I had been fairly active the day before and this morning, so all I really wanted to do was take a nap. For a while, I drifted back and forth across the boundary of sleep and consciousness. However, sleep finally won out for good. When I woke up half an hour or so later, I flipped my computer back open and noticed that my mom was trying to skype me. I answered, chatted a bit, but soon felt sleep's cobwebs winding round me once again and pulling me back into the darkness. Another half hour later, I forced myself awake and returned to the computer, though I had not entirely managed to shake off my nap.
"Well, sleeping beauty returns to us," my mom joked, "you left me all alone for a while. I had to play solitaire."
"Sorry about that, what were we talking about before?"
"Oh, nothing much. You were complaining about the cafe you ate in, telling me about your dream with the drag queens luring soldiers to their deaths."
We continued to talk, but I lay down with my back to the computer and struggled to keep my eyes open.
" - so that's what I've been up to. Anyway, I just wanted to see your lovely smile!" said the voice from the computer.
"Heh, should I turn around then?" I joked without stirring.
"What? Why? Then I wouldn't be able to see you," came the earnest reply. Icy fear splintered through me, burning away the sopor for a second before it oozed back.
"What exactly are you seeing, Mom?" I asked, stock still.
"You, of course. The picture's still coming through. I can see you waving at me." I hadn't moved.
The pieces clicked together inside me. I was sleeping. I was dreaming. It was not going well. This is the point that people are supposed to be able to dream that they are flying or decide to become king of the dinosaurs and rule with an iron tail. It doesn't work that way for me. When I become aware, one of two things happen: I drift out of my dream body and just watch the dream run on autopilot, or I get locked in. This has only happened to me a few times, always in dreams that seem relatively normal and calm. The sensation it creates, however, is anything but. Imagine that you realize your world is fake, that you are stuck moving in a body that does not exist, in a space that could change any second, and the only proof you have is a few tiny discrepancies between what should be and what is. You could write such discrepancies off as tricks of circumstance if only the doubt curdling in your stomach would go away. When you finally accept that you are dreaming, everything comes into perfect clarity. You are living in the dream, second by agonizing second, and you do not know where it will go or when it will stop, or worst...when it started.
That was the point I was at when the sleep paralysis set in. A second layer of lethargy had wrapped so tightly around my dream body that I could not move it. I was locked into the dream and locked into the body. I fought back sleep and panic, terrified of what would happen if I fell asleep in that state. Finally, the panic transformed into pigheadedness. It's my freaking body. I'll move it when I want to. I realized that my dream and real bodies were lying in precisely the same positions, so I wrenched them both up. The dream-self melted away as I moved until only the flesh and blood remained.
No comments:
Post a Comment