Sandman in Slavic folklore and mythology. Nanosleep and microsiesta

Foreword

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

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

“Drema is an evening or night spirit in the form of a kind old woman with soft, gentle hands, or in the guise of a little man with a quiet, lulling voice. At dusk, Sandman wanders under the windows, and when the 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.

This is what is called a half-truth, which is worse than a lie. The authors described Drema based mainly on the data of lullabies, not taking into account that the image of Drema is found in the erotic amusements of young people, that special types of wedding bread, mermaid games, Kupala flowers, wreaths and bouquets from various plants, as well as a nocturnal bird and a whole class of butterflies sleeping during the day. That in the Ryazan region they celebrated the "Dirty Day", that in Russia and Belarus there were rituals of "seeing off the nap", and the Luzhans called the character of the disguise and the scarecrow that they threw into the collection of girls a nap.

All these data (especially the naming of flowers, wreaths and bouquets as "Dream") indicate that the image of the "kind old woman", although very pretty, does not correspond to popular ideas about the mythological character of Drema. It becomes obvious that an unfortunate gap has been found in modern works on Slavic mythology, which I will try to fill below by collecting and putting “in order” scattered data about this character.

1. About the word "drema", its close, distant and possible relatives

In modern everyday speech, the words "dream", "drowse" (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 drowsiness"; students had the definition of “drowsy lecture”, for example, the famous ufologist F. Siegel, who taught the subject of descriptive geometry at the institute, it was impossible to listen due to the monotony of his speech, the audience dozed or played cards; while serving in the army, you had to hear the command “Stop the drowsiness ... your mother!” instead of the authorized "Rise!"; At home, the mother-in-law woke her grandson with the words “get up, dremushkin!”, And she never woke her granddaughter with such words (this is an important remark, we will see below why).

Actually, “drowse” means to be drowsy, to sit half asleep, to fall asleep slightly in the most sensitive sleep; and “drowsiness”, “drowsiness” is a tendency to sleep, drowsiness or the beginning of lulling, the easiest sleep; "dreams" - dreams, daydreams, visions; dreams, a game of stray imagination (V. Dal. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. Volume One. M. 1995, pp. 491-492). These ancient, all-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 have been preserved in almost their original form since the time of the Slavic-Balto-Germanic unity. Dream (dri: m) is in English a dream, a dream, a dream, a dream. "I have a dream" - without context, it can mean both "I have a dream" and "I have a dream." Traum is a dream in German ”(V. Zhernakov, from personal correspondence). In the Scandinavian countries there is a concept drømmehagen - "the garden of dreams", to stay in it means to live in dreams.

drommehagen

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

The Russian expression "dense forest" means a dense forest (which means dark), with blockages, impenetrable (and therefore restricting movement), a deaf forest in which there is silence, which, in the aggregate of influences, causes a sleepy state, drowsiness, during which visions can come , as if living in such a forest, compare with Pushkin: “There the forest and valleys 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, "stall clubs" (that is, huge oaks, trees growing upright).

That this was not always the case, we are told 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”, an old man lies to an old woman: “A wondrous miracle is happening in the world: in the forest, the old oak told me everything that was, and what will be - guessed!”. The old woman believes, goes to the oak, knowing in advance how to communicate with the prophetic tree: “... she fell down in front of the oak, prayed, howled: “The oak is oaky, the grandfather is well-spoken, what should I do?” (Folk Russian fairy 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: “doze off” - ..., sit half asleep ..) or even standing (see below the photo of an old woman in a church). During a nap, a person can bend over, move his arms, make soft sounds, mutter, whisper, scream. So are the plants, the main feature of which is “steorosity”, a vertical position in one place without the ability to move, but at the same time the plant can swing, wave branches, bend over, make sounds (creak, “whisper” foliage).

For quite a long time it was believed that the name of the Celtic clergy "druids" comes from words with the 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", German "wissen", "to know", Slavic "to know".

However, in the 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 a dense forest and contacted trees (and other plants), and this evokes the idea that “dru-wid-es” can be understood as “seeing in a slumber”, “seers dozing in a dense forest”.

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

It is currently 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 for a separate linguistic study. We, however, will only pay attention to their inclusion in the general semantic circle in which people and trees in a state of dormancy exude and receive knowledge.

The proverb “seeing in a dream, dreaming in a dream” tells us about the understanding by the Russian people of the difference between sleep and drowsiness. And indeed, what a person sees in a dream during sleep perceives as a reality, but this is an illusion, and while 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 a Buddha, along the right path.

As you know, the meaning of a word does not exhaust its meaning. “The true meaning of a single word is ultimately determined by the richness of all the motives present in the mind and related to the thought expressed by this 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 the Dream in a broad context of reality. Let's also take into account that in some Slavic languages ​​the word "meaning" means "feeling".

2. Feelings of drowsiness or drowsiness as a growth stimulant

AT study guide for universities "Russian ritual songs" author Yu.G. Kruglov, considering the game songs, writes: “... In the songs, for example, the image of Sandman is incomprehensible; Drema was contacted:
... Enough, Dremushka, drowse, ...
Take, Drema, whoever you want...
Kiss, Sandman, as much as you can!” (M. 1989, p. 139).

This is a quote from a youth round dance game that is part of the "kissing" group - the player "Dream" is in a circle, chooses a couple of the opposite sex, kisses and sits or puts him (her) in his place. 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 Sleep: “Sleep and sleep, go to the child in the eyes ...” , counting rhymes, fables, M. maj1989, No. 246, p. 93).

In lullabies, the presence of Sleep and Sandman is quite understandable - young children need a lot of sleep or serene nap 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 rural youth. And is it the same Drema? To do this, we turn to the texts with the mention of the character in question.

In the wedding "joke" of the girl-guest, we find a situation almost similar to the above-mentioned kissing game: a dream (guy) looks out for one of the girls:

“Dream walks on the floorboards,
Looking at the girls:
All girls are white
All red, blush -
One here Nastenka...
Sitting awkwardly
Sits neutera!
Grigoryushka came to her...
He brought her a joint of soap:
- On, Natalyushka, wash yourself ...
You will be whiter
And I'm nicer!" (" ritual poetry. Book 2, family folklore. M. 1997. p. 404).

Despite the fact that the song in question is marked by the collector as “corny”, 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 giving her soap, 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 the relationship of the sexes.

Among the upper Lusatians, as well as among the Russians, the character drēmotka is related to youth amusements, spinning was dressed up as a nap in games (Slavic Antiquities. Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. Volume 5. M. 2012, "Son", p. 121).

A variant of a round dance game with a similar character is found in the Ufa province:
“Drema sits - she is dozing.

- Enough, Dremoshka, drowse,
It's time, Dremoshka, get up!
(Guy gets up.)
- Look, Sandman, on the girls!
(Pren walks around the girls.)
- Take, Sandman, whoever you want!

- Sit down, Sandman, on your knees!
(The guy puts the girl on his lap.)
- Whip, Sandman, on the head!
(The guy strokes the girl's head.)
- Kiss, Sandman, for love!
(They kiss; the round dance starts the song again; the role of the Dream is played by the girl and the words of the song change accordingly.) "(Abridged. Ritual poetry. Book 1, family 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, which is directly stated in other folk songs:
“... Yes, kiss the guy on the mouth:
There will be frequent rye
Yes, primolotista ... ”(recorded in the Vologda province. Yu.G. Kruglov“ Russian ritual songs ”, M. 1989, p. 139).

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

frame from the film "The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"

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

“Sleep down, so you will grow up more ...” (Nursery rhymes, counting rhymes, fables, M. 1989, No. 246, p. 93).

Or:
"Our Tanya will fall asleep,
Will grow in a dream
Bye-bye-bye-bye.
Big one will grow soon
Yes, it will go to the ear ...
... to play with the guys ”(Nursery 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 (Motor) 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 effect of napping on the growth of those who should grow up (babies and plants) proves that in the genre of lullabies for children and youth play songs, napping is one and the same character, despite its obvious eroticism in adult games, and maybe thanks to her.

Let's pay attention to the fact that Sandman in youth games treats the opposite sex in the same way as children are usually treated: "... The guy puts the girl on his knees ... The guy strokes the girl on the head." And according to lullabies with children, Sandyman behaves in the same way as adult youth communicates with each other: “…Drema came, / She lay down in the cradle by Field, / She hugged Field with her hand.” That is, Sandman with children and adults is equally tangibly affectionate (ay).

