Don’t Come Here, Mr Sandman

Oh no. No no no. Not the Sandman.

OK, now I’ve got that out the way… You see, in the E. T. A. Hoffmann novella the Sandman is a creepy guy who does these evil deeds. I won’t go into detail lest anyone reading is eating because it’s weird and spooky, but I guess you’d say it’s a gothic novella. There’s the childhood trauma of Nathaniel, and he projects these fears onto this other guy, Coppola, quite correctly too because Coppola is crazy.

It’s quite interesting, and Freud would love it, I think. You know the idea that your childhood affects your adulthood, this is sort of there. Then you’ve got Nathaniel’s descent into madness and misery. Some tellings of the Sandman are that he is a nice, benevolent figure who sends children to sleepy-land. If you want that story, this one is not for you.

This text triggered a fear in me of the phrase “pretty eyes” and also of the Sandman. As for sleeping, since reading the text I found  that getting to sleep was a bit harder and took more work. I need it to be very dark, preferably enough that I can’t see my hand in front of my eyes, and there needs to be a lot of quiet. Even then I’m a light sleeper and the rain, if heavy enough, can wake me.

This is a similar reaction, now I think of it, to when I finished Dracula.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/daily-prompt-mr-sandman/

Advertisements