestle, on the contrary, after sleep - into a state of wakefulness” (T. Buyskikh “On the genre specificity of pestles” in the collection “Poetics of Folklore”, M. 2005, p. 125).

The mother, affectionately stroking the child’s arms, legs, and belly, briefly and affirmatively expressed her well-wishes:
"Stretchers,
Porostunyushki,
Mouth talkers,
Hands are grasping,
Legs are walkers” (Ibid.).

Pestushka, a short monologue - a mother’s sentence aimed at facilitating the child’s transition from a state of sleep to a state of wakefulness, should be distinguished from nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes begin to entertain babies from the age of 3-4 months while they are awake, and their texts are aimed at entertaining and playing with the baby. Pestushki are sung to babies from birth and their words are aimed at the health and proper development of the child. The content and form of pestles are similar to incantations; these are not entertaining, but magical texts (Ibid., p. 129).

For example, according to M.S. Skremninskaya (born in 1925), after sleep, she stroked the bodies of her children and grandchildren, saying: “We pull the bones onto the sprouts” and “We pull the bones onto the bridges,” and in conspiracies to drive out the disease the phrase “from all the bones, from all the bridges” is often used. . In Ukraine, a Slavic-Jewish version of a similar pestle is recorded: “Kostynyu - rostynyu, Leiben zostyu,” which translated means: “bones must grow, they must live” (Ibid., p. 127).

It’s interesting that when the Slav fell asleep in “eternal sleep,” his loved ones tried to “wake up” him, wailing: “you wake up, wake up, dear father...”, and in the fairy tales of the dead hero they sprinkled living and dead water, putting them “bone by stone” and he “woke up” : “...they killed him (Ivan Tsarevich) and scattered the bones across an open field. Ivan Tsarevich's horse collected all his bones in one place and sprinkled him with living water; his braid is an oblique, joint and joint are fused; The prince came to life and said: “I slept for a long time, but soon I got up!” (Russian folk tales by A.N. Afanasyev, volume 1, M. 1957, No. 174 “The Tale of a brave fellow, rejuvenating apples and living water,” pp. 443-444).

In one of the songs of the Kalmyk epic, about a wounded hero in the same position as our Ivan Tsarevich, it is said that he lies “turned into a sleepy vision” (S. Neklyudov “On the functional-semantic nature of the sign in narrative folklore” in collection "Semiotics and artistic creativity", M. 1977, p. 208). Let us remember that babies were called blaznota and this word also means sleepy vision. With the help of pestles, these “dream visions” were turned into people. They tried to make similar transformations with the dead.

In the Vedic period of ancient India, “when a person died, poems were read to revive him (Atharva Veda, VII, 53)” (R.B. Pandey “Ancient Indian Household Rituals”, M. 1982, p. 193). After cremation, a ceremony of “gathering the bones” took place, during which they said, addressing the deceased: “Get up from here and take on a new form... This is one of your bones. By connecting all the bones, be beautiful. Be loved by the gods in the abode of the nobles” (Ibid., p. 207).

That is, the texts of the East Slavic pestles “for awakening” with the mention of bones are similar to the ancient East Slavic texts of conspiracies and fairy tales, which describe magical methods of healing and awakening of an injured or deceased hero and the texts of real Vedic funeral rituals, which speaks of the antiquity and mythological basis of the East Slavic method of awakening that we have considered babies, bringing them out of a state of slumber, which has survived in Russia to this day.

***
Those who were older were woken up with words, and these words were similar over a fairly large area for a long time: in modern Kursk “get up, sleepyhead!” - the grandmother wakes up her grandson for school, and in the Ufa province at the end of the 19th century: “It’s time, Dremushka, get up!” - addressed to the “asleep” presenter during a game at gatherings.

Young people of marriageable age were brought out of the state of slumber and sleep “in an adult way”, with the help of kisses, hugs and the dripping of burning tears. Moreover, ideally only a person of the opposite sex, betrothed or betrothed, could stop sleepy dreams:

“The beautiful maiden (name of the rivers) ...
Her mother woke her up -
I couldn't wake you up
Her betrothed came -
I broke all the locks,
Scattered the guards -
All the girls had access to!” (“Ritual poetry. Book 2, family and everyday folklore.” M. 1997, p. 336).

The bride's friends also woke up the grooms in the Arkhangelsk province, who in the pre-wedding period were also limited in their behavior, although less so than the brides:
“We went and woke up...
Yes, the young prince...
Sleeping soundly...
Let him not awaken..." (Ritual poetry, M. 1989, pp. 371-372). In the song, the groom gets up only when he is informed that the bride is leaving on a ship and he is catching up with her.

We will not find words about the expulsion of Drema in any folklore text “on awakening” or about awakening. When you need to wake up or not fall asleep, Drem is simply asked to leave “...Drema, get away from me.” That is, the process of “sleep-sleep-sleep-awakening” was considered natural and slumber in this series has a positive meaning. It is extremely rare to find a negative assessment of Sandman in folklore: “A stupid dream, a dream, / Unreasonable sleep!”

9. Dream transfer rituals

It was shown above that among Slavic youth the state of dormancy (within reasonable limits) was a natural right. The rights and responsibilities of people who got married were diametrically opposed to those of youth. After the wedding, society expected maximum productivity and fertility from the spouses. Traditionally, a dozing state for adults was indecent; it was in this age and social category that dozing was associated with laziness, and girls who had recently become wives could not always quickly switch to a new “sleep and wakefulness regime.”

To “turn on” the young this regime, in folk tradition a certain post-wedding period of time was allocated, passing under the motto “Don’t wake up young / Early, early in the morning...”. The young husband could let his wife soak in the bed: “Go to sleep, my hope, get enough sleep, light! / Tomorrow early in the morning the hailers will come...” (Ritual poetry, M. 1989, p. 218).

Or he will order not to wake up my dear:
“Is my father-in-law or mother-in-law at home...
Is my darling light Maryushka at home?
If she’s sleeping, then don’t wake her up...” (Pereslavl Zalesye...p. 112).

Free from peasant work:
“Autumn will come, thresh - so thresh.
It’s a pity to wake up my little wife, just wake her up.
Go to sleep, little wife, my darling,
Here are my head pillows” (Pereslavl Zalesye...p. 160).