And this “non-separation” of attitudes towards children and youth speaks of the antiquity of the image of Sandman, since the period of childhood stood out and took shape in a special stage of human development relatively recently. Back 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 to work for himself and society as best he could. In folk culture, even the "cradle" had its own duties: "Sleep and nap - / Here is Vanyushin's work" Nursery rhymes, rhymes, fables. M. 1989, No. 1571, p. 63).

Interestingly, it was not shameful for children and young people to take a nap during the day, anywhere. In a lullaby about a child: “Sleep and slumber ... / Where they will find Taisichka, / They will put her to sleep there ...” ”(Nursery rhymes, counting rhymes, fables. M. 1989, No. 11, p. 24-25).

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

The girl who fell asleep while spinning was told: “Sleep, girl, the kikimora will spin for you, mother will weave”; "Sleep, Mokusha will spin the yarn for you." Such behavior of the girls began to be considered laziness relatively recently, when it was forgotten that the kikimora / Mokusha (two incarnations of the same Goddess) helped the good girls with spinning, and the bad ones confused the yarn, poured garbage in their eyes. That is, these sayings were originally not a mockery of the unscrupulous, but a well-wishes to the right girl.

We find the same in relation to unmarried fellows:
“... The karolushka svavo kan was let into the green meadows ...
And the carolyushka himself lay down under a bush ...
The karoliushka had a sophisticated dream…” (Collection of folk songs by P.V. Kirievsky. Leningrad 1986, No. 225, p. 105).

However, the total amount of sleep was not to exceed certain limits. In the Arkhangelsk province they noticed: “If a single man sleeps a lot, he will sleep 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 big dormouse could "doze off a fever." That is, such too dormant people will toil.

In this regard, we are interested in the reconstruction of one of the Indo-European myths, presented by D. Razauskas in his work “Mother Maya ...”, in which he writes that the original ideas, assumed as the semantic basis of Indo-E. tāiā can be summarized as follows: the deity looks with an unblinking gaze at the true reality, but starts blinking and plunges into a dream, into a dream, thereby giving rise to an “illusion of the world”. Further, the deity loses control over his dream, 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 light (in the collection Balto-Slavic Studies XV, M. 2002, p. 293- 294).

Venetsianov, 1824

But 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,
Lost at someone else's gate
I'm with the young guys
With 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 - summer period in gardens, groves, oak forests, young people wore white outfits specially tailored for the holiday: on Trinity “Girls put on white dresses is obligatory. ... And the slaves put on trousers and a white shirt with a belt. The girls were usually with cashiers.” (Traditional culture of the Ulyanovsk Surya ethno-dialect dictionary. Volume 2, M. 2012, p. 564).

Note that among the Western Slavs, the family of nocturnal butterflies of the volnyanka is called naps, because during the day they sit motionless on tree trunks, fences, walls, that is, as if they are dozing. In this family, we are interested in golden tail (goldfish), złotozadkowa drěmotka, a white butterfly that loves to settle in gardens and oak forests with golden hairs on its abdomen, collected in a brush below, like a “light brown braid below the waist” of a girl in a white outfit.

Dremotka (goldtail)

And the males of this insect have a reddish abdomen, like good 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 out of Chernobog's "wild hunt":
… Lej, drěmotka mychanc swój pśestŕejo
A carnego boga ryśaŕstwo
Se pokažo nět
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 / Before Perun of summer ...” (Rakovsky). Perhaps here we are also talking about the ubiquitous golden-tailed butterfly - a drowsiness 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-and-gold butterfly of the volnyanka family, called the nap in the west of the Slavic world, which is mentioned next to the retinue of Chernobog. And among the southern Slavs, a certain golden butterfly asks Perun (God) for water for 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 pipyruda and the gold-tailed butterfly - napping with the Gods and giving them good luck (on hunting or in the fields) is obvious.

In mythology, all butterflies are associated with the soul, the verb flutter refers not only to butterflies, but also to easily moving people (mainly young women). Against the background of the above Western and South Slavic data on butterflies, the stable East Slavic phrases maiden-soul, darlings of a red maiden appear in a new aspect, possibly originally associated with night rituals in oak forests 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 dead relatives who manifest themselves in the first greenery. It is possible that 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 with their “correct” behavior could help the dead is evidenced by the fact that the dates of lovers quite often took place on bridges. In tradition, many public bridges across streams and rivers, as well as floorings "on the mud" were built (or paid for) by a person for the people's memory of him after his death (there will be people walking on the bridge, remember me) or relatives of the deceased for the same purpose. It was believed that everyone who passed through such a structure helps the soul of the deceased builder of the bridge to cross the mythological bridge to the afterlife. Mothers even specially sent their children to run along such bridges, and the youth arranged their meetings on them.

Non-participation in youth night festivities was condemned: “Well, Sashenka, isn’t it a shame / early to sleep in the evening? ...” (Pereslavskoye Zalesye ... p. 162). During the active evening-night communication of the sexes, the sleepy state was indecent and punished: “It is not uncommon to meet dozing, half-asleep party-goers here, who, in a more lively girl, cause the so-called joke of trouble to prick. To do this, they roll up a woolen thread and stick it into the nostrils of a dormouse ... ”(Efimenko P.S. “Customs and beliefs of the peasants of the Arkhangelsk province”, M. 2009, p. 396). Recall that among the Luzhans, the retinue of Chernobog, which begins its activity with the appearance of the twilight drowsiness butterfly, punished those who misbehaved.

From my personal observations, I note that the older generation still has a stable idea of ​​the permissibility, correctness of daytime youth naps: as I was driving during the day, standing in a crowded bus. Elderly people crowded around me, and a young girl dozed in 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 is so difficult for young people - they both work and study, and even their personal lives need to be arranged. Worn out, 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 they were completely strangers. The girl silently went out one door, the grandmother in another.

That is, the old woman sacrificed her own convenience for the sake of rest, who knows where, the tired girl, probably subconsciously considering the girl's daytime nap, a thing justified and useful to society. Or maybe deliberately, because for many centuries in the folk culture of the Slavs, girlish slumber was a “highlight”, a distinctive, ethnic-defining feature. More on this below.

4. Girlish slumber as one of the aspects of Slavic ethnic behavior

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

A. Venetsianov "Sleeping Girl"

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

She (aunt) wakes everyone with an affectionate word,
And Vesse wakes up with a hard rod ...

"You will so indulge in dreams,
I won’t give it up for a young knight ”...

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

Note that the importance of morning dreams is noted in ancient dream books: “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 symbols - she swims across the sea in the form of a duck, covers entire fields in the land of the Wends with her wings, the linden receives the overseas guest on its roots and bends its branches to it.
It is interesting that the Buddha gained Awakening while meditating in a slumber under the sacred ficus tree, whose leaves are surprisingly similar to the leaves of the linden - the sacred tree of the Western Slavs, under which the bride of the prince of the Wends strove in her morning dreams: “... I sat on the root of the linden, / 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 her dream for outfits sewn during the summer. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the king of the Wends, who demands that Vessa be married to him. The aunt talks about the “wrong”, not traditional for a Dane, behavior of the royal lady, who is “in shame” - a long sleep, or rather, a nap, “looking for happiness” - trying to see her betrothed:

“Girls sew with gold all day,
And Vesya is sleeping, you can see she is too lazy to sew.

... I began to drag Vesya by the hair:
“There is nothing to look for in the shame of happiness ...”

But for the Slavic king, the girl’s long sleep is not at all an obstacle to marriage:
"I'm not used to retreat from the word,
How much you want you will sleep ... (Scandinavian ballad, Leningrad, 1978, p. 169-171.).

Judging by the name, Vesse had Slavic roots - the double Danish "s" in her name could convey the Slavic sound "u", that is, the name Vesse - "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 Pomeranian, the king of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, at the beginning of his journey was Boguslav from Pomerania, the son of Vartislav VII and Mary of Mecklenburg.

We will also take into account the fact that in southern Denmark there are toponyms 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, Mön). In addition, there are reasons to assume the absence of a compact Danish community on these islands at least until the 13th century ... ”(Slavic language and ethno-linguistic systems in contact with a non-Slavic environment. M. 2002, p. 156). In any case, the Danish ballad "Morning Dream" bears clear traces of close Slavic-Danish contacts in the Middle Ages.

Among the German peoples, the Slavs have long been known as lazy people. This is due to the fact that the attitude to sleep among the Slavs did not coincide with the German one: among the Russians, for example, until the beginning of the 20th century, it was customary in folk culture to sleep after dinner, which was wildness for the Germans.

