Preadapted to Make Monsters

Let’s say sleep isn’t for the brain.
Sleep lets the beast sleep a meal off,
As Rogulja’s research suggests,

While the gut does the tricky work
Of converting strange molecules
To self without destroying self,

So beast doesn’t rust to ruin
In consequence of digestion’s
Furious oxygen process.

Idle organs are life’s workshop.
If sleep was never for the brain,
The big, fat, fancy sleeping brain

Affords an opportunity
For some unrelated madness
In its hours without awareness.

Dreams creep in. What they’re doing there
Is another question, of course,
But they’re not essential to sleep,

They’re not always a part of sleep,
Some sleepers, such as jellyfish,
Lack any of the means to dreams,

And dreams will often disrupt sleep,
As any small human child knows
And every older person fears.

Under the spandrels of the brain
In down times of unawareness,
Dreams’ mischief-makers congregate

In densely emotive shadows.
What are they doing? What are they?
Wouldn’t you like to know. Or not.