Haven't we all been visited by Queen Mab?

So, who’s Queen Mab? In Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”, Mercutio describes her as a tiny fairy that goes into men’s noses and makes them dream of impossible things, like winning the lottery, being a super popular hottie or going to Maui and surf with dolphins while one of the volcanoes erupts. Mercutio, making fun of Romeo’s childish infatuation with Rosaline (he hasn’t met Juliet yet), tries hard to explain that dreams vanish, that they’re not real, that once you wake up, everything remains the same.

In the following clip, Mercutio first makes fun of Romeo's feelings towards Rosaline, but then he goes on a deeper level and talks about Queen Mab, what she does to the men she visits and what happens with their dreams:

Some will say that Mercutio was the biggest party pooper, but I think that he was one of the realest characters in “Romeo and Juliet.” He remained down-to-earth, true to himself and never had these weird ideas about love, the importance or meaning of it: he always thought that love was something chemical and physical instead of having a romantic vision of it (sorry Romeo).  

It's here where I’d like to pay attention to Queen Mab’s figure. This tiny inoffensive fairy that waits until late at night, when men fall asleep to go into their bodies and play with their biggest fantasies and desires, this little fairy that’s nothing like Disney’s Tinker Bell and her goodie goodie friends. Queen Mab is pretty bad, she’s a little bitch that loves to create lovely scenarios in our minds that will never ever happen, fantasies that feed our souls and make us feel miserable. Isn’t that what happened to Romeo and Juliet? Didn’t their lives end up being a major disaster after basing their relationship on fantasies and dreams? But come on, who hasn’t been a victim of dreams and fantasies? That’s why I think that all of us have been visited by her at least once, for good or bad. And although Queen Mab might look evil, it’s good to play with our roles from time to time, even if it’s just a dream. “Look at me, I’m on a date with Donald Glover, the black Spiderman. Okay, no”. In some ways, Queen Mab’s visit is a way of doing the things we haven’t had the chance to do, being someone we would like to be or living the life we would like to live. It's all about roles, what society expects us to be and who we really are.

The importance here lies on what our good friend Mercutio told us:

"True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,

Which is as thin of substance as the air".

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 1, scene 4. Retrieved from http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/romeo_juliet.1.4.html)

Dreams are vain fantasy, as thin as the air. Let’s play with them a bit, but don’t let them rule our lives, don’t let them blind us or make our life a disaster.