Dream Me a Good Dream

You can be suspicious about much in Homeopathy, but there is  wonderful literature out there. Sometimes when I am bored, I take out J.H.Clarke's "A Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica", and usually get some stimulating reading material.

It is not dull, not dull at all.

For example, this is what Clarke has to say under "Oleander", a night-flowering plant:

"A young man, 18, fell, sick, had attacks of vertigo, suffered from great weakness of the muscles, headache better in evening, worse every morning after waking, which was a difficult process. In addition: pale face; white-coated tongue; slow pulse. On leaving for change of air he soon got quite well; but ill again as soon as he returned. Some Oleanders in his bedroom were then suspected by his doctor, and on their removal all the trouble vanished. The doctor then recalled that when a student he had some Oleanders before his windows, and in autumn, when the nights were cold, he took them into his bedroom with this result: On waking in the morning heavy head and sensation of weariness, could only leave his bed by great exertion. As soon as he put his foot to the ground was seized with vertigo and reeled. Having traced this to the Oleanders, he purposely repeated the experiment, and always with the same result".

Can you believe that you can go to sleep in good health, and during the night, flowers could bloom and poison you? How wonderful if this were true. Makes life more interesting, adds mystery to it.

But you don't have to go to any doubtful material for all this.

There is this article I read in New Scientist, which put the Oleander case in my mind.

Apparently a Boris Stuck of University Hospital Mannheim, Germany, exposed 15 sleeping volunteers to chemicals that mimicked the smell of either rotten eggs or roses. And then he woke them up and asked about their dreams. People exposed to the fragrance of roses reported that they had a positive dream experience, and those exposed to rotten eggs, well, they had rotten dreams.

So if you are not waking up happy,  it is a good idea to put some fragrant perfume in your pillows and bed. I shall do that, definitely. There are two mosquito mats burning over my head all the night. I always wake up groggy. Those mats not only do not keep away the mosquitoes, and now I am sure, they are making my sleep experience miserable.

I shall be going to bed with some jasmine flowers about me: I would love some libidinous dreams at my age.