Dreamin'

In The Farming of Bones the protagonist Amabelle’s dreams seem to be set in opposition to her day life with the Dominican family she serves. I think these dreams help her to understand and connect with a life in which she is not on the margins of a society but rather is a full and valued person in her own right. This may be why her dreams most often involve those relationships in which she has experienced love. The dreams are typically set in chapters which are printed in a different font and serve to present the reader with a kind of interfacing story that challenges the presentation of Amabelle we see in her hired position. The Amabelle in the dream text is part of a dark, underlying world of history, imagination, pain and joy. I think that Amabelle’s dreams stop when she escapes back to Haiti with Yves because she no longer has to reconcile her true self and her self as servant to the Dominican family. Sleep allows the brain to problem-solve and to reconcile and compartmentalize the events of the day. Because Amabelle has to constantly mentally affirm her individual and valuable self against the antagonism and indifference of the Dominican society her mind uses the space of her dreams to retell the important moments of her life. The dreams affirm Amabelle for herself. However, when Amabelle leaves the Dominican Republic she is reminded every moment of the journey of her individuality. The space of the daytime becomes a place in which she can differentiate herself from the persecuting society and thus she no longer needs the dream time to do that. On a different note, the journey to Haiti might have been such a nightmare for Amabelle and such an important moment in her life that the dreams became unimportant in comparison.
My own dreams vary in vividness. If a problem has been weighing on my mind it tends to play out in my dreams, or if scenes from a movie or a book are fixed in my mind they will figure in my dreams. I tend to remember my dreams best when they follow some form of narrative. I don’t often go a night without remembering part of a dream, however, when I do it is usually because my sleep cycle is off and either I couldn’t get to sleep or I woke up much later or earlier than usual. Consequently, I don’t remember what happened during the REM part of my sleep. I tend to think of my own dreams in practical terms rather than as divinely inspired messages or hints from Fate. While my dreams aren’t entirely coherent they always relate to something going on in my life.