There are countless songs containing sleep as a theme. From time to time I will showcase some of my more favorite sleep-related or sleep-flavored songs for your enjoyment!

I’ve been a Barenaked Ladies fan for the past twenty years or so. I love their clever lyrics, hook-filled melodies, and frenetic, spontaneous, audience-centric live shows. Plus, their bassist, Jim Creeggan, is an absolute badass on standup bass. I highly recommend their live performances.  I’ve seen them numerous times.  The show that stands out in my memory most was one held in a teeny club in Northampton, Massachusetts, circa 1996. In between songs Ed Robertson called a couple up to the front, and the guy proposed to his girlfriend on stage. While she stood there silent and mortified, the guys in the band all leaned in to hear her response, and they came up with a song in which they chanted something like, “Will she say yes?” Finally she accepted the proposal, and the band busted into a speed-metal vamp, screaming their on-the-spot chorus, “She said yes!” over and over while the crowd went nuts.

So this song, “When You Dream,” is a great tune near the end of their 1999 album Stunt. The singer imagines what his infant boy is thinking about while he dreams peacefully. It’s a wonderfully crafted piece, conjuring many of those fuzzy, fanciful images we think of when we try to recall our dreams.

There is much we do not understand about rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, but REM sleep and dreaming are the focus of very intense sleep medicine research at the moment. I will write more about dreaming in a future post. We know REM sleep has restorative effects and has some role to play in things such as memory consolidation. However, there are still many mysteries yet to be unlocked.

Enjoy!  I can’t find an official video, but click above to hear the song.

Here are the Barenaked Ladies song lyrics (written by Ed Robertson and Steven Page, copyright Warner/Chappell Music):