Sandman The God Of Dreams.

                         .•¤ Halloween Special: Sandman ¤•.

For the first blog post I decided to talk about something related to Halloween, and the first thing that came to mind was "Sandman", so in this post I will try to tell a little about this historical figure who goes by many names and has been immortalized in several stories.

Before talking about Sandman himself, we will see a bit of his origin, Sandman is the God of Dreams, or Ruler Of Dreaming, he is a retraction of the famous Greek god Morpheus (In Greek Μορφεύς) son of Hypnos the Greek god of sleep, Morpheus has the ability to take any human form and appear in people dreams like the person loved by that particular individual.

Morpheus was mentioned in the works of Ovid's, Metamorphoses, as a god living in a bed made of ebony containing alkaloids with sedative effects and narcotics in a dark cave decorated as flowers, the Roman poet Ovid says in his work Metamorphoses that Morpheus is a son of Somnus and reports that he had a thousand brothers, like Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos being only the most prominent among them, while his brothers Phobetor and Phantasus are responsible for the dreams of animals and inanimate objects that appear in dreams Morpheus only deals with human elements.

Inadvertently, Morpheus revealed secrets to mortals through their dreams, and so was struck down by Zeus. From his name comes the name of the drug morphine, because of its properties that induces drowsiness and has similar effects to dream. And every night Morpheus comes to embrace us and make us dream, it is said that sleeping well is to be in the arms of Morpheus.

Based on Morpheus Greek stories and legends of the Anglo-Saxons emerged Sandman, which is one of the most famous characters portrayed in the comics and children's books, in the comics the most famous of them is the character created by Neil Gaiman for DC Comics.

However Neil Gaiman was not the first to portray Sandman, in Anglo-Saxon folklore Sandman ("man-sand") is a mythical figure linked to dreams and sleep. Originally cited in legends and fairy tales, the character was transformed into a super hero with cape and colored uniform in 1939. DC gave him a secret identity, feature typical of the genre: Wesley Dodds. Sandman would get a new version in 1974, with new powers, uniform and alter ego (Garrett Sanford, at first, and Hector Hall, later).

Without ignoring the old aspects of the character previously built (they were not "erased from existence", but reinstated), Briton Neil Gaiman has changed its course. The magazine "Sandman" which premiered in December 1988 brought a different character: more than a human costume or a superhero, Sandman was a kind of divine entity responsible for dreaming. There were six other creatures like him: the Endless, who are his brothers: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium. In common, they have enormous powers and responsibilities - they are creatures whose actions influence the fate of the universe.

Dream is a noble hero, tragic, in the traditional style of the heroes of Greek tragedy. Sometimes he seems insensitive, other meditative or angry, but invariably melancholy.However his more rational side is always aware of his responsibilities, both to ordinary people, and for those of their land. Shares a reciprocal link of dependence and trust with his older sister, Death. Although obscure, perhaps because having to live with imagination and repressed desires of every living thing that liberate their minds in his kingdom, he strives vigorously to understand his own nature and the other Endless.

More recently we had a new character inspired by Sandman introduced in cinemas all over the world, and children's literature, this character was created by William Joyce and is part of a series of books entitled "Guardians of Childhood", Sandman is portrayed here as a friendly, smiling, little creature made of sand, , in this story the character is mute and communicates through his dreams and figures generated by your sand dreams.

Sandman is indeed one of the most recognizable characters in children's tales, in Brazil he goes by the name of "João Pestana" and puts sand in the eyes of the children during the night to have good dreams, there are two popular songs in Brazil on sandman, which are :

João Pestana,

João Pestana,

Faz dormir

O menino

Na cama!

(rima popular)

Já lá vem João Pestana

Pé ante pé voz que

não engana

Vem de longe já muito cansado

Pobre João, coitado

Faz ó, ó, Menino também

Faz ó, ó, que o soninho já vem

(canção de embalar)