The sleepy kingdom is bookish or colloquial. Slavic mythology. Sleep and the sleepy kingdom. A dream will tell the truth, but not to everyone

Sleepy Kingdom Do you remember who is yours? chief assistant on the path to success, prosperity, happiness and wealth? Of course, SUBCONSCIOUS! It is it that helps you, gives advice, sends your thoughts and requests to the Universe, protects and guides you. And it is this that controls all life

Sleepy kingdom

Sleepy kingdom Daedalus - “late bird”. He begins to consciously perceive the surrounding reality only around ten in the morning, although the “internal autopilot” (a kind of special department spinal cord) allows Daedalus to create the appearance of activity in earlier

We spend almost a third of our lives sleeping. But we complain about lack of sleep if we manage to sleep 5–7 hours. However, animals are content with a much shorter rest - and feel great

When talking about most representatives of the animal world, it is worth using the term “dream-like states” and not “sleep”. Single-phase sleep - once a day - is recorded only in primates. Other animals have polyphasic sleep: short-term series lasting from several seconds to several hours. Among mammals, small animals with fast metabolisms sleep in short bursts, but more frequently and overall. Large ones tend to change their states of sleep and wakefulness more rarely, but in total they sleep less than small ones.

WHITE SHARK

Carcharodon carcharias

Sleeps in episodes of 9–10 minutes, without stopping to swim. At the time of sleep, the speed of a shark can reach 23 km/h. The fact is that the jaw muscles of a shark are not able to independently pump water through the gills. The predator is forced to do this in motion. If she stops for too long, she will suffocate.

10 minutes *

* She is able to fall asleep several times a day, but it is impossible to indicate the exact number.

WHITE STORK

Ciconia ciconia

Sleeps 1–2 hours a day. During long flights it rests right in the sky. Storks take turns taking a place in the center of the flock and continue to fly on “autopilot”: they hear clicks - signals given by relatives in front and behind. The sound helps sleepers maintain altitude, maintain direction and make the required number of wing flaps. The rest lasts for 10–15 minutes, after which the stork gives up the “sleeping place” to the next bird.

1–2 hours

GIRAFFE

Giraffa

He doesn’t sleep for two hours a day, but sits down - tucks his front legs and one back leg under him, the other remains extended so that in case of danger he can get up faster. Neck raised. Only during the phase deep sleep, which lasts up to 20 minutes, the giraffe relaxes: it bends all its legs and bends its neck in an arc back. During the day he naps for 6–8 hours with open eyes without stopping chewing. To relieve the burden on his neck, he puts his head between the branches of a tree or stands close to his neighbor.

2 hours

HORSE

Equus caballus

He sleeps at night for up to three hours - contrary to the saying, not standing, but lying on his side. But the horse cannot remain in this position for a long time due to large mass body (if she lies for more than six hours, she will get pulmonary edema). During the day he dozes while standing - a special “mechanism” that blocks knee joints, allows the animal to stand in place for hours without experiencing stress.

2–3 hours

AFRICAN ELEPHANT

Loxodonta

The short duration of sleep is due to the fact that elephants digest only 35–40% of their food. So they have to spend 15–18 hours a day on food. Elephants sleep for a little over three hours, standing or lying down. They like to lie down next to some kind of support - without it it is difficult for them to quickly get to their feet.

3 hours 20 minutes

HUMAN

Homo sapiens

Newborns sleep up to 17 hours a day, adults - seven to eight, and older people only need five to six hours. The recorded record without sleep is 264 hours. After a day of continuous wakefulness, chemical processes begin in the brain, which lead to mental suppression.

7–8 hours

DOLPHIN-BOTTLENOSE DOLPHIN

Tursiops truncatus

He sleeps in sessions for an average of 1.5 hours, “turns off” alternately one hemisphere of the brain, then the other. A lung-breathing dolphin needs to rise to the surface of the water 2-3 times a minute to take a breath (maximum without oxygen - 20 minutes), so it cannot completely fall asleep, but in total it rests up to ten hours a day.

until 10 o'clock

DOMESTIC CAT

Felis catus

Cats sleep for almost two thirds of the day. Sleep is periodic, 50–110 minutes. The total daily rest time, like that of lions, can reach 20 hours. Phase slow sleep gives way to the REM phase, during which the cat’s sleep is especially deep, since the large muscles of her body are maximally relaxed.

13 hours

Photo: Nature PL (x2), Dreamsfoto / Legion-media, Diomedia, iStock (x4)

Behind the forests and mountains,
Among the untrodden roads,
Behind the burnt bridges
The tower hid.

I forgot myself in a sacred dream,
Under the lull of rowan trees,
The threshold and the board are covered with moss,
Apparently the gentleman is a quitter.

Opening the door is a difficult task!
The shutters are tightly closed.
There is faint smoke coming from the chimney
Striving to meet heights.

In the upper room on a long bench
Wrapped in an old fur coat,
Shaggy grandfather, his sweet dream
Watches minute by minute.

