Dreams 3

As yesterday, we're going to listen to a song. Let's concentrate on the words.

When the evening falls - Enya

When the evening falls and the daylight is fading
from within me calls - could it be I am sleeping?-
For a moment I stray, then it holds me completely
Close to home - I cannot say
Close to home - feeling O so far away.

As I walk the room, there before me a shadow
from another world where no other can follow
carry to my own, where I can cross over
Close to home - I cannot say
Close to home - feeling O so far away.

Perhaps one of the reasons I like listening to a wide variety of music is that music has the ability to express feelings I find very difficult to express in words. Music describes what words can't.

In this song, Enya describes an experience, perhaps in the quietness of evening in her bedroom, alone, late at night, an experience when she isn't quite sure what is real. Is she awake or is she dreaming? She's striving to make contact with reality - not the trivial reality of ordinary objects around her, the table and chairs, wardrobes and mirrors - but something much deeper, something of much greater significance and meaning.

Now, in the third verse, she indicates she has memories of such moments of insight, that contact with a deeper reality. She knows the experiences she's had are very special to her; her worry appears to be that in the hurly burly of so called "real life" she'll forget those rare moments of delight, those moments of vision or understanding when everything seems to fit into a fuller, a more profound perspective.

From my own experience, I know that this sort of contact with reality often takes one completely by surprise with its force and brilliance. Moreover these experiences cannot be manufactured or reproduced. They creep upon you and catch you off guard. All previous experience has to be reappraised in the encounter.

I read of scientists, you might describe them as professional sceptics of such experiences, but even they have similar experiences, often associated with notable discoveries. Pretty soon afterwards, the discoveries were taken for granted, yet the discoveries were always treasured by the scientists themselves, not least for the joy associated with them. These examples have been quoted in other assemblies, but they bear repetition.

Yanofsky, speaking of the measurements 12.3, 12.4, 12.8 and 0.08, said "The results were beautiful, clear and convincing. It was one of those rare and completely satisfying experiences that scientists yearn for".
Arthur Kornberg said of the way biochemicals are used in the body "What fantastic natural poetry".

Kekulé worked out the structure of the benzene molecule in 1865. He wasn't ashamed to address the Royal Society meeting as follows:
"I was sitting writing at my textbook, but the work did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the atoms were gambolling before my eyes. This time the smaller groups kept modestly to the background. My mental eye, rendered the more acute by repeated visions of this kind, could now distinguish larger structures of manifold conformations; long rows, sometimes more closely fitted together; all twisting and turning in snake-like motion. But look! What was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of his own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my eyes. As if by flash of lightening I woke; ....... I spent the rest of the night working out the consequences of the hypothesis. Let us learn to dream gentlemen, and then perhaps we shall learn the truth."

Similar experiences have been recorded by poets, musicians and artists, a transcendent beauty above any reality previously known.

And what are the circumstances associated with these experiences? One person might be looking at a piece of sculpture or a painting, another at a sunset or listening to a piece of music; yet another may have the feeling whilst walking alone on the moors and hills; some people may find the reality through friendship or love. Whatever or whenever the experience, for that moment, time is suspended; nothing else matters.

The point I want to make is this: although these experiences are so nebulous, so ephemeral, so frustratingly hard to explain to others - yet they are real and profoundly important to the individual. For Enya, the frustration is indicated at the end of each verse: "Close to home - I cannot say Close to home - feeling O so far away".

We can't hold on to these experiences any more than we can hold on to dreams; we must simply enjoy them while they last and treasure them, trying not to forget. I believe these experiences are available to everyone, irrespective of conventional religious belief.

So like yesterday, I've tried to describe a way in which "Man transcends man". People experience realities which are beyond their own comprehension. Of course, our 20th century assumptions overemphasise comprehension, analysis, explanation. So often explaining is seen as explaining away, and consequently we lose a proper sense of awe or mystery. Those people who admit to such feelings are often seen as weak or insecure. But it might just happen to you, if your lucky, that you experience one of those rare and deeply satisfying insights through one of your school subjects. I hope so.

I'll finish by reminding you of those words by the scientist, August Kekulé:

"Let us learn to dream, and then perhaps we shall learn the truth."