Among the southern Slavs, the newlywed did not move into the “category” of women immediately after the wedding. For forty days (or until the next major holiday or the birth of her first child), she was considered a “stranger” in her husband’s family and was not allowed to cook or clean the house, had no right to speak with her husband’s relatives, was in a state of ritual idleness, that is, she behaved almost like this like during my girlhood.

Descriptions of similar behavior of girls are widely represented in East Slavic lamentations, which describe girls getting up late in their home for breakfast, when everything in the house is already prepared and cleaned. The mother laments:
“And it’s a pity to excite the child...

And I alone cook and fuss…” (Once upon a time...Russian ritual poetry, St. Petersburg, 1998, p. 124).

The bride says:
“I didn’t know, beautiful maiden,
No matter how early you get up,
No matter how late it is,...
I’ll get up, young girl...
I'll look at the beautiful girl:
All her (mother’s) affairs are taken care of,
All the work has been completed..." (Wedding. From matchmaking to the prince's table. M. 2001, p. 281).

In short, “...my dear mother / has good bliss in the morning” (Pereslavl Zalesye...p. 151).

Of course, this is an artistic exaggeration; the girls worked hard in their families. The songs describe an ideal that does not always coincide with reality. However, ethnography confirms the fact that the ritual behavior of young women, as well as girls, was characterized by static, lethargic, and, consequently, drowsiness.

And such habits yielded their “fruits”; in Russian songs there is a constant motif of dozing pullets and reproaches against them by their husband’s relatives:

“I’m sleeping, young one, I’m dozing,
He tends to let his head fall into the pillow to sleep.
The father-in-law walks along the new entryway,
And it knocks, and it hums, and it splutters:
- You chicken, bride!
Drowsy, dormant, unruly!...” (Collection of folk songs by P.V. Kireevsky, volume 2. Leningrad 1986, p. 60).
In the husband’s family: “You, my dear sister, are a lot of people, / And sleepy and deceitful, / Not caring, not hardworking...” (Ritual poetry. M. 1989, p. 327).

G. Courbier “The Asleep Spinner”

In order to prevent young women from getting into such unpleasant situations, in some East Slavic weddings there were special rituals of “giving back the dream.” In the “reserve of the Slavic archaic”, in Polesie at the junction of three East Slavic cultures: For a wedding, in addition to the loaf and other breads, “They also make naps - nine small balls, which at the wedding, when leaving for the groom, the bride will scatter around “no naps.” was"" (Polesie ethnolinguistic collection, M. 1983, A.V. Gura, O.A. Ternovskaya, S.M. Tolstaya “Materials for the Polesie ethnolinguistic atlas”, p. 53).

These balls were snapped up by children who needed naps for normal development and growth. The number of bread balls probably symbolizes the 9 months of pregnancy, during which many women actually suffer from drowsiness, from which the ritual was supposed to relieve them.

Slavic folklore does not reflect direct prohibitions on napping for pregnant women. However, in the related ancient Indian tradition, the rules of conduct for a pregnant woman are developed very carefully, and they say a lot about sleep and dozing: “She should not sleep and doze all the time,” “She should ... avoid sleeping during the day, staying awake at night” (Pandey R.B. "Ancient Indian home rituals", M. 1982, pp. 78-79).

“Illegitimate” methods of getting rid of drowsiness have been recorded in the Minsk and Petrograd provinces. It was believed “that a young woman would be sleepy throughout the first year of marriage if a pregnant woman participated in changing her headdress at the wedding” (Slavic Antiquities. Volume 5. M. 2012, “Dream”, p. 121). That is, a pregnant woman could put her dream on the bride by manipulating her hair. “They believed that a bride leaving the village could take her sleep with her. In the Luga district of the Petrograd province, lumps of snow were thrown after the departing bride with the words: “Where you are young, there you go.” (A.V. Gura “Marriage and wedding in Slavic folk culture: semantics and symbolism,” M. 2012, p. 100). It is interesting that snowballs are made by making the same movements with your hands as when kneading dough and making buns and balls from it. That is, the undesirable state of slumber seemed to be mixed into the dough or snow, and this act is undoubtedly magical.

In some places in Russia, “drema” bread was not thrown, but was distributed: “In the Tver province, children at a wedding were given drema - long wheat bread” so that the children would sleep well (A.V. Gura “Marriage and Wedding in Slavic Folk Culture : semantics and symbolism", M. 2012, pp. 202, 213). “In Belarus, when making a loaf of bread, special buns were baked for children from the same dough, which the loaf-makers took home and gave to the children. Often they were intended to ensure that children slept well, for example, long dramas in Mozyr Polesie” (A.V. Gura “Marriage and wedding in Slavic folk culture: semantics and symbolism”, M. 2012, p. 213).

The above-described rituals of distributing special bread can be called “transferring sleep” from those who do not need it to those who need it.

10. Seasonal destruction of Sandman, Mean Day

The earth finally wakes up, says goodbye to its slumber in the days of May. This is the time of rye flowering, going out White light(as if awakening) mermaids, the period preceding the suffering, when all the forces of society “from small to large” were aimed at ensuring the harvest. On the eve of the harvest in the Ryazan and Chernigov regions, collective spring rituals of “seeing off Drema” to the Other World were held

At the end of spring, before Kupala, after which hay harvesting began, in the Chernigov province on the “Drawings” (the first Monday of Peter’s Lent) “... the youth, having cut down “several birch branches” in the forest above the Desna and entwined them with flowers, carried a bouquet along the river with songs. the village and around the village, then threw it into the river. This was called “Seeing off Drema” (Maksimovich, 1877...)” (Tultseva L.A. “Ryazan Monthly”, Ryazan, 2001, p. 206).

“Direct analogies with the Chernigov ritual of “seeing off Dryoma” are revealed by the Ryazan Rusal customs. Participants in Rusal rituals in villages along Kutukovskaya Mountain willingly talk about the pranks with “dramaya” organized during the Rusal ritual. Everyone is involved in the action - both old and young. Even the day, according to the local name of the Rusal bouquet of dram, is called Dryamny Day. Memories depict the unusual worldview of the time, which seems to belong to the “rubbish” and the “Mermaid”” (Ibid.).