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

Interestingly, the situation described in the Danish ballad about a girl's prophetic morning dream before her wedding is typical of Eastern Slavic wedding folklore. In many Russian weddings, the “prophetic dream of the bride” on the last night of girlhood is an almost obligatory “common place”:
“Like a night for me, mother,
I slept a little,
The little ones slept - they saw a lot:
What a wonderful dream! (“Wedding. From matchmaking to the prince's table”. M. 2001, pp. 191-192).

In this regard, there is a possibility of borrowing the plot of the song by the Danes from the Slavs. The coincidence of pre-wedding "schemes" (a maiden's nap in the morning - a dream - his story - marriage) in folk art of places quite remote from each other is hardly accidental. I think that this is an example of a common girlish ethnic behavior, which among the Slavs was considered natural, correct, useful, which is why in some regions of Russia it has become an obligatory pre-wedding ritual.

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

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

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

“... Oh, how young I am,
I didn’t sleep, I didn’t lie down,
Yes, I have had many dreams” (Russian family and ritual folklore of Siberia and the Far East. Novosibirsk, 2002, p. 101).

Unfortunately, none of the collectors of folklore found out from the performers whether real dreams could be told in the tale, 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 performer’s urgent emotional request ...” (E.V. Minenok. Variation as a textological factor. In the collection “Actual Problems of Field Folkloristics”, M. 2002, p. 78). That is, the performer could improvise in the recital:

"Tell me, my friends...
How did you sleep and lie down?
And to me, bitter goryushka,
Yes, I didn’t sleep, but I didn’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 wailing, explained to her daughter the meaning of what she saw during "forgetfulness", that is, drowsiness. Sometimes the dream was explained by the bride herself, and sometimes a request was made to call a special interpreter, which emphasizes its importance:
"Please go
You are for Osip the Beautiful,
Behind the sleepy yes the judge,
Telling good people! ... "(" Wedding. From matchmaking to the prince's table ". M. 2001, p. 286).

It is significant that attention to girlish morning drowsy dreams is found not only in folklore, but also in contemporary author's works. 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:

“The hushed northern city is slumbering,
Low sky above.
What are you dreaming about, cruiser Aurora,
At the hour when the morning rises over the Neva?

And it doesn't matter that in reality Aurora is a warship, in the song she is a dream girl. And, following the archetype (and not just the 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 girl herself), a she-wolf with cubs (mother-in-law with sister-in-laws), a cuckoo (a married woman, the bride herself in the future), etc.

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

6. Ritual ways of inducing slumber things in girls and pullets

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

a) swing

"Like in a garden, in a garden,
On the apple tree, on the bitch
The cradle is hung;
In this cradle
Light Daria sleeps...
Around the girl's cradle...
The light Daria spoke to the girls ...
- Jump up (swing), girls, higher ...
For me to see further
Where is my separation walking? ... ”(Kostroma province., lyrical. Ritual poetry. Book 2, family folklore. M. 1997. p. 419).

The cradle in which the adult girl fit was obviously in the form of a hammock, similar to the one we see in the old photo of the middle of the 20th century:

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

Compare with the infant lullaby: “Bai-bye, you 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 (centers of peace for the family) and youth, in which the infant and the maiden are collectively rocked by faces that are benevolent towards the object of the rocking. The difference between infant and girl swings is that the installation of a swing for adults was among the Slavs a ritual dedicated to the spring holidays. The swing itself was perceived by the people as a magical act “for health”, “for a long flax”, for the growth of life. Children were pumped during their infancy, too, "to health", for normal growth in a dream. These were witchcraft.

Sometimes the old people also used the magical power of rocking, apparently for rejuvenation: “He (the old man living in the forest in a hut on a chicken shank) brought an eyeglass, hung a shank, lay down himself (in a shaky) and forced the girl to rock it ...” (D.K. Zelenin, Great Russian Tales of the Vyatka Province, St. Petersburg, 2002, No. 82, p. 257).

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

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

Probably the words tree, tree come from these same verbs. For example, a village is not a series of wooden buildings, but a place cleared of trees, a village, a pull, a village from the verb to pull, and a tree is an object that is pulled, pulled, shaken (to collect fruits, branches, clean up the territory) and which can itself shaking, shaking, trembling leaves.

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

E. Berezina "On a swing"

On the other hand, we all know from personal experience that unrestrained swinging can also lead to unpleasant sensations - nausea, dizziness without drowsiness and dreams. Such states are not marked by folklore, and this suggests that folk culture knew the limits of permissible swing, 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.

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

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

That is, the language data at some period in the development of German dialects reflected the purely physiological effect 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, for them the “theme of drowsiness” was more developed, had a positive and magical character.

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

Also, drowsiness was caused by a long look from the darkness of the room into the light of a small window (such were the windows in the old days) or, conversely, into the distance through an open window at evening and morning dawns.

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

photo Ronin

In the pre-wedding song, just like in a fairy tale, the groom flies to the window to the apparently dozing girl, because only she sees the falcon:

“The young clear-falcon flew in,
He sat on the window
On a painted platband,
Nobody saw a falcon…” (Ritual poetry, M. 1989, p. 325).

The method of contact with the Other World through the window is very dangerous, since not only grooms, 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 bylichki). That is why in the fairy tale Finist Yasny Sokol, the sisters of the heroine try to drive the guest away from the window by sticking knives into the frame, because the sister hides the visitor from them, they do not know who enters 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 the future life:

“... I didn’t sleep, I didn’t doze off!
I looked out the window...
Over the white dawn I forgot
I had a dream, I dreamed ... "(" Wedding. From matchmaking to the prince's table ". M. 2001, p. 44-45).

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

And even this bird is a nightjar,
That milks the goats at dawn,
He doesn't know why it's like this at dawn,
It smells so deadly of mignonette.
…
So the danger is felt weaker.
…
So there is no more power to rule yourself.

Dremlyuga (nightjar)

According to East Slavic folklore, ethnography, author's artistic creativity, reflecting Slavic specificity and linguistic data, "a girl dreaming at the window", "a girl looking out the window" are stable stereotypes, and we can conclude that in reality the girls are quite often used this dangerous method of invoking dreams at dawn.

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

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

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

The teaching of this mantra was one of the main tasks of the samskara of the twice-born initiation. Obviously, the pre-wedding girlish dreams of the Slavs at dawn were ritual actions of the same series. It is interesting that in ancient India this mantra and the actions in it described for women were forbidden, while among the Slavs it was the opposite.

c) Inaction and monotonous work in a closed space

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

The bridesmaids came to her every morning to help make wedding gifts, and they had to wake the bride from a state of slumber:

"Get up, get up, Maryushka,
Get up, my friend, do not drowse!
You need a lot of lessons
Forty-forty pairs of towels ...
Dezhnichki on tubs,
And tablecloths on the tables” (recorded in the Kursk Region by I. Shangin “Russian Girls”, St. Petersburg 2007, p. 269).

During the Bulgarian wedding, which sometimes lasted several days, "... the newlywed spent whole hours ... in a specially designated corner for her in silence and without movement with half-closed eyes" (E.S. Uzeneva "The character" bride "in the scenario of the Bulgarian wedding" in the collection " Slavic and Balkan linguistics…”, M. 2003, p. 290).

Prostitute in a scarf "in a frown." Yaroslavl region

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

e) Narcotic plants

Sleep is grass

Ethnography gives us examples of the use of plants to induce prophetic dreams: “Sleep-grass. This grass is collected by sorcerers in the month of May with yellow-blue flowering, with various rites and slander. The villagers believe that she has prophetic power - to predict good and evil to people during sleep. Gathered by the sorcerer with morning dew, lowered into cold water, it is taken out at the full moon and begins to stir. At this time, the village women put Sleep grass under their pillows and fall asleep with fear and hope ”(Russian people, its 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 dope, belladonna ... The berry of this plant, black and shiny, looks a lot like a cherry, which is why children in the villages often gorge themselves on the fruits of this narcotic plant, considering them to be tasty berries” (Ibid., p. 437).

Belladonna, "strong berries"

Against the background of this message of 1880 by M. Zabylin, folklore texts such as:
"Our field is dormant
Strong berries gave birth ...
Tatyana took berries, ...
Bramshi berries, fell asleep ... ”(Ritual poetry, book 2, family folklore, M. 1997, p.
497).

