In The Shoes of Lady Macbeth…

The sleepwalking scene from Shakespeare has been my all-time favourite. Somehow I get this desire to write on it. Quite a number of times, I had taken refuge in Shakespeare when I was jostling through the downs’ of my life. That scene when Lady Macbeth walked through the scene carrying a candle, aware of the sins she committed, rather plotted with her husband Macbeth.

She tried to get rid of the scars, and spotted blood everywhere, blood that doesn’t disappear. ‘Blood’ here symbolises the scars she feels so deep on herself. She tries to convince her husband Macbeth to wash his hand off all the dark deeds he had executed. She wasn’t really successful in her plot though. Macbeth continued going his way and apparently inviting darker days ahead for himself.

This ‘sleepwalking’ syndrome often gets me confused. How can a person just sleepwalk with their eyes wide open, yet quite oblivious of the worldly affairs? Does he become completely unattached to the toughness of life?  Living it inch by inch, yet not responding to the reflexes? How very unfair is that? As I feel people who sleepwalk are kind of privileged, that they have the liberty to sever themselves from the worldly attachments.

What about people like us who know the true definition of what a ‘sound’ sleep actually is? We would perhaps never get the excitement, adventure or the enthralling vibes glued to ‘sleepwalking’? I once had a dream where I was born in Scotland, married to the ‘de facto’ sovereign Macbeth. But the dream was sans the sleepwalking scene. I could just see myself reigning over Scotland, attended by tons of aides. Some showcased platters of some exotic European cuisine, while the others just waited for a nod. Though the dream was one to be remembered for vividly, I still regret the fact thalt there wasn’t any sleepwalking scene involved in it.

Should I try and pressurize my grey matter, to churn out the ‘sleepwalking’? Maybe I should.