The slumber could be located not only in branches, but also in grass and nettles. In the village of Ustran (Ryazan): “On Trinity Sunday, the children tore up the grass and shouted: “Drama, rubbish!” so that the Mermaids would not fall asleep” (Ibid.). “During Rusal week they threw trash - the trash could be with nettles or just branches. They will break any branches and throw them at each other. ...To get rid of the danger of becoming “drowsy” or “drowsy,” the mermaid bouquet should have been thrown into running water: “Whoever doesn’t throw it will sleep”; They throw rubbish, you need to throw it into the water quickly and run away from the river faster, otherwise you will end up in trash”; “In the evening we drowsed and went to the bridge...” (Ibid.). It was believed that “The mermaid lives in trash. The junk is thrown away, and the Rusalka is seen off.” The day on which these actions took place and still take place is called the Mean Day.

Sometimes the doze was not thrown into the water, but in mischief, it was thrown into the houses of fellow villagers. For example, in Upper Lusatia, a nap doll was thrown into the collection of spinners (Slavic antiquities. Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. Volume 5. M. 2012, “Dream”, p. 121). Or in the Ryazan region: “...the house is unlocked (standing), there is junk - they throw branches into the house: “Go from me to you!”... And some grandmother will say: “You don’t throw much at me, I already sleep a lot!” "(Tultseva L.A. "Ryazan Monthly", Ryazan, 2001, p. 206).

“The mermaid was buried in a ravine. They made the doll, put it in a box (the doll is small) and buried it. They made wreaths from maple, decorated them with ribbons, and made wreaths from dandelions. Vyanka were called "drama". Then they threw the ducks into the lava (i.e., a spring, a spring...), and then they ran away faster, and the men blocked the road with a monster (a rope...), we fell, and laughed. They called it "crappy day." They said: “Women, let’s throw some rubbish” (Ibid.).

So, according to popular beliefs, Sandman is associated with mermaids and in the spring lives in various plants, flowers and products made from them (wreaths, bouquets). You can get rid of Slumber, which is unwanted during the flowering period of rye and the upcoming harvest period, by throwing greenery into water. It is known that in the folk tradition, spring greenery and flowers were considered to be the receptacle of the souls of ancestors and otherworldly spirits, who in the spring “come out to look at the White Light” from the Other World, and who are escorted back on time (L. Vinogradova “Flower name of the mermaid: Slavic beliefs about flowering plants" in the collection "Ethonic and ethnocultural history of Eastern Europe", M. 1995, p. 251).

It is obvious that Drema is a character from the same series, like the Mermaids, Kostroma, Yaril, Semukha, Cuckoo, all those mythological characters who are “seen off” in the spring, “buried”, that is, destroyed by burying, drowning, tearing to pieces - Drema is “seen off” by throwing in water. That is, Sandman is a character associated with the Ancestors, the Other World.

11. All flowers and colors of Sandman

cat nap

We have already noted above that from the point of view of the “human code”, all plants are, as it were, in a state of dormancy. However, among this huge “dormant kingdom” of various plants with different names, specimens named specifically dormancy (with variants) stand out.

I.P. Sakharov wrote: our villagers call a special grass “bathroom”, which is known as “cat’s nap” (Trjllius europaeus, that is, “troll grass”). Others called it that way. In Vaga and in the Vologda province, these herbs were collected in the morning, after dew, and used for treatment. They made brooms from it and took steam in the bathhouse. Children wove swimsuits or buttercups out of slumber, wreaths, caps, hats and put them on their heads during games (Tultseva L.A. “Ryazan Monthly”, Ryazan, 2001, p. 206).

"paw" of cat nap, troll grass

Flowers of the cat's nap (bathedral and buttercup) and dandelions, used in the Ryazan and Chernigov regions in the rituals of “farewell to the Dream”, are yellow.

In other places in Russia, the trinity is Kupala flowers with the name Dremuchka, Viscaria, tar; Dremukha, hoarse, fireweed, Epilobium; Dremlik Serapia; Dremlik, Orchis incarnata, Lyubzha, Lyubka are plants with red-violet, red-pink, that is, purple flowers.

Sandman, Melandrium album (Silene alba) white tar and Dremlik Epipaetis, forest hellebore - white.

Color circle. Purple shades are located between red and violet colors.

That is, we can highlight the “colors” of Sandman in the plant code; these are purple-white-yellow against a background of greenery. In this regard, we note that napping butterflies - lacewings, which love green leaves, have white wings, a yellow or red abdomen and their colors correspond to the plant code of napping.

White color among Indo-European peoples is associated with radiance, light and holiness. The same can be said in relation to purple and yellow (gold) colors: “The purple color, like the colors preceding it in the “upper” half of the λ values, that is, red (640 nm), orange (600 nm), yellow (580), is precisely are in most cultural and religious traditions the colors of holiness... In the context of the colors of the spectrum, the place of green color (λ - 520 nm) is indicative - immediately before the colors that convey the idea of ​​holiness (“pre-holiness” as the potential for growth, youth, vitality)” (Toporov V. N. "On ritual. Introduction to the problems" in the collection "Archaic ritual in folklore and early literary monuments", M. 1988, pp. 55-56).

Dremuchka, tar - purple color

All these plants were believed to have sedative properties. However, we note that plants with the names “drema” (with variants) did not have strong narcotic properties (like dope or sleepy stupor) and did not cause drowsy visions. Perhaps this paradox is explained by the taboo of sacred knowledge.

An analogy can be found in related ancient Indian and ancient Greek traditions, for example, in Sanskrit the word mandãra has a double meaning, the so-called coral tree (in mythology, the tree of Indra, growing in the Garden of Eden) and datura, which contains alkaloids. The etymology of the word mandãra indicates that it originally referred specifically to dope; as an adjective, mandara (= manda) means slow, sluggish, dull, stupid; the name, therefore, is consistent with the effect of the drug (Compare with dremusha - prone to dozing, drowsy, dozing while doing something, at the wrong time; sleepyhead, lethargic). The transfer of the name “mandara” to a harmless coral tree can be seen as one of the techniques of “mythopoetic censorship”, aimed at guaranteeing the preservation of sacred information about the remedy used in rituals.

Sandman (white tar)

We find the same thing in the Homeric hymn to the Earth - Demeter, which describes the composition of the ritual drink used in the Eleusinian Mysteries - water, mint and supposedly barley flour, a composition that under any conditions of preparation does not give the necessary hallucinogenic effect. Probably, under the word barley in the text there is hidden an indication of ergot, a fungus containing a strong alkaloid (Sudnik T.M., Tsivyan T.V. “Poppy in the plant code of the main myth” in the collection “Balto-Slavic Studies” M. 1980, p. 303, 308-309).

