If you’ve ever woken up with sand in your eyes, that’s no coincidence. It only means that—frightening as it may sound—someone has come and paid you a visit at night. Yes, while you were tucked in your sheets and before you fell right into the land of dreams. Today’s article is in fact about the Dream Lord, more colloquially known as The Sandman.
I heard about the Sandman for the first time in my life when I was already twelve years old. I remember it specifically, because his story quite impressed me, given that he was completely unknown in my country. It was quite strange; this sort of creepy man who throws sand in your eyes to make you fall asleep…
Scary.
I grew up with The Boogeyman (which I’ll write an article about, don’t worry), the monster under the bed or in the wardrobe, the ghost in my grandma’s house, and a lot more terrifying creatures. But not the Sandman.
The Dream Lord is a mythical character who sprinkles ‘dust’ in children’s eyes to help them fall asleep. His story originated centuries ago in central and northern Europe; however, it’s difficult to say when and where it was precisely born, as, like most folktales, it was passed down orally. The first appearance on the page of the word ‘Sandman’ was in 18th-century German Dictionaries, which chronicled the idiom “der Sandmann kommt”, meaning “the Sandman is coming”. It was a popular way to describe someone who looked very sleepy, was about to fall asleep, or was rubbing their eyes, as though sand had been thrown into them. From that moment on in history, the tale about the Dream Lord split into two, one darker and one lighter, written respectively by two great authors of the time—E.T.A. Hoffman and Hans Christian Andersen.
Hoffman’s short story, titled ‘Der Sandmann’, came first and was published in 1818 (although sources can be contradictory, and some state it was 1815 or 1816). His version is not only quite dark but also disturbing and sinister, especially for a child. It begins with an exasperated nurse telling the protagonist the tale of a mythical creature who sprinkles sand in the eyes of children who don’t want to go to sleep, causing their eyeballs to literally fall out of their sockets. Yes, I know. I would have been horrified if someone had read me this story when I was younger. The Dream Lord then collects the eyeballs in a sack and brings them to the moon, where he feeds them to his monstrous children.
We can all agree that E.T.A. Hoffman had a talent for writing creepy stories, because, believe me, when I first read it, I was quite shocked. It doesn’t seem like a fairy tale at all; on the contrary, it appears to be a story for adults. It’s profoundly psychological, and it even became such a sensation in the psychoanalytical circles of the last century that Sigmund Freud wrote about it in his essay titled ‘The Uncanny’.
Hans Christian Andersen’s version, instead, is definitely a lighter, kinder, and sweeter fairy tale. Published in 1841 and called Ole Lukøie (‘Ole’ is a common Danish name, and ‘Lukøie’ means to ‘close your eyes’), this story—curiously enough—never actually mentioned the word ‘Sandman’; however, it is the title most translations assign to it, and it is the name most people give to Andersen’s character. But that’s not the only difference.
Hans Christian Andersen’s and Hoffman’s Dream Lords couldn’t be any more dissimilar. The Danish author’s Sandman is an enchanting figure and not at all terrifying. He dresses in a silk coat that changes colours, tells stories, and lulls children to sleep by sparkling dust in their eyes. He’s such a delightful figure compared to the other one. He also has two umbrellas that he holds over sleeping children—one colourful and full of pictures to bring wonderful dreams, and one without pictures for naughty kids, to give them a dreamless night. It is, indeed, a rather peculiar tale, as it doesn’t follow a regular plot scheme but seems more of a sequence of dreamlike tableaus, but at least it reads like a children’s fairy tale. Another interesting disparity is that, in the earliest translations, Ole Lukøie was said to pour sweet cream into children’s eyes and not dust. I couldn’t find exactly how or why, but then, throughout the years, the term changed to dust and then sand, making at last Andersen’s character a true Sandman.
It should also be mentioned that, at the end of the story, Ole Lukøie reveals to the protagonist that he has a brother (also called Ole Lukøie), who, much like him, visits people to make them fall asleep, but only once. His brother, like you’ve probably guessed, is indeed the representation of Death, which I find quite intriguing, as it’s not the first time that Death and Dream are seen as siblings.
In contemporary media, the Sandman is also linked to Morpheus (the Greek god of dreams) and a lot of other figures, like, as I already mentioned, the Boogeyman. He’s never really described as inherently evil or inherently good; however, we can definitely state that Andersen’s benevolent version of the Dream Lord is the one most people know and associate with the Sandman.
Now, we may never truly discover why the Sandman sprinkles ‘sand’ in our eyes to make us fall asleep, but, apart from the obvious answer that it is a folk tale passed down from generation to generation, I believe it was created to answer all the endless questions that kids have about everything.
Because, dear reader, even though we may sometimes forget, there is nothing more wonderful than a child’s curiosity.
Up, The Sandman Illustration by my amazing twin Soul
Sources:
Who is the Sandman of Mythology and Folklore?
The Sandman (Freud’s essay ‘The Uncanny’)
The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman (2018)
Fiabe by Hans Christian Andersen (1989) — a book in my library
The Library of the Unseen 
Penny for your thoughts…