Eccentric Flower:199810/metadreaming
From Eccentric Flower
«October 1998 «Eccentric Flower
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twenty-four october ninety eight six p m Metadreaming This afternoon, we came back from a trip to the mall and Nonelvis decided that she needed a nap. So she lay down and I closed the bedroom from the outside with a catproof rubber band, as is our method. At that point I was already coming to the conclusion that I was rather sleepy myself (we had eaten a big lunch), so I lay down in the "guest bedroom" - which is mostly the room owned by our books, but also has a futon on a raised frame. I dreamed, but I dreamed I was doing awake things. And I knew, during occasional flashes of insight, that I was dreaming, because the things I was doing had - well - a dreamlike quality. I was checking email, for example, names and tones and writing styles I know well, but the email was - odd. A few bubbles off plumb. Gradually - still dreaming - I came back to myself, lying under a single old blanket on the futon, snoring. As if I was coming awake. I heard the sounds of Nonelvis emerging from the other room, undoing the rubber band, looking around the house and not finding me. Ah, I thought, that must be what woke me up. She opened the door to the room where I was and looked in on me. I wasn't quite ready to open my eyes yet. Seeing me asleep, she backed out and closed the door again. I woke all the way up. I heard the sounds of Nonelvis emerging from the other room, undoing the rubber band, looking around the house and not finding me. What ...? I got up and went into the living room where she was sitting. "Did you look in on me and see me asleep?" She hadn't. She hadn't actually gone in the guest room at all. I had dreamed her coming out of the bedroom before she came out of the bedroom. - - - This reminds me of something that happened several weeks back. I was having some extremely disturbing dream - I don't remember what, except that it wasn't one of the ones where I'm being chased by something endlessly. This had specific symptoms. I seem to recall that I was being tortured, beaten. I recall being hit, perhaps across the face ... because I actually moved in the bed - recoiled, probably even made a noise - and that woke me up. I lay there, breathing hard, allowing my brain to come back to reality, and I realized that I wasn't the only agitated person in the bed. Nonelvis was making noises and thrashing. She makes noises in her sleep a lot when she dreams, and they're not always happy, but these were exceedingly upset noises, like pain noises. And the way she was moving .... I realized then what was bothering my head: We were having the same dream! She was being abused in the same way I had been. I have no proof one way or another, of course, but I continue to maintain that we were dreaming the same dream. In fact, I think we were dreaming it at the same time, in synch - except that I dropped out, because I almost always wake up if my physical body moves or makes a noise, and she almost never does. - - - As long as I'm on the subject of dreams, and to end with a less disturbing note: Early this morning, I dreamed that Nonelvis and I went to a nightclub. We went entirely on a whim, coming from having dinner or some other excursion, and had not really dressed for it. When we got there, we found that the club was having a "Dom/Sub Night" and that (according to the sign) "a special dress code will be in effect." Knowing how outré some of the club patrons' clothing was even on normal nights, I didn't think we'd get in. Oh, well. But the young woman with the buzz cut at the front door, looked at both of us, and immediately handed Nonelvis one of the "dom" tickets. She handed me a "sub" ticket, looked at me again, as if she wasn't quite sure, and then decided she had been right. I was wearing a white T-shirt, I remember that much - I may have been wearing cut-offs as well, I seem to recall my legs were bare. Nonelvis was wearing some dark T-shirt, blue jeans, and the leather jacket she generally wears throughout the fall. - - - Sometimes I wish I could just interrogate my subconscious directly. This is a really inefficient communication method.
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