In the Slavic tradition, numerous wonderful harmless sedative plants of the color of holiness with names like “drema” seem to “distract” the uninitiated public from plants with really strong drowsy, hallucinogenic properties.

12. The slumber of those who are closer to God

The connection between the mythological character Drem and the Other World, which we talked about above, is also visible in allowing people to doze, whom folk tradition delicately calls “those who are closer to God,” that is, those who are on the verge of life and death. For example, the ban on napping for people of reproductive age had exceptions; women were allowed to nap for some time after childbirth:

“Don’t make a fuss, the breeze is cold,
Don't rock it, ringing bell!
Don't wake up Ivan's wife...
She was at a feast that evening,
She came back from the feast and gave birth to a son...” (“Ritual poetry. Book 2, family and everyday folklore.” M. 1997, p. 336).

The fact that after giving birth the woman not only slept, but also dozed and dreamed, but these dreams were undesirable, is evident from the prohibition of leaving the child and the woman in labor alone for six weeks (40 days): “You never know, hollow woman, so what?” Prigrezitsa..." (Ethnolinguistic description of the northern Russian village of Tikhmangi" E. Levkievskaya, A. Plotnikova, in the collection "East Slavic Ethnolinguistic Collection", M. 2001, p. 70).

Taking a nap during the day in the most unexpected places while doing business was excusable
old men and old women:
"Grandma is old
I slept on the rubble,
She grazed the skates.
“Where have my horses gone?”…” (Rhymes, rhyming rhymes, fables, M. 1989, No. 246, p. 286).

Old lady dozing in church

We also find a positive attitude towards a dozing elderly person in the poem “Winter Evening” by A.S. Pushkin, who, like all geniuses, had a keen sense of the archetypes of folk culture:

“...What are you doing, my old lady,
Silent at the window?
Or howling storms
You, my friend, are tired,
Or dozing under the buzzing
Your spindle?

However, the doze of women in labor and old people was not associated with eroticism, as with young people, but with the borderline state of Life and Death. And this in no way contradicts the image of Sandman in youth games and children's lullabies. It is known that childhood and youth in tradition were considered “life-threatening” states; many Russian writers, for example, I.A., felt infancy in the same way. Bunin: “...a quiet world is meager, in which a soul that has not yet fully awakened to life, still alien to everyone and everything, dreams of life, a timid and gentle soul. Golden, happy time. No, this time is unhappy, painfully sensitive, pitiful” (“Life of Arsenyev”).

And here’s what ethnography tells us on this topic: “For young children (up to 7 years old), both differentiated designations (cotton, girl) and undifferentiated ones (baby, blaznyuk, blaznota) are used” (“Polesie Folk Anthropology: Women’s Text” G. Kabakov, in the collection “East Slavic Ethnolinguistic Collection”, M. 2001, p. 70). The last two designations for babies come from the root “blaznit” - it seems, it seems, and a blaznyuk is someone who dreams in a state of drowsiness.

“Children’s sleep occupies a special place in the context of traditional ideas about a child. For a child, this is not just an immersion in the Other World, but a special journey, equal in significance to the path of the lyrical hero of the charm texts, from which he returns with a different, changed status. The marginal nature of the child also determines the dangers that threaten him in his dreams. Hence a special set of verbal and non-verbal amulets of a child during sleep, a ritual of going to bed, a set of mythological characters - heroes of folklore genres... in which the child acts as an object of influence of otherworldly harmful forces" (L.R. Khafizova "Folk Pedagogy". In the collection "Actual problems of field folkloristics", M. 2002, pp. 101-102).

Reckless youth also posed many dangers for the physical and social life of the individual. As soon as young people “overdid it” with erotic games, the girl could be considered a “walker” and in marriage, which is necessary for further full life society put a “cross” on him, and the guy, being an irrepressible “walker,” could die in a fight organized by society to put him “in his place.” Brides were also considered to be on the brink of life and death: during the wedding, the girl died for her girlhood.

Of course, in real life, under certain circumstances, people of any age could be exposed to mortal danger, for example, men on a hunt. However, for adults these were temporary episodes that threatened a person “from the outside,” and infants, youth, brides, mothers in labor and the elderly were considered to be located “closer to God” constantly; this danger was their inner essence, which folk tradition noticed, understood and revealed in protective actions, one of which was permission to remain in a state of drowsiness.

13. Sexual issue with a reference to the archaic

Numerous folklore texts about Drem do not give a clear answer to the question of what gender the people thought of the image of Drem. Sometimes we see Sandman working as a woman, that is, she is a woman:
“Dream was dozing over the Kuzhel,
Above the kuzhel, above the silk.
Neither spinning, nor weaving, nor sewing with silk knows sleep...” (Tultseva L.A. “Ryazan month book. Year-round holidays, rituals and customs of Ryazan peasants,” Ryazan, 2001, p. 213).

“Dremotka” is also known as a female character in the spinning games in Upper Lusatia (Slavic Antiquities. Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. Volume 5. M. 2012, “Dream”, p. 121).

Sometimes the state that Drema sends is a man crushing obstacles on the way to a goal:
"There's a nap going on,
Breaks down the gates" (Rhymes, rhymes, fables. M. 1989, No. 24, p. 29).

At the beginning of the youth games Drem guy:
“Drema is sitting and dozing herself.
(A guy enters the middle of the round dance, sits down and dozes.)
- That's enough, Dremushka, take a nap,
It's time, Dremushka, get up!
(The guy gets up.)
- Look, Drema, at the girls!
(Pren goes around the girls.)
- Take, Drema, whoever you want!
(The guy chooses a girl, bows to her and takes her to the middle of the round dance.)