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

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

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

"Polyushko is drowsy" with sleepy dope

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

“I myself will go young - I will not come forever.
There is a sleepy field there,
Wine berries were born in a field.
Bravshi berries, I'm tired,
When I got tired, I sat down…” (Pereslavskoye Zalesye. Folklore and ethnographic collection of S.E. Elkhovsky. Issue 2. M. 2012, p. 104).

"Pine berry" is now called a fig containing a certain percentage of alcohol. In the Russian folk tradition, this was the name of any berry that could cause intoxication in the person who ate it, similar to that that occurs after drinking wine. It is interesting that nowhere, in any genre of Slavic folklore, we will find a description of a special induction of slumber for receiving visions (or for other magical purposes) with the help of alcoholic beverages.

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

“... Grushenka lies on a feather bed,
Matveyushka is in their heads,
He holds green wine in his hand,
In the other, he holds sweet mead.
“Drink some wine, Grushenka…”…
“I don’t drink wine, Matveyushko, ...
I love ... Matvey Vasilievich ”(Ritual poetry, M. 1989, p. 326-327).

Heroes of Slavic folklore drink honey, beer, wine in various ritual situations (feast, wedding, end of 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 purpose of “medical magic”, so to speak, and not to recognize the future in an altered state. This is one of the features of Slavic ethno-behaviour, which 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 “poetry honey” 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 "Sleep", 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 the Sandman".

7. Dreaming 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 which Hypnos was afraid to even approach, and the Supreme Deity in Kabbalah who does not have eyelids, which is why his eyes never close and Christian "Watching Eye" and many others. Prophets are often thought of as awake, for example, Buddha, whose name is translated as “awakened”, and mythologized rulers: “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 opposition to them, in the pantheon of the Indo-European peoples, there are Goddesses who skillfully induce drowsiness 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 - forever asleep after the birth in May of the ruler of the souls of the Buddha; the Greek Maya, the mother of Hermes, a young man, among whose deeds are putting people to sleep with the touch of a rod and accompanying the souls of the dead; Baltic sorceress Laume. And also “The mother of the Roman Mercury, as you know, is also Maya, lat. Māja, the goddess of the earth, who was identified by the Romans with the Greek Maya and gave her name to the month of May…” (D. Razauskas “Mother Maya. Reflections on two Lithuanian homonyms: mója “mother” and moja “max”” in the collection Balto-Slavonic Studies XV , M. 2002, p. 295). The ancient Indian god Savitar (Motor) was the son of Aditi, a goddess, among other things, related to the Earth. We also note that the Indians know the planet Mercury 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 Mother Earth Cheese, one of whose characteristics is light, that is, the Earth toils, suffers. In the Croatian song about the debate between the Earth and Heaven: “... You torment me, my Heaven, / With fierce flour ...”, in the Russian “Crying of the Earth”: “The mother of cheese Earth became cold, burst into tears ...” (V.N. Toporov “On the reconstruction of the image Earth - Mothers ... "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, Simon's Zelo (potion, grass), Semik, Earth day, Holy Day, girl's holiday. In some places in Russia, the name day of the Earth is celebrated on Trinity or Spirits Day, girls' holidays (Raffles, Rusalia). If we digress from church calendar, then this is the time of flowering of rye, in wreaths from which they drove "destructive" mermaids - representatives of the Other World, chaos.

Interestingly, flowering rye in traditional medicine treats such a mental disorder as schizophrenia, one of the symptoms of which is fantastic delirium, that is, they give the sick person the strength to control himself, wake up, and 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 the forty-fifth on the green”, which many did not believe: “We began to hesitate: they say, it’s not very hard to believe; by that time it won’t end - there won’t be enough people ”(N.M. Vedernikova“ Folklore of the Shadrinsk Territory ”, 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 mayata and the 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 day of the Earth during the flowering of rye, confirmed and strengthened the subconscious Slavic mythology of the dormant Earth and its exit from the state of slumber in May .

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

On the name day of the Earth, they “listen” to it, leaning their ear to it - that is, the Earth shares information, collects medicinal and witchcraft herbs (it was noted above that “sleep-grass ... is collected by sorcerers in May”), dig roots, look for treasures - that is The earth opens up and reveals the hidden. On this day, the Earth could open up for a lie - that is, the Earth could take away, swallow the wicked. On this day, the Earth healed children - their mothers poured earth on the trail with a request to correct the clumsy child - that is, the Earth made the child's step 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 on the day of its name day actively contacts with people, which indicates its wakefulness.

However, the Earth is not always in this state. According to folk beliefs, the Earth sleeps from autumn until the Annunciation (March 25/April 7). On the day of the spring equinox, the Earth wakes up, comes out of a deep sleep, during which it cannot be disturbed (plow, dig holes), but does not wake up 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, harvesting.

Unfortunately, to date, not a single Slavic folklore text is known in which it would directly say that the Earth is slumbering and dreaming. 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 slumber of the Earth is the testimony of Titmar, 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 ...” (V.N. Toporov “On the reconstruction of the Balto-Slavic mythological the image of the Earth-Mother…” in the collection Balto-Slavonic Research 1998-1999, M. 2000, p. 278). It is quite natural to talk in a whisper with a dozing interlocutor.

Also, the total “portrait of the Earth” collected from available sources shows that the Earth has: “face, face, forehead, body, flesh, chest, bosom, hair, blood, veins, bones. It is characteristic that, except for some very rare and not always sufficiently revealing examples, the EARTH DOES NOT HAVE EYES, while the Sky is characterized precisely by eyes ... ”(Ibid., p. 269).

During the period of the Earth's stay in a state of dormancy, it was plowed and sown for the first time in the new year. Translating this into a "human code", the Earth during this period was in the status of a bride and pullets, whose activity, as shown above, was ritually limited (the same 6 weeks), which caused drowsiness. Girls and young women, by their behavior, had to copy and copy the behavior of the dormant Mother of the Raw Earth.

By the end of the 20th 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 pattern. These myths (M. Eliade refers to them - 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“ To 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 remarkably noticed the specific East Slavic ability to “correctly” handle dreams, will, and understand the Earth through the prism of these dreams:
Russian mind
…
He is in life from an abstract dream
The timid will shows the way.
…
He thinks sensibly about the earth
In the mystical bathing mist...

Returning to the Dream, we can assume that he (she), being the bearer and distributor in the world of people of the state characteristic of the Great Goddess of the Mother of the Raw Earth, is her offspring, descendant, son or daughter (about the field of the Dream in the chapter “Sexual issue with reference to the archaic).

8. Ways to bring people out of the state of slumber and sleep

In the East Slavic folk culture, babies were not only put to sleep to special lullabies (often with a mention of drowsiness), but they were also woken up by performing magical texts that folklorists singled out as a separate genre of “pestushki”. “The lullaby should help the child to painlessly move from the state of wakefulness to the state of sleep, and the pestle, on the contrary, after sleep, to the state of wakefulness” (T. Buiskikh “On the genre specifics of pestles” in the collection “Poetics of Folklore”, M. 2005, p. 125).

The mother, affectionately stroking the arms, legs, tummy of the child, briefly and affirmatively expressed her good wishes:
"Puffs,
little girls,
mouth-talkers,
Hands are grasping
Legs are walkers” (ibid.).

Pestushka, a small 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 during wakefulness, and their texts are aimed at entertainment and play with the baby. Pestushki, on the other hand, are performed by babies from birth and their words are aimed at the health and proper development of the child. The content and form of the pestles are similar to incantations; these are not entertaining, but magical texts (Ibid., p. 129).

For example, according to M.S. Skremninskaya (born 1925), after sleeping, she stroked the bodies of children and grandchildren, saying: “We pull the bones on the sprouts” and “We pull the bones on the bridges”, and in conspiracies that exorcise the disease, the phrase “from all bones, from all bridges” is often used. . In Ukraine, a Slavic-Jewish variant of such a pestle is recorded: “Kostynya is a rosty, Leiben is stagnant”, which in translation from means: “bones - to grow, they must live” (Ibid., p. 127).