The autumn forest in the area is empty.
There is a carpet of foliage on the ground.
Leshy, perhaps at his leisure,
Will visit a forgotten house.

It takes a long time to wake up a couch potato,
But you can’t raise your grandfather:
The old man can sleep before his time,
The old man cannot stop his sleep.

Grandfather is still fighting in his sleep,
He hit the guest with a felt boot.
The goblin will soon leave -
The guest forgot what he wanted.

The leshak will throw wood into the stove,
And he whispers about the vow.
Grandfather lifted his jacket over his nose -
The hearty fellow sleeps like a groundhog.

The forest is quiet, the snow is coming soon,
A swarm of birch trees on a hillock,
But I can't hear any conversations
In late November.

Is the leaf still spinning?
raised by the north wind,
Grandfather even sleeps very well,
He lifted his beard with a shovel.

Snoring scatters trills,
He walks around the tower.
Spruce trees fell asleep under the window
And the viburnum sleeps in the bush.

The beast hid in the thicket,
The cat at the bench is also sleeping,
I drank plenty of milk
And snores, snores, snores

There is a cuckoo on the wall clock
She slept through everything and is silent.
Even a plump pillow
He sleeps under his furry ear.

The servants are sleeping, who is hiding where,
On the floor, on the chest...
And the butler stretched out -
There is pressure on my cheek in the hammock.

Who is this royal dormouse?
Who brought sleep to the area?
Autumn dream, Caesar's dream
Who benefits now?

This king is a friend of King Pea,
Famous sovereign!
Our neighbor country from the east,
Magical dreams, good king.

The kingdom of sleep and couch potatoes,
Tsar Panteleev,
Doesn't bother you in the east,
The dawn has risen again.

Among the many characters in Russian fairy tales, Tsar Panteley occupies a special place along with his friend Tsar Gorokh. Two old liars, constantly inventing various fables about their adventures in their youth, and Pea lies, and Panteley agrees with him and decorates the story with unprecedented details. Tsar Gorokh's wife, Tsarina Lukovna, regularly catches old talkers in their fables, but only her friends constantly get out of any situation, leaving Lukovna high and dry. These two cute eccentrics are constantly at war with the Mushroom King, firing terrible fire from all guns. Pea porridge in the company of mushrooms it is an explosive mixture, which is why it is not recommended to be in the same room with lovers of this dish. In the old days, when the housewife was in season, she would add mushrooms to any dish, but pea porridge with mushrooms was a special phenomenon. The trouble with King Pea is one thing: King Panteley is an unreliable ally - in the midst of the battle he fell asleep from old age.
Nevertheless, the times of the reign of these Russian tsars remained in the memory of the people as times of national happiness and peace on Russian soil. Both kings have historical prototypes. These are the king-brothers Georgy Danilovich (George the Victorious) and Ivan Danilovich (Kalita or Tsar Caliph) Rurik, through whose labors the great Russian state was created.

In the ideas of our ancestors, sleep was inseparable from the time of night, and the one who fell asleep resembled the deceased. Like a dead man, he closes his eyes and becomes inaccessible to external impressions.
Both Sleep and Death were recognized by the Slavs as living mythical creatures, related to each other.
In Slavic fairy tales, heroes killed by enemies are resurrected when their corpses are sprinkled living water, they usually say: “Oh, how I slept for a long time!” - “You would sleep forever, if not for the living water and my help!” - answers the good comrade.
IN modern language eternal sleep is likened to death; on the contrary, lethargic sleep is known among the common people as extinction, during which, according to the stories of the villagers, the soul leaves the body, wanders in the next world, sees heaven and hell and learns the future fate of people. Animals that hibernate are, as the common expression goes, freezing for the winter.

The setting sun in the evening seems not only dying, but also falling asleep, and the rising sun in the morning - rising from sleep; the winter death of nature is otherwise called its winter sleep; about frozen rivers and lakes they say that they fell asleep.
The dead are called deceased; in the Smolensk province, the dead in the old days were called blind people (from the verb “to close your eyes” - to close your eyes); in the Arkhangelsk province there was a belief: whoever falls asleep as soon as he gets into bed will not live long; The Lithuanians had a superstition: when the newlyweds went to bed together for the first time, whichever of them fell asleep first was destined to die earlier.
Serbs do not advise sleeping when the sun sets, so as not to fall asleep together with the dying luminary of the day and the eternal sleep itself.

Sleeping boy (Portrait of Tyranov) Krylov

The word “go dark” is used in popular parlance to mean “to go blind” and “to die”; Isn’t that why ghouls (dead people who appear after death) for the most part are presented as blind.
Just as sleep approaches death, so, on the contrary, wakefulness becomes similar to life; therefore, “alive” means awake, for example: “We arrived alive,” that is, we arrived when no one was sleeping; the verb “to live” is used in some places in the sense of being awake, not sleeping.