And then the girl becomes Dream and chooses a guy. And there is no contradiction in this, but a reference to ancient times. A detailed and well-reasoned discussion of androgynous characters in Slavic mythology and their archaic nature is written in the work of L.A. Tultseva. “Ryazan Monthly. All year round holidays, rituals and customs of the Ryazan peasants,” in the subsection “Ryazhenie” the author writes:

“...the deep roots of mummery such as “sex change” in ritual, apparently, must be sought in some conceptual ideas about the picture of the world of ancient peoples, expressed by the idea of ​​androgyny. The symbolism of the androgynous deity reflects the idea of ​​the unity of masculine and feminine principles. This idea is one of the most ancient ideological concepts of humanity, according to which the creators of the beginning of beginnings (first creation) were deities of bisexual nature" (Ryazan, 2001, p. 195).

Let us remember that in Hinduism, each male god has his own shakti - female divine power (which, for ease of perception, can be personified by the wife of god).

“...echoes of such a cult...can be seen in some descriptions of rituals...related to the Semitic-Rusal festivals. For example, according to I.M. Snegirev: “In the Voronezh province...on Trinity Day,...they put up...a ​​blockhead...dressed in rich men’s and women’s dress...”...

Traits of ritual androgyny are also observed in the outfits of Yarila’s mummers...in Voronezh and Kostroma. In the Belarusian version of the ritual, Yarila was portrayed by a girl...In...Yaroslavl province. ...the guys sculpted a clay figure of “Yarila..., and against him they put “Yarilikha”...a bisexual couple...essentially a single image, split over time” (ibid.).

The image of Drema fits entirely into the “campaign” of ancient mythological characters responsible for childbearing and fertility: Yarila and Yarilikha, Kupala and Kupalenka, Kostrubonka - Kostroma, Semik and Semukha whose gender was “unstable” and could change. All these characters appeared in the rituals of the spring-summer period of the folk calendar. Sandman's Day, in local pronunciation - "Dreamy Day" - was also celebrated in the spring.

14. Briefly about the properties, appearance and manners of Sandman, his relationship to other characters of folklore and mythology

Sandman can walk and talk: “Drema is a sleeper / wandering along the alley,” “... walks along the entryway, / Sandman is new, / ... sleepy says...”.
She (he) speaks politely:
“Our slumber went on,
Walked along the street
Our slumber has come
To Alexey's yard.
Alekseeva's wife,
...She gave me a dress (for the work of putting the baby to sleep)
“Well, thank you, Annushka!” -
“To your health, sleepyhead”

The places that Sandman walks before being “into the child’s head”: in the swamp, along the street, along the alley, near the house, in the yard, in the mansion, in the hut, in the entryway, along the benches, along the “Lutsks” (flexible arc , on which the cradle hangs), along ropes (on which the cradle hangs), along threads, along a cobweb (apparently above the cradle). If we head this series with the stable phrase dense forest, then a logical chain of loci is revealed, so to speak, Sandman’s step-by-step path from “habitat” to “place of work.” That is, Sandman is not a “baked” resident, but a guest from wild places. As you know, the forest and swamp in folk tradition belong to the Other World, as do the entities that inhabit them.

It is interesting that Dream and Dream are constantly called upon to “get into the head” of the child. Let us compare this call with a belief widespread among many Slavic peoples: “if Death, coming to a sick person, stands at his feet, then he will recover, and if in his heads, the patient will die.” This means that Sleep and Sandman, taking up space in the child’s heads, save his life - Death will come, and the place in the heads is occupied - Snub-Nosed will stand at his feet and leave.

Drema sees: “Drema wanders/ near the house/ And looks...”. This is important, since in some works one can find false assumptions about the blindness of Sandman, who, together with Sleep in lullabies, quite often looks for a child and a cradle: “Where (child’s name) sleeps, / Where does the cradle hang?” But this question is always asked by Dream to Drema and not vice versa: “Son asks Drema everything: / “Where can we find Vanyushkin’s cradle?” “Son asks the dreamer: / “Where can I find Sashenkina / Cradle...?”, that is, the Dream does not see, but the Dreamer sees and helps the Dream find the object of influence. Analogous to reality, in which a drowsy state usually precedes sound sleep, in lullabies the seeing Dream leads the blind Dream that follows her. Blindness in folklore is most often associated with old age, so Dream is probably older than Sandman.

Sandman's vision is also talked about in youth games:
“A drowsy man walks along the floorboards, / Looks out at the girls...” (“Ritual poetry. Book 2, family and everyday folklore.” M. 1997, p. 404).

Slumber has strength and weight: “Drowsiness is coming, / is breaking down the gates,” he (she) can lean on the object of its influence, just like the Brownie: “Sleep and slumber / are falling on you!” or: “Sleep and drowsiness / fell on the eyes, / rolled onto the shoulder...”, that is, Drowsiness has a mass that allows it to fall on the child.

This would seem to contradict Sandman's ability to walk on webs (see above). In fact, this fact only confirms the mythological origin of the image of Sandman, his ability to metamorphoses, which occur not only in relation to his weight, but also to his gender.

Drema dresses like a person - he receives clothes as a gift for his work, wears shoes: “Sleep in boots, / slumber in wire rods...”, a shirt “Dream in a white shirt, / And slumber in a blue one...”. That is, the image of Sandman was thought to be anthropomorphic.

Cats are related to Sandman. Cats in lullabies are carriers of the state of slumber: “Oh, gray cats, / bring slumber.” Also in the genre of lullabies, there is a whole block of texts like “come, cat, spend the night, rock our baby” without mentioning Sandman, however, the cats do a common thing with Sandman, the cat rocks the child to induce a nap, and Sandman comes “to the child’s head” (All quotes in this paragraph are from the book “Rhymes, Counting Countries, Fables”, M. 1989, pp. 9 - 31).

Cats in the Russian village appeared relatively recently, in the Middle Ages, not without reason in such an archaic genre of folklore as fairy tales, cats are described as overseas semi-wild wonders. Probably, the inclusion of cats in the Sandman mythology occurred because real cats have a pleasant warmth (body temperature is higher than human), they sleep a lot and “appetizingly” and doze off to their “songs”, which, when in contact with them, contribute to the appearance of drowsiness in people.

Slumber is related to the “strict” goddess Mokosh, who is responsible, among other things, for spinning: if one of the spinners in Upper Lusatia fell asleep at work, they said that a “slumber” would come, which they were afraid of. (Slavic antiquities. Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. Volume 5. M. 2012, “Dream”, p. 121). In Rus', a girl who fell asleep while spinning was told: “Sleep, girl, the kikimora will spin for you, your mother will weave”; “Sleep, Mokusha will spin yarn for you.” We have already noted above that kikimora and Mokusha - two hypostases of one goddess - helped good girls with spinning, but tangled the yarn with bad girls and poured garbage into their eyes.