It is interesting that when the Slav fell asleep with an “eternal sleep”, relatives tried to “wake up” him, lamenting: “Wake up, wake up, dear father ...”, and in the tales of the deceased hero they sprinkled living and dead water, folding “bone to bone” and he “woke up” : “... they killed him (Ivan Tsarevich) and scattered the bones across the open field. The horse of Ivan Tsarevich collected all his bones in one place, sprinkled him with living water; he has a scythe with a scythe, the joint with the joint have grown together; The prince came to life and said: “I slept for a long time, but I soon got up!” (Folk Russian fairy tales by A.N. Afanasyev, volume 1, M. 1957, No. 174 “The Tale of a Daring Young Man, 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 dream vision" (S. Neklyudov "On the functional-semantic nature of the sign in narrative folklore" in collection "Semiotics and Artistic Creativity", M. 1977, p. 208). Recall that babies were called blaznota and this word also means sleepy vision. With the help of pestles, these "sleepy visions" were turned into people. Similar transformations were attempted with the dead.

In the Vedic period of ancient India, “when a person died, verses were read to revive him (Atharvaveda, VII, 53)” (R.B. Pandey “Ancient Indian Household Rituals”, M. 1982, p. 193). After the cremation, there was a ceremony of “picking up the bones”, during which they said, referring to the deceased: “Get up from here and take on a new look ... This is one of your bones. Connecting all the bones, be beautiful. Be loved by the gods in the abode of the noble” (Ibid., p. 207).

That is, the texts of the East Slavic pestles “to wake up” with the mention of bones are similar to the most ancient East Slavic texts of conspiracies and fairy tales, which describe the magical methods of healing and awakening the injured or deceased hero and the texts of real Vedic funeral rituals, which indicates the antiquity and mythological basis of the East Slavic method of awakening 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 awakened by words, and these words were similar over a fairly large territory for a long time: in modern Kursk, “get up, dremushkin!” - the grandson's grandmother wakes up for school, and in the Ufa province at the end of the 19th century: "it's time, Dremoshka, get up!" - they turned to the "asleep" presenter during the game at gatherings.

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

“Red girl (name of the rivers) ...
Her mother woke up
Couldn't wake up
Her betrothed came -
Broke all the locks
The watchman swept away -
All the girl was accessible! (“Ritual poetry. Book 2, family folklore”. M. 1997. p. 336).

Also, the bridesmaids woke up the grooms in the Arkhangelsk province, who, during the pre-wedding period, were also limited in their behavior, although less brides:
"Walked, woke up ...
Yes, the young prince ...
Sleeping soundly...
Let it not wake up ... ”(Ritual poetry, M. 1989, p. 371-372). In the song, the groom gets up only when he is informed that the bride is sailing away on a ship and he is catching up with her.

In no folklore text “on awakening” and about awakening, we will not find words about the expulsion of the Dream. When you need to wake up or not fall asleep, Sandy is simply asked to leave "... Sandman, get away from me." That is, the process of "dream-sleep-dream-awakening" was considered natural and drowsiness in this series has a positive meaning. It is extremely rare to find in folklore a negative assessment of Sandman: "Stupid dream, dream, / Foolish dream!".

9. Dream Transfer Rituals

It was shown above that among the Slavic youth, the state of drowsiness (within reasonable limits) was a natural right. The rights and obligations of people who entered into marriage were diametrically opposed to youth. After the wedding, the society expected the spouses to have maximum working capacity and childbearing. A drowsy state for adults was traditionally indecent, it was in this age and social category that drowsiness was associated with laziness, and girls who had recently become wives could not always quickly switch to a new “sleep and wakefulness regimen”.

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

Or order not to wake the sweetheart:
“Is my father-in-law or mother-in-law at home ...,
Is Maryushka, little darling, at home?
If she sleeps, then you don’t wake her up ... ”(Pereslavskoe Zalesye ... p. 112).

Free from peasant work:
“Autumn will come, thresh - so thresh.
It's a pity to wake up the wife, yes, to wake up.
Sleep, little wife - my dear,
Here are my head pillows ”(Pereslavskoye Zalesye ... p. 160).

Among the southern Slavs, the newlywed did not pass into the "category" of women immediately after the wedding. For forty days (or until the next big holiday or the birth of her first child), she was considered a “stranger” in her husband’s family and was not allowed to cook and 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 girlhood.

Descriptions of the similar behavior of girls are widely presented in East Slavic lamentations, which describe the girl's getting up late in her home for breakfast, when everything in the house has already been prepared and cleaned. Mother laments:
“And to excite and pity the child ...

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

Bride says:
“I didn’t know, beautiful girl,
No matter how early you get up,
No matter how late the bed, ...
I'll get up, young one, ...
I'll take a look, red girl:
All the affairs of her (mother) are attached,
All works have been worked on…” (Wedding. From matchmaking to the princely table. M. 2001, p. 281).

In short, "... my dear mother / in the morning the bliss is good" (Pereslavskoye Zalesye ... p. 151).

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

And such habits gave their “fruits”, in Russian songs there is a constant motive of dormant pullets and reproaches addressed to them by their husband’s relatives:

“I am sleeping, young, drowsing,
Tilts, leans head into the pillow to sleep.
The father-in-law walks along the new canopy,
And knocks, and grumbles, and murmurs:
- Kurvitsa you, bride!
Sleepy, drowsy, untidy!...” (Collection of folk songs by P.V. Kireevsky, volume 2. Leningrad 1986, p. 60).
In the husband’s family: “You are heard, my dear sister, / Both drowsy and deceitful, / Not caring, not hardworking ...” (Ritual poetry. M. 1989, p. 327).

G. Courbier "Sleeping spinner"

In order to prevent young women from getting into such unpleasant situations, in some East Slavic weddings, special rituals of “returning slumber” took place. In the “reserve of Slavic archaism”, in Polissya at the junction of three East Slavic cultures: For the 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 “shtob naps are not was "" (Polessky ethnolinguistic collection, M. 1983, A.V. Gura, O.A. Ternovskaya, S.M. Tolstaya "Materials for the Polessky ethnolinguistic atlas", p. 53).

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

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

"Illegitimate" ways to get rid of drowsiness are recorded in the Minsk and Petrograd provinces. It was believed “that the young woman would be drowsy for the entire 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 hang her slumber on the bride by manipulating her hair. “They believed that a bride leaving the village was able to take her drowsiness with her. In the Luga district of the Petrograd province, clods of snow were thrown after the departing bride with the words: “Where you are young, there is slumber” ... ”(A.V. Gura “Marriage and wedding in Slavic folk culture: semantics and symbolism”, M. 2012, p. 100). Interestingly, snowballs are made by making the same movements with the hands as when kneading dough and making buns and balls out of it. That is, an undesirable state of slumber, as it were, was mixed into the dough or snow, and this act is undoubtedly magical.

In some places in Russia, “drema” bread was not thrown, but distributed: “In the Tver province, children were given a dream at a wedding - long wheat bread” in order for the children to 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 for children, special buns were baked from the same dough, which the loaf women took home and gave to the children. Often they were intended for children to sleep well, for example, oblong drums in Mozyr Polissya" (A.V. Gura "Marriage and wedding in Slavic folk culture: semantics and symbolism", M. 2012, p. 213).

The above described rituals of distribution of special bread can be called "transfer of slumber" from those who do not need it to those who need it.

10. Seasonal destruction of Sandman, Dirty Day

The earth finally wakes up, says goodbye to drowsiness in May days. This is the time of flowering rye, exit to White light(as if awakening) mermaids, the period preceding the suffering, when all the forces of society "from young to old" were aimed at ensuring the harvest. On the eve of the feast in the Ryazan and Chernihiv regions, collective spring ceremonies of “seeing off the Dream” to the Other World were held

At the end of spring, before Kupala, after which haymaking began, in the Chernihiv province on “Raffles” (the first Monday of Petrov Lent) “... the youth, having cut down “several birch branches” in the forest above the Desna and twined them with flowers, carried a bouquet with songs along the village and around the village, then threw it into the river. This was called “Sleeping of the Dream” (Maksimovich, 1877…)” (Tultseva L.A. “Ryazan Menologion”, Ryazan, 2001, p. 206).

“Direct analogies with the Chernigov rite of “seeing off the Dream” are revealed by the Ryazan mermaid customs. Participants of the Rusal rites in the villages along the Kutukovskaya Gora willingly talk about pranks with "rubbish" arranged in the Rusalskoe zagovenie. Everyone is involved in the action - both old and young. Even the day, according to the local name for the mermaid bouquet of dryam, is called the Dirty Day. Memories depict the unusual worldview of the time, which, as it were, belongs to the "trash" and the "Mermaid"" (Ibid.).

