Grendel's Mother's Cave

Last night, I had a series of vivid, disturbing dreams. I only managed about four hours of sleep between coming down from teaching my night class and getting up early to finesse the day's teaching plans: The Outlaw Sea and Romeo and Juliet. So, between almost-midnight and 4:14 a.m. I slept and dreamed, often waking, but also slipping back into dreamland, into the same two or three sets of dreams again and again.

Anyway, one set of dreams involved the landscape of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, but factually considered, as is the way so often with dreams.

What I mean to say: I was suiting up for a scuba exploration of the undersea cave of the monster Grendel's mother. Just as the hero Beowulf swims down and encounters the monstrous mother, I was set to swim down to tour that cave as part of an archaeological expedition. What struck my dream-self was how matter of fact everyone was being about a matter of folklore, of poetry, of myth. But everyone else took this wonder for granted, and all the talk was technical: how to dive this cave.

I pulled on my wetsuit and checked my gauges with everyone else, but my mind kept shifting between a slight bewilderment that they could be so accepting that this cave was in fact that cave from the poem and a growing apprehension that we could encounter something monstrous down there. No one seemed worried at all, but it's a monster's cave, I kept thinking, as I shouldered my heavy tank and defogged my mask. The water was clear, but dark and cold.

Diving Grendel's Mother's cave: a tense dream, disconcerting, disturbing the silted base of the mind, the psyche. The other dreams were equally outlandish, equally aquatic, but without so much ominousness and wonder. Oh, I woke while en route--swimming downward, dive-light cutting the darkness--so maybe I've something to look forward to in tonight's slumbers. Wish me luck and a magic sword, if I need one, just as Beowulf needed when he paid his visit to that cave.