In a state of dozing, craftswomen could do some monotonous work, for example, knitting or spinning “automatically”, with their eyes closed, A. Pushkin wrote about this: “...or do you doze to the buzz of your spindle?” ("Winter evening"). It was probably believed that at such “borderline” moments a person turns into a mythological character. First - to Drema: “Drema is sitting, dozing herself...” (about a player in the supra-plyads, who, after turning to him, easily comes out of a half-asleep state), and in the stage of deeper sleep - to Makosh: “Sleep, Mokusha will spin...”. That is, Sandman is the “forerunner” of the sorceress Mokosh, whose flower is a soporific poppy, the skillful use of which can cause both a light drowsiness and sound sleep.

Sandman is related to the mythological character Zarya. The ritual doze of brides, as shown above, in one of the variants of its invocation occurs after vigils at the window, at dawn. In spells “to go to sleep” they usually refer to the mythological character Dawn or they are voiced “at dawn”, probably in the evening. In some of these conspiracies, Zarya is asked to eliminate harmful forces (Crixes, Crybabies, Nightwomen) that interfere with the arrival of normal sleep. That is, only Zarya fights the demons of insomnia, and Sleep and Drema are not fighters or wrestlers, they come to the children when Zarya has, as it were, “cleared” the way for them.

It was already noted above that the ancient Indian god Savitar (in his original essence) and the Slavic Drema have a common task of stimulating the growth of living things and are related to meditation at dawn. But the similarities don't end there. Savitar awakens the whole world and the gods in the morning, brings night and night peace, precedes day and night... (IV 52, 2-3; VII 45, 1),... brings the earth to peace... (X 149, 1)..., they pray to him about children... (V 42, 3), ... it can take all forms (V 81, 2) (Mythological Dictionary / Chief editor E.M. Meletinsky - M.: "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1990, p. 672).

I believe this similarity is not accidental. Probably, the images of Savitar and Sandman developed from the image of some common Indo-European mythological character, but later their “paths diverged.” In India, at the end of the long development of the image, Savitar became a solar god, and the Slavic Drema was thought of as a “pribog,” a mythological character preceding, accompanying or coming after the Gods.
15. One of the myths involving Sandman

Against the background of the identified relationships between Sandman and Dawn and Sleep, the following scenario emerges: the child is bothered by a demon (Crixus, Crybaby, Nightfly, etc.), which does not allow the baby to sleep normally, and therefore to develop. The mother or another interested person calls upon Zarya to fight the demon.

In conspiracies, Zarya is asked to rid the child of demons in very specific ways: not to kill, for example, or flog, but to “take from the baby,” “carry away,” “remove,” which very clearly illustrates the large-scale relationship between Zarya and her enemy.

The dawn is strong and majestically unhurried; if it hears the call, it simply “takes”, “takes off”, “carries away” the demon located on the baby in the cradle. After this, the mother calls “sleep and slumber into the baby’s head” and they - young Dream, leading the blind old man Sleep - go from the forest, swamp Otherworld to the village, to the right street, to the right hut to the intended goal - to solemnly stand in the baby’s head, having occupied a “holy place” that Death itself can claim (cf. the belief that a patient who sees death in his legs will recover, but at his head he will die). With the arrival of Sleep and Drowsiness to the baby, peace, harmony, and order are restored in the world of the family.

This is a Slavic myth with the deeds of the Gods, which is repeated and played out every time such spells are performed “for a child’s sleep.” Let us not fantasize with which divine Child of Slavic mythology the described precedent first occurred; here we are talking about Drem, but from this example the inclusion of the folklore character Drem in Slavic mythology becomes obvious.

This is the same “Slavic mythology” that is hidden to external observers, but obvious to the bearers of the culture themselves. A mythology whose existence is denied by ill-wishers and overloaded with their fantasies by well-wishers, some of whom are like “helpful fools” who are “more dangerous than the enemy” because they turn everything into abstruse or primitive popular print. I tried here to consider the image of Sandman without going to these extremes.

Conclusion

So, upon careful examination, the individual “microtexts of Drema” form a “macrotext” - a holistic formation, the unity of which is based on the thematic commonality of its constituent units. From the macrotext of Drema, we tried to move to the “intertext” - the totality of all possible interpretations of allusions and parallels hidden in this text. As a result, a Slavic system of ideas about the Dream was discovered, closely intertwined with the Indo-European pagan worldview and mythology.

Just as the ancient Greeks had the god of sleep Hypnos and Morpheus, the god of dreams, so the Slavs had the mythological characters Sleep and Dream. Drem was thought of as anthropomorphic - a young, active person, a man or a woman, depending on the gender of the person to whom he comes.

The specificity of the Slavic Dream, unlike, for example, Morpheus, was not night dreams, but dreams during a drowsy state at any time of the day (prophetic - more in the morning). Like dreams, they were given the significance of predictions. In the folklore of the Eastern Slavs there is evidence of the artificial induction of drowsy dreams in girls during a special life period of maximum “bliss”, “will” - a blissful state of free, carefree girlhood. This period, which lasted from the beginning of the girl’s participation in youth games until the morning of the wedding, when she last told her mother and friends about her drowsy visions, was a kind of maiden initiation preceding marriage.

In the annual cycle, this period lasted from March to May and was the time of slumber of the Mother of the Raw Earth, whose behavior the Slavs imitated in their rituals. The identified but not yet entirely clear connection between Drema and the gods of the pan-Slavic pantheon Perun and Chernobog dates back to this same period of the year.

In Slavic folk culture, there is a taboo of information regarding the use of narcotic plants to induce a state of drowsy dreams and openness of information about inducing ritual drowsiness in other ways.

In the functions of the Slavic mythological character Dryoma, a connection can be traced with the gods of the Indo-European peoples: the ancient Indian Savitar, the ancient Greek Hermes, the ancient Roman Mercury and the great teacher Buddha - all of them at the very beginning of their “mythological life” were guides of souls (to a dream, another world, nirvana), put them to sleep and awakened people, either by their power (gods) or by personal example (Buddha). That is, Dozing is associated not only with going to sleep, but also with awakening, enlightenment, and receiving information..