This brotherhood of sleep and death, and the belief that the soul during sleep can leave the body and wander in another world and see everything secret there, served as the basis why dreams are given prophetic meaning. For the lively and impressionable imagination of our ancestors, what was seen in a dream could not but have direct relationship to reality, among which there was so much for them that was incomprehensible, mysterious, filled with higher, sacred power. They recognized in dreams the same participation of the deity that they recognized in fortune-telling and oracles; dreams appeared like fast-flying messengers of the gods, broadcasters of their decisions. Belief in the prophetic meaning of dreams is ineradicable to this day.

This theme is often found in the tales and traditions of our people. For example, in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” there is a story about prophetic dream Prince Svyatoslav:

In distant Kyiv, on the mountains,
Svyatoslav had a vague dream,
And great fear seized him,
And he gathered the boyars according to the charter.
“From evening until this day,”
The prince said, bowing his head,
On the yew bed
They covered it with a black shroud.
They scooped me blue wine
Bitter poisoned potion
They sprinkled pearls on the canvas
From the quivers of enemy products.
My golden-domed tower stood
Without a skate, and foreshadowing grief,
The enemy raven in Plesensk screamed
And he flew, noisily, on the blue sea.”

This whole dream consists of gloomy omens: a black cover and the cry of a raven signify impending misfortune, a tower without a ridge means the death of someone from the family, pearls are tears, bitter wine is reminiscent of the expression “drunk in grief.” Svyatoslav's dream prophetically came true - the Russian army was defeated. It seemed that someone whispered black news to Svyatoslav, but our ancestors actually believed that a sleeping person was in communication with the invisible world and received mysterious messages from there.

SLEEPY KINGDOM

Once upon a time there lived a king, and he had a daughter, and such a beauty that she could not be told in a fairy tale or described with a pen. Many suitors flocked to the palace, but they all left with nothing, and they thanked God that they left alive. The princess loved to dance more than anything in the world and set the following condition:

I'll marry the one who can out-dance me!

And so, as soon as a new groom appeared, the princess carried him away into a couple and rushed around all the chambers of the palace. The best dancers tried to compete with her, but she was tireless, she was ready to rush back and forth to the music all day long, and no one could out-dance her. Some, the weaker ones, fell lifeless, those who were stronger barely walked away on weak legs, having sworn off forever to dance.

And then one day a new guest appeared in the palace. The music started playing, and the princess stood up with him. And what? An hour passed, and two, and three, and the guest was still tireless. By the end of the day, the princess could barely move her legs, and the groom danced and danced as if he had just begun. In the end, the girl fainted without finishing the dance, overcome by fatigue, and the guest laughed:

King, I could demand my reward, but I don't need your daughter. From this crazy fun I will calm you down forever: you, and the princess, and your capital city, and the whole kingdom - you will finally rest. You will fall into a deep sleep, and you will sleep until someone appears who can overpower me.

But it must be said that this was not an ordinary person, but the god of winter and mortal torpor Karachun himself, a hater of all kinds of fun. As he promised, so he did: everyone in this kingdom fell asleep - the king, the dancing princess, the courtiers, the servants, and all the inhabitants, both people and animals. Soon the paths and roads became so overgrown that no one could walk or drive through, and only in fairy tales and legends was the memory of the Sleepy Kingdom kept.

And so a young prince from a distant kingdom heard one such tale, and uncontrollable curiosity took possession of his soul. At any cost, he decided to find the Sleepy Kingdom and hit the road. He rode for a long time or a short time, and then he found himself among impenetrable thickets. He cut into them with his sword, and finally the gates of the capital city appeared. People, dogs, horses, birds were sleeping on all corners. It was the same in the palace: the king was sleeping on the throne, and next to him was beautiful girl, princess. As soon as he looked at her, the young man fell in love and, grabbing the princess in his arms, began to kiss her. In vain! His hot lips could not break the sleepy stupor.

Only the one who can overpower me will wake her up!

The prince turned around and saw the formidable Karachun.

Shall we fight with swords or fight with fists? - asked the brave young man.

Here's another! - Karachun grinned. - I suggest we see who can drink more.

And immediately in front of them there were two barrels of green wine - so huge that you could drown in each one. The young man understood that he would never drink this wine in his life, and decided to get his way by cunning. He raised his foot over the edge of the barrel, as if he was about to throw himself into it.

What are you doing, mortal? - Karachun was surprised.

“I don’t want to drink too much,” the young man grinned. - The barrel is heavy, can you lift it? I’d rather plunge into the barrel and slowly drink all the wine.

“And I want to try,” Karachun was delighted, plopped into the barrel and disappeared into it headlong.

At the same moment, the prince grabbed the lid and pushed it back, and to be sure, he nailed it tightly.

Wow, how Karachun howled! He instantly lost all his magical power.

Let me out, and I will fulfill your every desire,” he shouted, gurgling and gasping. - What do you want?

“Wake up the sleeping people and never appear here again,” the prince demanded, and Karachun had to swear that he would do so.

The prince opened the lid - and at that same moment the Sleepy Kingdom awoke. And the princess’s heart finally awakened to love, and she willingly gave her hand to the savior.

But she completely forgot how to dance while she slept. But no one really grieved about that!

***

Slavic mythology

Russian legends