With Halloween coming, I felt compelled to write about a dream I once had. I don’t remember my dreams often, but this one I experienced impacted me.
Sometimes, I sleep listening to music. I usually prefer quiet jazz or ambient, but I decided to put on a “Classical for Sleeping” playlist and went to bed.
The dream started with me waking up in my bed.
I couldn’t move, as if I was still asleep. I started hearing a familiar song: Beethoven’s 14th sonata, known as “Moonlight Sonata.” It was played loudly as if my ear was next to the piano. Otherwise, it was a standard rendition of the piece.
When I recognized the song's famous melody, I saw dark shadows forming on the ceiling. These shadows were spinning in a perfect circle set to the music. They then descended slowly like freeze frames being projected one after the other. While still circling, the shadows took the form of human-sized bat-like shapes with no facial features. Their wings were a darker shade of charcoal gray than the rest of their body. Their wings were stretched out as they glided slowly above me. There were four of them, synchronizing their flight path like a quadrant. Looking back on it now, I can only describe the sight as demonic.
Little by little, the bat-like creatures lowered themselves to me after each bar of the song. It looked like impending doom, yet I felt at peace.
I woke up in the middle of the night, and the Moonlight Sonata was still playing. Above my head, where the creatures were, was the spinning ceiling fan. I knew I was asleep and not hallucinating because I looked at the time and saw it was the middle of the night.
Whenever I hear Beethoven’s 14th sonata, I can’t help but think of that dream. I still imagine those dark figures swooping above me when I hear the first few notes. Many people who listen to the piece say they feel calm and imagine peaceful thoughts. While I was indeed calm in my dream, the imagery was anything but peaceful. I started to wonder what this dream could mean.
I find Moonlight Sonata to be Beethoven’s darkest work. After some research, I learned that he dedicated the song to a piano student he had fallen in love with named Giulietta Guicciardi. Just as he proposed to her, Guicciardi’s father disapproved, leaving Beethoven heartbroken. This confirmed that while the Moonlight Sonata is a relaxing song, it is hauntingly depressing. That moodiness could have rubbed off on me as I drifted to sleep as if Beethoven was telepathically signaling his heartbreak from the piano into my subconscious.
If I learned anything from Freud and Jung, dreams are not just there to be there. I consulted my dream dictionary, Pamela Ball’s The Complete Book of Dreams. It says that because the public perceives bats as frightening, any dream involving them will symbolize a terrifying idea within ourselves. However, the distinction Ball makes clear is what the bats do in the dream. If bats are attacking, that means some evil action or thought is plaguing the dreamer's mind. The humanoid bats in my dream were not attacking, merely flying around. Ball claims that multiple bats flying around represent “discernment of a spiritual kind.” I don’t remember what mindset I was in or where I was in my life when this dream happened, but I don’t think it matters. When I read the passage from Ball, I was sure that the sonata was meant to be like a universal anthem of despair—a haunting within all of us waiting to be unleashed.
Were the bats a manifestation of the song? Were they my fears and insecurities? Maybe they were Guicciardi and Beethoven participating in a reunion? While fascinating puzzles, dreams can unlock some genuinely horrific sides of our minds. I now sleep in silence.
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