Pity, its a dream. (2)

At 6:30, my alarm goes off, and I start snoozing. I always snooze once, and may snooze up until 6:57, or even later if I am desperate for the sleep (but on those days, I usually reset the alarm. I do sleep better without the interruptions…).

Well, knowing that it was getting up soon, my brain stopped trying to do anything original with my dream. I got lost in a repeating loop sort of thing of sweeping, then helping the band pull their instruments out. During the second snooze session, only about 3 or 4 minutes of dream time passed before the snooze went off again.

If my story line is engaging, dreamtime is more intense, that is, more minutes will pass in dream time than in real time. Sometimes alot more. If the dream is slow-paced, it fails to hold my attention, and my brain comes closer to the waking world, and closer to real-time, sometimes shooting in the opposite direction.

When I hit the snooze bar the last time, I said to myself: this sucks. I need to find something more interesting. I started culling back through my memory of the whole morning dream sequence, and found a scene with my friend from church. I encoded a new dream “key”, and then let my mind run. Basically, I was attempting to generate a new variant, or a whole new storyline, using dream-time data up to that point in my memory. Lucid dreamers and iNtuits will understand what I just said. The rest of you – just trust me that it made sense.

A new thread picked up all right. I found myself following my friend through his trailer home. He was walking through, pointing out evidence of the things he has grown to resent about her. For example, she always says she makes dinner, but he pointed to the Swanson box that he had opened last night, then pointed to the small pile of them in their overflowing kitchen trash can. (She also claims that she keeps the place clean; another point that he was making. Of course, as an observer of all this, I say little – generally just nodding my head in acknowledgement that I heard him. However, I think both of them are to fault for the kitchen trash to be piled up. But I say nothing.)

We continue moving back through their trailer. The back room is the “rec” room. The central fixture is a pool table surrounded by mostly stacks of books, but also boxes of all kinds of the knicknacks and playthings that two people might spend years collecting. The room is a difficult to walk through as the path is narrow, despite the stacks of books or boxes not coming above the edge of the table. A short and simple bench next to the pool table is occupied by his wife. She is sitting there, fretting over something she is looking at.

He sits down next to her, and “comforts” her about what she is looking at – I think its something to do with her job, as it is morning in his household, and they (and I, too, in both worlds) will soon be going to work. But his comfort seems fake to me, and he continues to look over his shoulder and mock her, or otherwise be cynical. I am frustrated by the apparent pretense, but just as suprised that she doesn’t seem to hear. In fact, she seems completely oblivious to my presence.

He told me on Sunday that she sees what she wants to see, that she is “in her own world”, and I am suprised to see just how true that is. Nothing in her expectation set would have prepared her for my walking through her trailer, so she simply doesn’t make room for me in her experience. Nor for his rude comments.

I am still alarmed though, that he continues to talk directly to me. As they continue to talk, she seems to become aware of his cynical remarks. She starts making them back. Now, both of their dialog becomes that of teasing each other, but as an observer, I can hear the bitter pain that bites in each little remark. And still he looks at me and says “See how she is”, and rolls his eyes.

Slowly, however, over the course of 10 minutes or so, she seems to start noticing. She begins to make third person remarks about him. Later, she actually starts looking away from him when she says them. Now, their banter begins to take on the air of a game. Their bitterness becomes hidden in the plastique of their banter. It almost seems scripted, and they almost seem amused by their own skill at this game. I am appaulled. As it ends, she is now – they both are – talking directly to me. And they both seem aware that this is just a game to them.

They start to go down the hallway together, heading to work. They are actually poking each other and touching each other in teasing ways. If I saw them on the street, I’d say they had a perfectly healthy relationship, except I can see the bitter self-interest and pride in each of their own eyes. As they pass through the doorway, she is saying to me, “I’ve actually completed two successful projects this year, one of which is ongoing…” she says with a lusty smile, and pushes him willingly into the hallway.

(cont’d)