Sylvia Bossack

I wake up and look at the bedside clock. It's 03:00. As I return to the waking state, a name pops into my stream of consciousness – Sylvia Bossack. The spelling is exactly like that; not Sylwia Bosak (the usual Polish spelling), but Sylvia with a v, Bossack, double s, a, c, k. 

I jot down the name in the dream diary that I keep by my bed, have a wee, and go back to sleep. In the morning, I google the name and find one – just one – result. 

Here we go. Sylvia Bossack, the daughter of Sol (Solomon) and Anna Bossack, born Kings County, New York, on 1 August 1918. By the time of the 1940 census, she was living with her parents in Brooklyn, her profession was stenographer. She marries in 1941, to one Herman J. Siegel, an order clerk. She dies in Florida on 20 December 2004 outliving her husband by 12 years.

Why should the name of this entirely random person pop into mind? At three o'clock in the morning on Christmas Eve?

I am no stranger to the phenomenon of hypnagogia and hypnopompia – the mental state as you drift in and out of sleep. Strange yet familiar thought, visions, concepts pass through your stream of consciousness – catch them. Note them down. Do they mean something? Do they relate to something?

I am thinking of my past dreams and flashbacks, that have for decades pointed me towards the US of the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Did my consciousness once inhabit the body of someone who knew Sylvia Bossack? Was Sylvia Bossack (by then Sylvia Siegel), one of the girls in this story? She would have been in her late 20s/early 30s back then. [Below: ChatGPT illustrates the scene from the story.]

I ask ChatGPT about hypnopompic phenomena: "Hypnopompic wakefulness is the transition state between sleep and full waking, occurring as you come out of sleep (the mirror image of hypnagogia, which is falling asleep). In this state, the brain is no longer dreaming in the usual sense, not yet running its full 'reality-checking' systems, while still allowing imagery, words, and associations to surface freely. It typically lasts seconds to a few minutes". Hypnopompic wakefulness and hypnagogia are two sides of the same neurological coin. Hypnagogia = falling asleep. Hypnopompia = waking up. They are mirror transition states on either side of sleep, and they share many of the same cognitive features."

ChatGPT also offers this useful metaphor: "Think of sleep as a tunnel. Hypnagogia: you’re watching ideas drift into the tunnel; hypnopompia: you step out of the tunnel holding something you didn’t notice picking up. Same tunnel. Different direction."

So why name? And why the precision as to the name? I have had names 'served up to me' on numerous occasions before; sometimes the name is so common that googling results in hundreds or thousands or hits – or else a name with zero hits. Maybe this is why I was offered the spelling? This time, a name with just the one hit, but the precise spelling given in the dream/wakefulness state pointed me to the target straight away..

This time six years ago:
10,000 paces through Duffield, Derbyshire

This time ten years ago:
Sizewell B from 20,000ft

This time 12 years ago:
The start of the annual pilgrimage

This time 14 years ago:
We flew into Manchester that year...

This time 15 years ago:
Christmas Eve in England

This time 16 years ago:
Washing the snow away

This time 17 years ago:
Traffic at 38,000 ft