Supernatural

• all the depictions of the boys (and Bobby too) sleeping

That’s a quote from my last entry about things in S4 that I think must be trying to tell us something. The sleep/dream/dreamwalking idea is where I’ve decided to dig in first as I continue trying to understand what is going on. I went through S4 screen caps and here’s what I found. (All caps are from oxoniensis unless noted.)

4.01 Lazarus Rising
The season opens with Dean gasping awake in his coffin. (Technically, I should point out that we begin with Dean in the midst of a flashback/vision. We’ve also seen these occur as he looks in the mirror (4.01) or looks at a mask (4.07) or during a nightmare (4.03, 4.08). I’ll save more comment on the hell memory for a separate entry, though.)

4.01 Lazarus Rising
Dean is asleep on the pullout bed in the motel when Sam ducks out to pull some diner demons. This is just before he wakes to the television static and broken glass of an angel attempting to communicate.

4.01 Lazarus Rising
Castiel uses a Crocodile Dundee move to exclude Bobby from the private conversation he wants with Dean.

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4.02 Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester
This episode opens in the living room of a sleeping female hunter who wakes under attack by spirits.

4.02 Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester
Dean is sleeping while riding shotgun when Sam is attacked by Victor Henriksen’s spirit in a gas station restroom. Somehow Dean managed to know to get there with a shotgun.

4.02 Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester
Sam sleeps on the couch and Dean on the floor at Bobby’s after resolving the witness crisis. Dean ‘wakes’ for a kitchen visit from Castiel before waking again in the morning.

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4.03 In the Beginning
The camera’s focus shifts from a departing Sam to a sleeping Dean.

4.03 In the Beginning
Dean awakens from another red nightmare to a watching Castiel who then sends Dean on a mission to “stop it.” (The cap of Castiel using his sleep command on Dean is from supernatural.tv.)

4.03 In the Beginning
Dean wakes again, this time on a bench in 1973.

4.03 In the Beginning
Unable to change destiny and make things right in the past, Dean wakes for the last time in the episode having been returned to the present. Castiel is determined that Dean understand the need to stop what Sam is doing.

I think there’s reason to wonder just how canonical the canon provided in this episode really is. Perhaps it fits more in the mold of an episode like 2.20 What Is and What Should Never Be when Dean was under the djinn’s influence.

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4.04 Metamorphosis
Not exactly asleep, but Dean is unconscious after Sam has been locked away in a closet (think 1.14 Nightmare!). This isn’t the last time this season a monster will drag out an imminent threat against Dean until something (Hooray for Sam this time!) can save him. More than once it’s felt like Dean is Sweet Nell tied to the train tracks. (See also Dracula’s oh-so-slow reach for the switch and the save by pizza delivery in 4.05.)

edit: I just watched the rerun of 4.04 Metamorphosis and Sam is also shown unconscious at the same time as Dean. We see Sam wake and attempt reasoning with (and identifying with) the monster before firing him up.

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4.05 Monster Movie
Sam’s amused response to Dean’s theory of rehymenization is to leave Dean to it and head back to the room for some sleep.

4.05 Monster Movie
Dean and Jamie’s drinks are drugged and they are both incapacitated.

4.05 Monster Movie
Dean wakes in restraints (and lederhosen!!). Sam releases him, but it is left to Jamie to regain consciousness and shoot the shifter.

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I didn’t spot sleeping in 4.06 Yellow Fever, but Dean spends much of the episode with disease induced and alcohol aided hallucinations.

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4.07 It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester
Again, this episode doesn’t have sleeping although the boys do play dead. (All of a sudden, I’m reminded of Anna’s emergency angel banishing blood spell.)

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4.08 Wishful Thinking
Here’s Dean having a nightmare of his hell memory. Sam wakes him and he immediately reaches for a bottle.

4.08 Wishful Thinking
Sam’s been hit by lightning, but wakes as if he’s simply been sleeping. I don’t know if removing the coin from the fountain was meant to erase or rewrite or simply halt events such as a lightning strike. Hope seems to have forgotten her experience with Wes, but Dean remembers his exchanges with Todd.

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4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer
A recently vacated body wakes when Ruby takes up occupancy.

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4.10 Heaven and Hell
Castiel sends Sam to sleep. This is while Sam is asking “Cas” not to let the situation escalate when Uriel is throwing Ruby around. Dean goes to Ruby first and has her get Sam back on his feet.

4.10 Heaven and Hell
Pamela hypnotizes Anna who freaks out when asked to look far back. When she wakes, it’s with the realization she used to be an angel.

4.10 Heaven and Hell
Sam is sleeping (in a position remarkably like the one he was in for his sex dream of Bela in 3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me). Ruby gives him a lingering look as she leaves to meet up with Alastair.

4.10 Heaven and Hell
Dean’s first explanation for Uriel’s presence is an assumption that he is dreaming.

Okay. So, I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean. (But, gosh, it must add up to something, mustn’t it?) For one thing, I think we have to remember that the show has created more than one episode of alternate(?) reality. How many times did poor Sam have to wake up in 3.11 Mystery Spot? The show has also established an ability to affect and be affected by dream events. 3.05 Bedtime Stories would easily fit with this idea.

I am unspoiled but would appreciate comments that let the show do the revealing in January. What scenes from S4 ought to be added to the bank here?  It feels like a decent start and I’d like it to be complete.

[edit Mar. 16, 2009 to fix an image link]

Tags: 4.01 Lazarus Rising, 4.02 Are You There God?, 4.03 In the Beginning, 4.04 Metamorphosis, 4.05 Monster Movie, 4.06 Yellow Fever, 4.07 Great Pumpkin, 4.08 Wishful Thinking, 4.09 I Know What You Did Last Summer, 4.10 Heaven and Hell, dreams, sleep, speculation