Sandman could be located not only in branches, but also in grass, nettles. In the village of Eliminate (Ryazan): “On the Trinity, the children tore grass and shouted: “Dirty, dirty!” So ​​that they would not fall asleep when the Mermaids” (Ibid.). “On the Rusal week they threw rubbish - rubbish can be with nettles or just branches. They break any branches and throw them at each other. ... In order to get rid of the danger of becoming "dirty" or "drowsy", the mermaid bouquet should have been thrown into running water: "Whoever does not quit will sleep"; They throw rubbish, you need to throw it into the water faster and run faster from the river, otherwise you will be snoozing”; “In the evening they threw a nap, went to the bridge” ... ”(Ibid.). It was believed that “the Mermaid lives in a wretched state. Dryama is thrown, and the Mermaid is escorted off. The day on which these actions took place and still take place is called the Dirty Day.

Sometimes the nap was not thrown into the water, but mischievously thrown into the houses of fellow villagers. For example, in Upper Lusatia, a doll - a nap was thrown into a collection of spin (Slavic Antiquities. Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. Volume 5. M. 2012, "Dream", p. 121). Or in the Ryazan region: “... the house is unlocked (it stands), rubbish - they throw branches into the house: “Go away from me to you!” ... And some grandmother will say: “You don’t throw me a lot, I sleep so much!” ”(Tultseva L.A. “Ryazan Mental Book”, Ryazan, 2001, p. 206).

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

So, according to popular beliefs, Sandman is associated (a) with mermaids and in the spring lives in various plants, flowers and products from them (wreaths, bouquets). You can get rid of the rye that is unwanted during the flowering period and the upcoming period of the Sandman season by throwing greenery into the water. It is known that in the folk tradition, spring greenery and flowers were considered a receptacle for 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 in time (L. Vinogradova “Flower name of a mermaid: Slavic beliefs about flowering Plants" in the collection "Etonyazykovaya and ethnocultural history of Eastern Europe", M. 1995, p.251).

It is obvious that Sandman is a character from the same series, like Mermaids, Kostroma, Yarila, Semukha, Cuckoo, all those mythological characters who are “escorted”, “buried” in the spring, that is, destroyed by burying, drowning, tearing - Sandman is “escorted” 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 "dream kingdom" of various plants with different names, specimens named precisely drowsiness (with variants) stand out.

I.P. Sakharov wrote: our villagers call “bathing bath” a special grass, which is known under the name of “cat's nap” (Trjllius europaeus, that is, “troll grass”). Others called it buttercup. On Vaga and in the Vologda province, these herbs were collected in the morning, by dew, and used for treatment. Brooms were made from it and steamed in the bath. Children wove from sleep - bathing suits or buttercups, wreaths, caps, hats and put them on their heads during games (Tultseva L.A. "Ryazan Mental Book", Ryazan, 2001, p. 206).

“paw” of cat nap, troll grass

The flowers of the cat's dream (bathroom and buttercup) and dandelions used in the Ryazan region of Chernihiv region in the rituals of "wiring the Dream" are yellow.

In other places in Russia, the trinity is Kupala flowers with the name Dremuchka, Viscaria, tar; Dremukha, khripnyak, ivanchay, Epilobium; Dremlik Serapia; Dremlik, Orchis incarnata, lyubzha, lyubka - plants with red-violet, red-pink, that is, purple flowers.

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

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

That is, we can distinguish the "colors" of the Sandman in the plant code, this is purple-white-yellow against the background of greenery. In this regard, we note that the golden-tailed butterflies, which love green leaves, have white wings, a yellow or red abdomen, and with their coloring correspond to the vegetative code of the slumber.

The white color among the Indo-European peoples is associated with radiance, light and holiness. The same can be said about magenta and yellow (gold) colors: “Magenta, like the colors of the “upper” half of the λ values ​​\u200b\u200bthat precede it, that is, red (640nm), orange (600nm), yellow (580), just are the colors of holiness in most cultural and religious traditions ... In the context of the colors of the spectrum, the place of green color (λ - 520 nm) is indicative - immediately in front of the colors that convey the idea of ​​holiness (“pre-holiness” as a potency of growth, youth, vitality) ”(Toporov V. N. "On the ritual. An introduction to the problem" in the collection "Archaic ritual in folklore and early literary monuments", M. 1988, pp. 55-56).

Dremuchka, tar - purple

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 dope) and did not cause drowsy visions. Perhaps this paradox is explained by the tabooing 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, this is also the name of a coral tree (in mythology, the tree of Indra growing in the Garden of Eden) and dope, containing alkaloids. The etymology of the word mandãra indicates that it originally referred specifically to dope; as an adjective, mandara (= manda) means "slow", "sluggish", "stupid", "stupid"; the name, therefore, is consistent with the action of the drug (Compare with dremusha - prone to drowsiness, drowsy, dozing at work, at the wrong time; sleepy, lethargic). The transfer of the name "mandara" to a harmless coral tree can be seen as one of the methods of "mythopoetic censorship" aimed at guaranteeing the preservation of sacred information about the means used in rituals.

Drema (white tarry)

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 no circumstances of preparation does not give the necessary hallucinogenic effect. Probably, under the word barley in the text there is an indication of ergot, a fungus containing the strongest 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 audience from plants with really strong drowsy, hallucinogenic properties.

12. The slumber of those who are closer to God

The connection of the mythological character Sandman with the Other World, which we spoke about above, can also be seen in allowing people to doze, whom the folk tradition delicately calls “those that are closer to God”, that is, they are on the verge of life and death. For example, the prohibition to doze off for people of reproductive age had exceptions; women could doze off for some time after giving birth:

"Do not rage, the breeze is cold,
Do not swing, ringing bell!
Don't wake up Ivan's wife...
In the evening she was at the feast,
She came from a feast, she gave birth to a son ... ”(“ Ritual Poetry. Book 2, Family Folklore. M. 1997. p. 336).

The fact that after childbirth the woman not only slept, but also dozed, dreamed, but these dreams were undesirable, is evident from the prohibition to leave the child and the woman in labor alone for six weeks (40 days): a dreamer…” (Ethnolinguistic description of the northern Russian village of Tikhmangi” by 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 forgivable
old men and women:
"Grandma is old
Slept on the mound
Grazing horses.
“Where did my horses go?”…” (Nursery rhymes, counting rhymes, fables, M. 1989, No. 246, p. 286).

An old woman napping in a 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, subtly felt the archetypes of folk culture:

“... What are you, my old woman,
Silent at the window?
Or howling storms
You, my friend, are tired
Or slumber under the buzz
Your spindle?"

However, the drowsiness of women in childbirth and old people was not associated with eroticism, as among 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 were traditionally considered to be “life-threatening” conditions; infancy was also felt by many Russian writers, for example, I.A. Bunin: “... a quiet world is scarce, in which a soul that has not yet fully awakened to life, still alien to everyone and everything, a timid and tender soul, dreams of life. Golden, happy time. No, this time is unfortunate, painfully sensitive, miserable” (“Arseniev's Life”).

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

“Children's sleep occupies a special place in the context of traditional ideas about the child. For a child, this is not just an immersion in the Other World, but a special journey, equal in importance to the path of the lyrical hero of incantatory texts, from which he returns with a different, changed status. The marginal nature of the child also determines the dangers that threaten him in a dream. Hence a special set of verbal and non-verbal amulets of the child during sleep, the ritual of putting 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).

A reckless youth also fraught with many dangers for the physical and social life of the individual. It was worth the youth to "go too far" with erotic games, as a girl could pass for "walking" and on marriage, necessary for further full life society put a “cross”, 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 verge of life and death: during the wedding, the girl died for girlhood.

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

13. The sexual question with a reference to the archaic

Numerous folklore texts about Sandman do not give an unambiguous answer to the question of what gender the image of Sandman was thought of by the people. Sometimes we see Sandy as women's work, that is, it is a woman:
“Drowsing over the kuzhelets,
Over the kuzhelts over the silk.
Sleep knows neither to spin, nor to weave, nor to sew with silk ... ”(Tultseva L.A.“ Ryazan Mental Book. All year round holidays, rituals and customs of Ryazan peasants, Ryazan, 2001, p. 213).

"Dremotka" is also known as a female character of disguise in spinning games in Upper Puddle (Slavic Antiquities. Ethnolinguistic Dictionary. Volume 5. M. 2012, "Dream", p. 121).

Sometimes the state that Sandman sends is a man crushing obstacles on the way to the goal:
"Drowsy is coming,
It breaks the gates ”(Nursery rhymes, rhymes, fables. M. 1989, No. 24, p. 29).