Just as in the philosophy of ancient India, four states of the human soul were distinguished, which manifest themselves from time to time: wakefulness, sleep (dreaming), dreamless sleep and a state of absolute detachment" (Pandey R.B. "Ancient Indian household rituals", M. 1982 , p. 125), the Slavic tradition knew wakefulness, drowsiness (a transitional state from wakefulness to sleep, in which significant visions appeared to a person), sleep with dreams and deep sleep. In this “quartet,” judging by the frequency of mentions in folklore, a special place was occupied by the state of slumber and its personification – the mythological character Drem.

What does the understanding of this special Slavic “attachment” to the state of slumber give us, what does it tell us? I will answer with a true story, similar to a parable:

“The compromising material was conducted by Guseva Elena Dmitrievna. She was already about 70 years old at that time. She went through the camps. She was probably the only teacher at the institute who allowed herself to smoke during classes... So she said that she saw her task as being that we would dream about diagrams (load distribution graphs), and we could not draw them, but imagine them with eyes closed. At least in relation to me, she succeeded. Sometimes they still appear in dreams. And it happened that I caught myself thinking that I was looking at some kind of structure, and my consciousness or subconscious mind was completing the diagram around it... This is by the way about Drem. Such things are characteristic of this state...” (D. Salov, from personal correspondence).

It is not known whether D. Mendeleev, who saw a table of chemical elements in a dream, was familiar with this technique, and whether the truly “seasoned wise old woman” Guseva still had successors in the higher education system, but one thing is obvious - these episodes of the activities of our scientists fit into the Slavic mentality , reflected in oral folk art.

The fact that the Slavic system of mythological ideas is often below the threshold of consciousness and is revealed only during analysis does not mean that it is destroyed or distorted. This speaks of its Slavic specificity, which is characterized not by texts that describe what is happening in detail and consciously, but by deeds accompanied by seemingly simple words; these are deeds whose ritualism and sacred essence are “disguised” by everyday life.

All Glory to the Ancestors!
T. Blinova, February 2014.

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Taking a nap after lunch, passing out with your head on your neighbor's shoulder, floating between sleep and reality while the alarm clock goes off - all these, at first glance, are absolutely useless actions. Their only obvious outcome is wasted time, confused neighbors and plans for the near future lost between alarm bells. But fortunately, such states also have an unobvious bright side: if used correctly, they can benefit us.

What is usually called drowsiness or drowsiness has an impressive temporal and descriptive range. We are interested in two types of naps: nanosleep, that is, a short blackout like nodding off between subway stations, and its longer version of 10–25 minutes. For convenience, let's call it a so-so siesta.

Technically they are different from each other. In the first case, our brain remains in the 1st stage of sleep (non-REM, or somnolence), where alpha rhythms are replaced by theta rhythms, providing us with deep relaxation. During a so-so siesta, we, as a rule, move into medium-depth sleep (sleep spindles), where our consciousness slowly turns off, and sigma rhythms are added to the theta rhythms.

A short rest (NASA recommends taking a nap for about 26 minutes) seriously improves mental acuity, perception, stamina, mood, and also pumps up memory, as it stimulates the work of the hippocampus, where short-term memory is transformed into long-term memory.

After a short nap, new information received in our brain is better consolidated there, as clearly shown by an experiment by researchers from the University of York: subjects are read adjectives and associated associations, after which the subjects go to take a nap. Scientists repeat the adjectives again, and, as EEG shows, corresponding associations arise in the heads of those dozing. As the British say, it’s all thanks to sleep spindles (bursts of brain activity recorded by EEG) - the more of them in our brain, the easier it is for us to remember newly learned information.

Unlike short naps, nanosleep is unlikely to bring serious benefits to the body (this issue is currently under consideration in the scientific world), but it has another, more curious property: it makes our imagination more sophisticated, as if we were constantly staring at the paintings of Salvador Dali . And this comparison is not accidental.

Dali, a madman and a cunning man, elevated stealing from a state of half-asleep to the level of an artistic method. To do this, he developed his own phantasmagoric technique: “you should sit in a comfortable chair, preferably in the Spanish style, throw your head back. Your hands should be completely relaxed on the arms of the chair. In this position, hold a large, heavy key between the thumb and index finger of your left hand.” You fall asleep, your muscles gradually relax, the key crashes on the tray, you wake up, and the inspiration, caught between reality and non-reality, remains with you. The name of this inspiration is hypnagogia.

Its informal name is "face-in-the-dark phenomenon", which hypnagogia received for its ability to cause sleep paralysis, a state in which a person's consciousness has already awakened, but the body's muscles are still atony. Sleep paralysis, in turn, provokes powerful hallucinations, the most spectacular of which are dark anthropomorphic spots on the borders of peripheral vision and a clear sensation of someone's presence nearby. In the folklore of many peoples, such hallucinations turned into the image of a “shadow man,” and in Chuvash mythology a whole demon appeared, Vupar Pusat.

Sleep paralysis is an extremely rare phenomenon, unlike visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations as such.

A person can get hypnagogic visions only in the interval between not yet being asleep and no longer being awake, and vice versa, that is, at the moment of falling asleep and, less often, waking up (hypnopompic visions), as well as during a light doze, balancing between both to others.

But, in addition to the surreal images that so attracted Dali and were interesting, perhaps, only to the creative fraternity, the very process of transferring the rights of leadership to the unconscious without turning off consciousness can be useful to everyone.

As we fall asleep, our brain stops paying attention to external stimuli and establishes a partial blockade of incoming and outgoing signals. The need to process sensory impulses coming from the ever-itching world weakens, the posts in our brains close, and traffic controllers take a smoke break. The brain gradually turns off one zone after another. Those areas that work together during wakefulness are cut off from communication with partners at the moment of falling asleep.

Such a division gives rise to new, unexpected associative connections, free from totalitarian categorical thinking, which plays a dual role in our cognition.

It helps us make generalizations and organize information coming from outside, but at the same time it deprives us of the freshness of perception, and the objects sacrificed to classification deprive us of their uniqueness. When we fall asleep, we throw off these shackles along with the habit of walking on beaten paths and, as a result, we think much more creatively.

The ability of our brain to unconsciously generate creativity is referred to by Thomas Metzinger, who studies human consciousness through philosophy, cognitive science and the study of lucid dreams, as an “autocreative state of mind”, vaguely similar to a psychotypical one. Autocreativity manifests itself most clearly during the construction of dreams.

