To paraphrase Lennon and McCartney “Please don’t wake me, no don’t shake me…” I’m only dreaming.

In my last post, I was perhaps a little too generous in describing my mother’s current abilities to stay focused and be generally alert. I neglected to mention how much she sleeps, sometimes for a whole day. Up for lunch for a while and then back to bed. Not everyday, but enough days to make me notice.

Why? There could be many reasons, but I have noticed lately that she is dreaming a lot. She will wake up and think she is somewhere in the past with people who have passed on . She thinks she has to go to work, or that we have to pick up one of her sisters at the airport, or friends are coming for dinner and she’s has to hurry to prepare the food, and perhaps most significantly her dreams are now often about Taras, her late second husband. The other day, in fact, while she was lying down, I was in the kitchen making supper, and when I stepped into the living room she told me she had expected to see Taras.

A few words set her straight, bring her back to reality, but something is going on when she is drifting in or out of sleep.

The idea that her procedural memory can remain intact after, as in my mother’s case, a small stroke, while a part of the brain which stores long term memories cannot be accessed, fascinates me. I can’t help wonder if she is finding her memories of family and friends, which are unavailable to her waking self, in her dreams.

I don’t know. But wherever her dreams take her, it seems to be a good place.