At the beginning of the youth games, the Sandman guy:
“Drema sits - she is dozing.
(A guy enters the middle of the round dance, sits down and takes a nap.)
- Enough, Dremoshka, drowse,
It's time, Dremoshka, get up!
(Guy gets up.)
- Look, Sandman, on the girls!
(Pren walks around the girls.)
- Take, Sandman, 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 the Sandman and chooses the guy. And this is not a contradiction, but a reference to ancient times. Detailed and reasoned about androgynous characters in Slavic mythology and their archaism is written in the work of Tultseva L.A. Ryazan Menologion. Year-round holidays, rituals and customs of the Ryazan peasants", in the subparagraph "Ryazhenie" the author writes:

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

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

“... echoes of such a cult ... are seen in some descriptions of rituals ... related to the Semitsko-Rusal festivities. For example, according to I.M. Snegirev: “In the Voronezh province ... on Trinity Day, ... they put ... a blockhead ... dressed in rich men's and women's clothes ... "...

Features of ritual androgyny are also observed in the outfits of those dressed as Yarila ... in Voronezh and Kostroma. In the Belarusian version of the ritual, Yarila was portrayed by a girl ... In ... Yaroslavl province. ... the guys sculpted from clay the figure of "Yarila ..., and against him they put" Yarilikha "... a bisexual couple ... in essence, a single image that split over time" (ibid.).

The image of Sandman completely and completely fits 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. Day of the Sandman, according to the local pronunciation - "Dirty day" - was also celebrated in the spring.

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

Sandman knows how to walk and talk: “Dremushka is a nap / wandered along the alley”, “... walks in the hallway, / The nap is new, / ... the nap says ...".
She (he) speaks politely:
"Our slumber went on,
Walked along the street
Our dream has gone
To Alexei in the yard.
Alekseev's wife
... She gave a dress (for work on the baby's aspiration)
“Well, thank you, Annushka!” -
"To your health, drench" ""

The places that Drema walks before being "in the head" of a child: along the swamp, along the street, along the alley, near the house, in the yard, along the tower, along the hut, along the canopy, along the benches, along the "lutsk" (flexible arc , on which the cradle hangs), along the ropes (on which the cradle hangs), along the strings, along the 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, the phased path of the Dream from “habitats” to “place of work”. That is, Sandman is not a "baking" inhabitant, but a guest from wild places. As you know, the forest and the swamp in the folk tradition belong to the Other World, as well as the entities that inhabit them.

It is interesting that Sandy and Son are constantly called to "stand in the head" of the child. Let's compare this call with the belief common among many Slavic peoples: "if Death, having come to the patient, stands at his feet, then he will recover, and if in his head, the patient will die." This means that Sleep and Dream, taking place in the child's head, save his life - Death will come, but the place in the head is occupied - Snub-nosaya will stand at his feet and leave.

Sandman sees: “Dream wanders / near the house / And looks ... ". This is important, since in some works one can find false assumptions about the blindness of the Dream, who, along with the Dream 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 Son to Drema, and not vice versa: “A dream asks everything from a dream: / “Where can we find Vanyushkin’s cradle?””; “The Dream asks the Dreamer: /“ Where can I find Sashenkin / Cradle ...? ”, that is, he does not see the Dream, and the Dreamer sees and helps the Dream find the object of influence. Similar to reality, in which a drowsy state usually precedes sound sleep, in lullaby songs, the seeing Dream leads the blind Dream that follows it. Blindness in folklore is most often associated with old age, so the Dream is probably older than the Dream.

Dream's vision is also mentioned in youth games:
“Dream walks on the floorboards, / Peeps out on the girls ...” (“Ritual poetry. Book 2, family folklore”, M. 1997. p. 404).

The slumber has strength and weight: “There is a slumber, / breaks the gate”, he (she) can lean on the object of his influence, just like the Brownie: “Sleep and slumber / fall on you!” or: “Sleep and slumber / fall on the eyes, / roll on the shoulder ...”, that is, the slumber has a mass that allows it to lean on the child.

It would seem that this contradicts the Sandman's ability to walk on the web (see above). In fact, this fact only confirms the mythological origin of the image of Sandman, its ability to metamorphoses, which occur not only in relation to its weight, but also to gender.

Sandman dresses like a man - he receives clothes as a gift for work, wears shoes: "Sleep in boots, / sleep in rolled wires ...", shirt "Sleep in a white shirt, / And sleep in blue ...". That is, the image of the Sandman was thought to be anthropomorphic.

Cats are related to Sandman. Cats in lullabies are carriers of the state of drowsiness: "Hey, gray cats, / bring naps." 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, cats do a common thing with Sandman, the cat shakes the child to induce drowsiness, and Sandman comes to the child “in the head” (All quotes in this paragraph are from the book "Nursery Rhymes, Rhymes, 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 by overseas semi-wild curiosities. Probably, the inclusion of cats in the Dream mythologem occurred because real cats have pleasant warmth (body temperature is higher than human), they sleep a lot and “appetizingly” and doze to their “songs”, which, upon contact with them, contribute to the appearance of drowsiness in people.

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

In a state of drowsiness, the craftswomen could do some monotonous work, for example, knitting or spinning "on the machine", with their eyes closed, A. Pushkin wrote about this: "... or do you doze under the buzz of your spindle?" ("Winter evening"). It was probably believed that in such "boundary" moments a person turns into a mythological character. First - to Drema: “Drema is sitting, slumbering herself ...” (about a player on supra, who, after contacting him, easily wakes up from 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 sleeping pill, the skillful use of which can cause both light drowsiness and deep sleep.

Sandman is related to the mythological character Zarya. Ritual slumber of brides, as shown above, in one of the variants of its evoking occurs after vigils at the window, at dawn. In conspiracies "for sleep" they usually turn to the mythological character Zarya or they are voiced "at dawn", probably in the evening. In some of these conspiracies, Zarya is asked to eliminate the harmful forces (Crixes, Crybabies, Nights) that interfere with the arrival of normal sleep. That is, only Dawn fights the demons of insomnia, and Son and Drema are not fighters and not fighters, they come to children when Dawn, as it were, “cleared” the way for them.

It has already been noted above that the ancient Indian god Savitar (in its original essence) and the Slavic Drema have a common task to stimulate the growth of the living and are related to meditations at dawn. But the similarities don't end there. Savitar awakens the whole world and the gods in the morning, brings night and night rest, precedes day and night ... (IV 52, 2-3; VII 45, 1), ... brings the earth to rest ... (X 149, 1) ..., they pray to him about children ... (V 42, 3), ... it can take all forms (V 81, 2) (Mythological Dictionary / Editor-in-Chief 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 on their "paths diverged". In India, at the end of a long development of the image, Savitar became a solar god, and the Slavic Dryoma 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 relationship between Sandman and Dawn and Sleep, the following scenario emerges: the child is bothered by a demon (Cryx, Crybaby, Nightwing, etc.), which does not allow the baby to sleep normally, and therefore develop. Mother, or another interested person calls Zarya to fight the demon.

In conspiracies, Zarya is asked to save the child from demons in very specific ways: not to kill, for example, and not to flog, but to “take from the baby”, “take away”, “remove”, which very clearly illustrates the scale relationships between Zarya and her opponent.

The dawn is strong and majestically unhurried, if she hears the call, she simply “takes”, “removes”, “takes away” the demon who is located on the baby in the cradle. After that, the mother calls “sleep and drowsiness to the baby’s head” and they - the young Dream, leading the blind elder Sleep - go from the forest, marsh 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 taken a “holy place” for which Death itself can claim (cf. the belief that a sick person who sees death at his feet will recover, and at his head he will die). With the advent of Sleep and Dream 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, played out with each execution of such conspiracies "for the dream of a child." We will not fantasize with which divine Baby of Slavic mythology the described precedent first occurred, here we are talking about Dream, but from this example it becomes obvious that the folklore character Dream is included in Slavic mythology.

This is the same "Slavic mythology" that is hidden to external observers, but obvious to the bearers of culture themselves. Mythology, the existence of which is denied by ill-wishers and the well-wishers are overloaded with their fantasies, some of which are like "helpful fools" who are "more dangerous than the enemy" because they turn everything into absurdity or primitive popular prints. I have tried here to consider the image of the Sandman without falling into these extremes.

