Samuel Pepys, 1666, by John Hayls

Up by 4 o'clock and walked to Greenwich, where called at Captain Cocke's and to his chamber, he being in bed, where something put my last night's dream into my head, which I think is the best that ever was dreamt, which was that I had my Lady Castlemayne in my armes and was admitted to use all the dalliance I desired with her, and then dreamt that this could not be awake, but that it was only a dream; but that since it was a dream, and that I took so much real pleasure in it, what a happy thing it would be if when we are in our graves (as Shakespeere resembles it) we could dream, and dream but such dreams as this, that then we should not need to be so fearful of death, as we are this plague time.

--Samuel Pepys

EDITOR'S NOTE

This is a very early lucid dream--in an era when "lucidity" wasn't yet a concept. Note that Pepys's allusion to Hamlet isn't casual. His soliloquy said "for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come" and "the dread of something after death"--Hamlet, considering suicide, fears his afterlife will be as bad as his dreams. Pepys counter-argues that a dreamlike spirit-world's nothing to fear, if we face that we're dreaming. In lucid dreams we can choose our actions, choose joy not fear. For dreamworkers today that may seem obvious--but not when Pepys wrote it.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: The Diary of Samuel Pepys, entry for 1665/8/15, courtesy of the Gutenberg Project (Gutenberg.org).

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