Dream CXI

I was having a nap on the couch, and in this dream, I began to go into a series of secondary dreams. In each case, I was aware that I was still resting on the couch, dreaming, and I also knew I could wake up at any time by causing my sleeping body to flex its hands.

In one scene, I dreamed that I was in someone else's car, just woken up. There was the sound of a chainsaw in front of me, and the car began rolling backwards. Initially I was alarmed, but I soon recognized that I was in my brother's parking area, in his car, and what I thought was a chainsaw was just a leaf-blower. My brother waved and continued clearing the area in front of his garage. My initial feeling of startled panic fled, and I waved back and laughed out loud.

I then dreamed that small, swift vermin were running rapidly through my brother's house, and that I was responsible for them. I ran after them, trying to catch them or at least drive them toward some standard traps. I tried, too, to enlist my cat to help in these efforts, but she dismissively yawned and kept napping. I finally managed to remove some of the vermin, but there were still many around. I worried about how my brother would feel about my relative failure in this endeavor.

I was then back on the couch, resting. I could hear my phone ring, using a ringtone that indicated one of my friends, and I struggled to wake up...but I couldn't. I couldn't feel my hands to flex them and, thus, wake up. My entire body felt leaden and heavy; I couldn't move the smallest muscle, even to twitch. Nothing would move. I began to feel a tightening panic.

In my struggle to awaken, I was pushed into another dream in which I was in an old, somewhat decrepit house. I knew I was still in a dream, and I ran through the hallways, beating my fists on the walls, grabbing things, trying to wake myself up so I could answer the phone. I put my fingers against a wall-hanging, and two sharp quills embedded themselves in my fingertips. But I still couldn't wake up.

I wondered if I'd died in my sleep, and if this old house was where I would spend eternity, and if this was how death came to everyone--trapped in a panic dream from which escape was known, but kept cruelly out of reach.

But just as suddenly my eyes jarred open, and my sleep was ended.

As opposed to the usual narrative nature of the dreams posted here, this was a meta-dream, perhaps, one where the change from sleeping to wakefulness could always be questioned--or even doubted. But this was one that affected me more than most others. When this dream "ended," if it ever actually did, I sat bolt upright on the couch, fearful to attempt sleep, fearful of slipping back into that endless couch-dream.