Conclusion

So, upon careful consideration, individual “Microtexts of the Dream” are formed into a “macrotext” - a holistic formation, the unity of which is based on the thematic community of its constituent units. From the macrotext of Drema, we tried to move on 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 woven into 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 mythological characters Dream and Dream. Drema was thought to be anthropomorphic - a young, active person, a man or a woman, depending on the gender of the one to whom he comes.

The specifics of the Slavic Dream, unlike, for example, from Morpheus, were not night dreams, but daydreams during a drowsy state at any time of the day (prophetic - more in the morning). Like dreams, they were given the meaning of predictions. In the folklore of the Eastern Slavs there is evidence of the artificial induction of drowsy dreams in girls in a special life period of maximum "bliss", "freedom" - a blissful state of free, careless 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 girlish initiation preceding marriage.

In the annual circle, this period lasted from March to May and was the time of the slumber of the Mother of the Raw Earth, whose behavior the Slavs imitated in their rituals. The revealed, but still not quite clear connection between Drema and the gods of the pan-Slavic pantheon Perun and Chernobog belongs to the 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 the openness of information about inducing ritual drowsiness in other ways.

In the functions of the Slavic mythological character Dryoma, there is a connection 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), lulled and woke people up, either by their power (gods) or by personal example (Buddha). That is, the Dream is associated not only with going to sleep, but also with awakening, enlightenment, 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 (dream), dreamless sleep and a state of absolute detachment ”(Pandey R.B. “Ancient Indian household rituals”, M. 1982 , p. 125), the Slavic tradition knew wakefulness, slumber (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 references in folklore, a special place was occupied by the state of slumber and its personification - the mythological character Sandman.

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

“Sopromat was led by Guseva Elena Dmitrievna. She was then already 70 years old. She went through the camps. Probably, she was the only teacher at the institute who allowed herself to smoke during classes ... So she said that she sees her task in making us dream of diagrams (load distribution graphs), and we could not draw them, but represent them with closed eyes. In any case, in relation to me, she succeeded. Sometimes they still appear in dreams. And it used to be that I caught myself thinking that I was looking at some kind of construction, and the consciousness or the subconscious mind was completing the plot around it ... This, by the way, is about the Dream. Such things are typical for 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 “hardened wise old woman” Guseva had successors in the higher education system, but one thing is clear - 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 in detail and consciously what is happening, but by deeds accompanied by seemingly simple words, these are deeds whose rituality and sacred essence are “disguised” by everyday everyday life.

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

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Taking a nap after lunch, turning off with your head on your neighbor's shoulder, swimming between sleep and reality while the alarm goes off - all this, at first glance, is absolutely useless actions. Their only obvious outcome is lost time, confused neighbors and lost plans for the near future between alarms. But, fortunately, such states also have an unobvious bright side: when used correctly, they can bring us good.

What is commonly referred to as 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 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 usually go into medium-deep sleep (sleep spindles), where our consciousness slowly turns off, and sigma rhythms are added to the theta rhythms.

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

After a short nap, the new information that has entered our brain is fixed there better, which is clearly shown by the experiment of researchers from the University of York: the subjects are read out adjectives and associations suitable for them, after which the experimental subjects go to take a nap. Scientists repeat the adjectives again, and in the head of the dormant, as shown by the EEG, the corresponding associations arise. As the British assure, 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 freshly learned information.

Unlike naps, nanosleep is unlikely to be of much benefit to the body (a question 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 sly one, elevated stealing from a state of drowsiness 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, tilt your head back. Your hands should rest on the arms of the chair completely relaxed. In this position, hold a large heavy key between the thumb and forefinger of your left hand. You fall asleep, the muscles gradually relax, the key crashes against the tray, you wake up, and the inspiration captured between reality and non-reality remains with you. The name of this inspiration is hypnagogia.

Its informal name is the "face-in-the-dark phenomenon", which hypnagogy has been given for its ability to induce sleep paralysis, a state in which the person's consciousness has already woken up while the muscles of the body are still in atony. Sleep paralysis, in turn, provokes powerful hallucinations, the most spectacular of which are dark spots of an anthropomorphic form at the boundaries of peripheral vision and a clear sense 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 let out.

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-sleeping and no longer-waking, and vice versa, that is, at the moment of falling asleep and, less often, waking up (hypnopompic visions), as well as during a light nap, balancing between others.

But, in addition to the surrealistic images that attracted Dali so much 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 sets up a partial blockade on incoming-outgoing signals. The need to process sensory inputs from the ever-itching world is waning, the posts in our brains are shutting down, and the traffic controllers are running for a smoke break. The brain gradually turns off one area after another. Those areas that work together during wakefulness, at the time of falling asleep, are cut off from communication with partners.

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 to 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 for classification - of uniqueness. Falling asleep, we throw off these shackles along with the habit of walking along the beaten paths and, as a result, we think much more creatively.

Thomas Metzinger, who studies human consciousness through philosophy, cognitology, and the study of lucid dreams, refers to the ability of our brain to unconsciously generate creativity as an “autocreative state of mind,” remotely similar to a psychotypical one. Auto-creativity is most evident during the construction of dreams.

As we fall asleep, we find ourselves surrounded by erratic internal messages generated by PGO waves, electrical bursts of neuronal activity in several areas of the brain (the pons, the lateral geniculate nucleus of the hypothalamus, and the occipital primary visual cortex).

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

The formation of the dream itself takes place in the brainstem, and rather chaotically, and the forebrain is engaged in composing the 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 brainstem and its way of somehow clarifying this situation. In addition to the abundance of unusual signals, he receives damned difficult conditions for clarification. On the one hand, the forebrain is deprived of the habitual state of wakefulness, which is designed to regulate, and on the other hand, it is in an extreme position of metacognitive deficit. That is, it has an impossible task: to comprehend the generated state from the inside, without having the possibility of adequate reflection. This is partly why dream logic is so bizarre.

In the 1st and 2nd stages of sleep, when consciousness and the unconscious acquire a fragile balance, dream logic is already starting to work, but the dreams themselves have not yet been formed, and the agent - the participant in the dream has not yet been molded from clay. Autocreativity is not yet aimed at surrealistic 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 unresolved tasks.

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

Thomas Edison, like Dali, sat down in an armchair (it is not known if it was in the Spanish style) with a bottle of water in his hand and dozed until the bottle fell and woke him up. After such executions, Edison often found a couple of wonderful new ideas in his head.

Creative search is a process in which both the conscious and the unconscious are involved, as the social psychologist Graham Wallace and the mathematical psychologist Jacques Salomon Hadamard kindly told us about back in 1926. After analyzing the ways in which various scientists work, they proposed a scientific classification of the creative process, which includes four stages: 1. preparation, during which the task is formulated and considered as accurately as possible; 2. incubation - the time for which the task should be forgotten, and the mind should be allowed to "walk"; 3. insight, that is, an intuitive decision issued by the unconscious; and 4. testing the idea for strength.

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

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

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

Indirectly, researchers who study the connection between sudden creative revelations and sensory limitations adjoin the second team. 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 has pleased the world with another discovery: our insights are related to a decrease in the amount of visual information entering the brain.

Their experiment showed that the subjects, who involved analytics in solving the problem proposed to them, blinked rarely, quickly, and directed all their efforts to thinking about the problem. Those who coped with difficulties on the principle of "Eureka!" (the “Aha!” phenomenon), on the contrary, they looked like old people tired of life, dozing in a rocking chair - they covered their eyes, blinked slowly. And in general they behaved more relaxed: they were often distracted in order to lower their gaze, looking 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 drowsiness 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 iron-clad cognitive bonuses from a short siesta, which is not bad. Falling asleep in the middle of a meeting, an unbearably boring date or dinner with distant relatives and getting caught, you can always say with a sense of unshakable certainty that you simply increased the efficiency of the 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 lulling voice.

Goddess of sleep, sleepy dreams.

Sleep's wife.

At dusk, sleep wanders under the windows, and when the darkness thickens, it 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.

Sandman is a genus of herbs in the clove family.

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

Some are decorative, fodder.

Sometimes slumber is called species of other genera of the clove family with drooping flowers.

Sandman Astrakhan - protected.

Interpretation of dreams from the Dream Interpretation of the Ancient Slavs

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Dream Interpretation - Sleep

The dream in which you dozed off, sitting in an easy chair after a hard day's work, portends the betrayal of a loved one just when you imbued him with boundless trust. 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 long ordeals at the labor exchange.

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

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

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

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

Seeing yourself sleeping in a completely renovated, remodeled and refurbished bedroom portends a happy change in your destiny.

Interpretation of dreams from