As we drift into sleep, we find ourselves surrounded by chaotic internal messages generated by PGO waves, electrical bursts of neural activity in several brain regions (pons, lateral geniculate nucleus of the hypothalamus, and occipital primary visual cortex).

Dreams and the agent - a participant in the dream, that is, our temporary new self, arise when the brain tries to assemble a more or less intelligible narrative from the chaos of internal self-generated signals.

The formation of the dream itself occurs in the brain stem, and rather randomly, and the forebrain is engaged in composing a story that explains this phantasmagoria. According to Thomas Metzinger (the opposite of psychoanalysis), a dream is a subjective experience by the forebrain of activation of the brain stem and its way of somehow clarifying this situation. In addition to the abundance of unusual signals, he gets damn difficult conditions to clear. On the one hand, the forebrain is deprived of the usual state of wakefulness, which it is designed to regulate, and on the other, it is in an extreme state of metacognitive deficit. That is, it has an impossible task: to comprehend the generated state from the inside, without being able to adequately reflect. This is partly why dream logic is so bizarre.

In the 1st and 2nd stages of sleep, when consciousness and the unconscious find a fragile balance, dream logic is already beginning to work, but the dreams themselves have not yet been formed, and the agent - a participant in the dream - has not yet been sculpted from clay. Autocreativity is not yet aimed at surreal reflection, and we are not completely detached from reality. In such conditions, our brain is busy processing the events of the day, abandoned thoughts and unsolved problems.

This unpredictable property of the brain was actively used by Einstein, Tesla and other riders of creativity and genius.

Thomas Edison, like Dali, would sit in a chair (it is unknown whether it was Spanish style) with a bottle of water in his hand and doze until the bottle fell and woke him up. After such executions, Edison often discovered a couple of wonderful new ideas in his head.

Creative search is a process in which both consciousness and the unconscious are involved, as social psychologist Graham Wallace and mathematical psychologist Jacques Salomon Hadamard kindly told us back in 1926. Having analyzed the work methods of various scientists, they proposed a scientific classification of the creative process, which includes four stages: 1. preparation, during which the task is formulated and thought out as precisely as possible; 2. incubation - the time during which one should forget about the task and let the mind “go for a walk”; 3. insight, that is, an intuitive decision issued by the unconscious; and 4. testing the idea for strength.

The importance of the incubation period, during which we disconnect from the task without disconnecting from it, is confirmed by many modern scientists.

The unconscious is so good at churning out “insights” for several reasons: its speed is many times higher than slow logic, its language is more perfect, since we are talking about symbols, and the search for a solution itself is more variable and is carried out in several directions at once.

Some scientists, experimenters and esotericists claim that in addition to half-sleep, to hunt for insights, you can use trance, Patanjali yoga sutras, binaural beats or sleep deprivation as a radical way to enter the looking glass. In other words, there are no bad remedies for inducing a creative erection. But the problem is that using the autocreativity of sleep is itself a rather experimental way of unscrewing the “reducing valve of the brain,” as Huxley would say. Some modern research clearly refutes the connection between sleep and creative insight, while others clearly confirm it.

Indirectly joining the second team are researchers who study the connection between sudden creative revelations and sensory limitations. For example, American psychologists have found that switching attention from external stimuli to internal processes reduces cognitive load and improves creativity.

A scientific expedition of scientists from the USA and Italy pleased the world with another discovery: our insights are associated with a decrease in the amount of visual information entering the brain.

The experiment they conducted showed that subjects who involved analytics when solving the problem proposed to them blinked rarely, quickly, and directed all their energy to thinking about the problem. Those who coped with difficulties using the “Eureka!” principle (the “Aha!” phenomenon), on the contrary, looked like old people tired of life, dozing in a rocking chair - they closed their eyes and blinked slowly. And in general they behaved more relaxed: they were often distracted and looked down at the landscape outside the window or the wall opposite.

Let's hope that Edison, Einstein, Dali and at least half of sleep researchers can be trusted and naps can be turned from an idle whim or a side effect of fatigue into a source of creative activity and a generator of non-trivial ideas. In the meantime, we have ironclad cognitive bonuses from a short siesta, which is not bad. If you doze off in the middle of a meeting, an unbearably boring date, or a dinner with distant relatives and get caught, you can always say with a feeling of unshakable confidence that you simply increased the efficiency of your brain in order to make this meeting even more beautiful.

Evening and night spirit in the form of a kind old woman with soft, gentle hands or in the form of a little man with a quiet soothing voice.

Goddess of sleep, sleepy dreams.

Wife of Sleep.

At dusk, slumber wanders under the windows, and when darkness thickens, it seeps through the cracks or slips through the door.

Drema comes to the children, closes their eyes, straightens the blanket, strokes their hair; with adults this spirit is not so gentle and sometimes brings nightmares.

Drema is a genus of herbs in the clove family.

They grow in meadows, rocks, dry slopes and as weeds in vegetable gardens, orchards, and fields.

Some are decorative, fodder.

Sometimes species of other genera of the carnation family with drooping flowers are called dormancy.

Sandman Astrakhan - protected.

Interpretation of dreams from the Dream Book of the ancient Slavs

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A dream in which you dozed off while sitting in an easy chair after a hard day at work foreshadows the betrayal of a loved one precisely when you have gained boundless trust in him. If you suddenly wake up and cannot immediately figure out where you are, this portends the return of lost hope. If you were rudely awakened, it means that in reality you will finally get a decent job after a long ordeal at the labor exchange.

If you see yourself sleeping on a roof, this is a sign of rapid success that will take you to unattainable heights. If in a dream you spend the night in the open air, in real life you will go on a trip that promises to be not only fun, but also extremely useful.

Sleeping on a long-distance train on the top bunk only on a mattress without other bedding means that you are satisfied with your situation and do not pretend to be more.

If you have a chaotic dream, the content of which you still cannot understand, this portends an encounter with something mysterious and inexplicable in real life.

If you have nightmares in which you are chased by some kind of fantastic monsters and vampires, something completely terrible will happen in reality.

Seeing yourself sleeping in a completely renovated, remodeled and newly furnished bedroom portends happy changes in your destiny.

Interpretation of dreams from