Just had an obscure dream. In the dream, I had a dream about the names and structures of the oceans. In the innermost dream, I somehow located three oceans beneath Australia, one with contours looking like a storm trooper, one looking like and old man, and one looking like a kids’ playground. At least I got the Pacific and Atlantic right.
When I woke up from the inner dream, I realized some connection between the oceans and my research, and applied to Nasa for an EU grant to investigate this. Yes it all makes a lot of sense. They were very enthusiastic about my discovery.
Then I woke up.
Related, Poe‘s beautiful but sad poem, A Dream Within a Dream uses imagery including the sea (but is ultimately about important things in life slipping away). You should totally read it!
A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?– Edgar Allan Poe
The poem was also the inspiration and source of the name of Britney Spears’ 4th tour, which is immortalized on the wonderful DVD Dream Within a Dream Tour: Live From Las Vegas.