Verre

I was stressed about work. How am I going to complete all the obligations piling up this month, which is already getting shorter? I figured it would be best to prioritize. I should be able to finish the map in an afternoon if I get the right materials together. I thought about what I would need to finish it, and came up with vellum and archival paper. Fortunately I knew I already had these somewhere and was pretty sure where I had last put them, in a box in the storage area. I could see it in my mind's eye. I had woken up early and wanted to go retrieve them, but the rest of my family was still asleep.

My mother, brother, and father were all staying with me in the house and I didn't want to disturb them by walking through the building and rummaging around in boxes. I decided to go outside for a walk instead. I walked down the stairs, which were littered with all the discarded santa masks. This struck me as odd at first, but I reasoned we must have had a holiday party yesterday.

Outside it felt like early morning, and there was a narrow stream of clear water nearby. Next to the stream was a small building of naturally weathered wood, a sort of shed. Just after I entered it, it occurred to me that even though I know I'm awake, I should practice some RCs to instill good habits. No one else was around and there was no reason not to do a blatant one, so I jumped. Yes, just as I thought, it's obvious I'm awake, because that felt perfectly normal. But just for good measure I should do it a few more times in order to internalize the feeling of what a proper jump feels like in waking life.

So I jumped in the air several times in succession, concentrating on that critical moment at the apex, when the upward motion reverses and gravity takes over. I knew that I would be able to tell if I were dreaming because the timing would be off, that moment would feel drawn out slightly, extended. Hmmm.... it isn't, is it? Was that a touch of hesitation at the top? No, I'm pretty sure this is natural. I've just never concentrated on it sufficiently before, my attention is making it seem more pronounced.

And yet... it does seem a trifle too long. Could it be...? What if...? I had just begun to seriously consider the possibility that I might be dreaming after all, when I woke up in bed. Only very slowly did I come back to myself and realize that all the things I had taken as evidence that I was awake were wrong or askew, signs of false memory. The building and surroundings that seemed so familiar at the time were pure dream space, unlike any place I know in waking life. It made sense at the time that my whole family was there, but the only accurate part is that I'm currently sharing a hotel room with my mother. The anxiety about work is real enough, but it was only well after I had written down my initial notes that I realized that in the dream I had felt responsible for an additional project that didn't exist in WL, in addition to the real ones. Finally, as I initially lay in bed reviewing the dream, I didn't even notice how I slipped back briefly from genuine waking into an FA, and briefly found myself another place entirely, which only transitioned again to lying back in bed once I reached the point where I felt I had enough grasp of the memory to get up and write.

My husband and I were visiting a city that felt familiar and somewhat reminiscent of an East Coast city like Boston, though it had no correspondence to any RL place I've ever been. We had just finished a nice meal, and were walking along the street. We leave the commercial avenue and start walking into a nice residential area. After about two blocks I realize that I need to pee, and the best bet is to turn around and go back to the street we just left, so we walk the two blocks back.

At the intersection with the commercial avenue is a group of people standing on the street. They are foreigners with black skin, and both the men and women are wearing long flowing light blue robes, very elegant. Despite the darkness of their skin, something about the shape of their faces and the sound of their language looks more South Asian than African, and I am trying to remember where they are from. Isn't it some small country or island between India and Africa? What was it called, Malvania? That's right, I remember, they are Malvanians, and they are here as refugees from their home country. (Obviously there is no such country as Malvania in waking life, so this was a clear case of false memory.)

I cross the street find the public restroom just where I thought it would be. To reach it we had to walk into a little courtyard and then go downstairs from ground level. One stairway leads to the women's room, the other to the men's. However, when we arrive we find that the line is incredibly long, with about three dozen Malvanians, women and men respectively, waiting on each stairway. Some of them are holding things like toothbrushes and soap, and I realize that since they are refugees who are living on the street, this is probably the only facilities that they have access to. I am sympathetic, but unfortunately I really need to pee now, and I'm not sure what to do.

"Come with me," I say to my husband, who is in the same predicament. I have just remembered that less than a block from here is a theatre I've been to before, and I'm pretty sure that there is a restroom in the lobby. We exit and walk further down the street. I'm trying to remember what time it is. Will the theatre be open? I think it must be at least 11am or perhaps just after noon, so they might have started the early matinees. Luckily we do find the door open and go inside. (More false memories, as none of the locations I was "remembering" bore any resemblance to RL places, much like the city at large.)

The route to the restroom is more complicated than I recall, leading back through several turns and passages, but I follow the signs and we eventually we find our way there. I'm grateful to discover that there are no lines! So I go inside... or try to. The door to the women's room pulls outward, but it is stuck. It is getting caught against a wire rack that is jutting from the side of a cabinet that has been installed too close to the door, so the door is only opening a few inches. Even though I'm of average size, I can't seem to squeeze through. I try to force the door open wider, tugging on it until the metal rack that is blocking it actually begins to distort and bend, letting the door open a few inches wider, just enough for me to slide in sideways. I think how distressing it would be if I were just a few pounds heavier—I wouldn't be able to get in! But I have passed this obstacle.

Inside the restroom at last, it looks very familiar and I remember that I have been here before. (Again, no correspondence to anything in waking life: if this was not pure false memory, then it must have been a setting from some prior dream.) The room is tiled in light green, but everything about it is old and broken down, an absolute ruin. Only about half the tiles are intact, the rest are broken or completely missing. There are not even stalls for privacy; the toilets are just arranged openly around the walls of the room. Many of them look in a state of poor repair as well. However, one detail is very different this time. Last time I found myself in this room, it was disgustingly filthy, but today, unexpectedly, it appears to have just been cleaned. It is as pristine as a room this run-down can be made: I can even smell the odor of cleaning chemicals in the air. Nevertheless, the memory of how dirty it was last time makes me remember that this is a dreamsign—and also, ever since the last failed RC in similar circumstances earlier this month, I've been diligently RCing every time I've found myself in a public restroom lately. Since I've been traveling for the last few days (in RL), I've had the chance to practice this a lot.

Fortunately there is no one else present, so I can RC very blatantly without being afraid of looking foolish. I lift my fingers to my nose and very forcefully try to breathe both in and out. Nope. The breath is fully stopped in both directions. This RC has worked really well for me since I started using it recently, so now when it suggests I am awake, I let myself be convinced. To some extent I realize that I'm actually relieved about this, because I've been having a nice interesting day so far, and it would be annoying to realize that it was all just a dream. On the other hand, I reflect, I'll be even more annoyed if I wake up later and it turns out that I was dreaming and failed to recognize it. But I feel confident in how attentively I performed the RC, so I figure I probably don't have to worry about that.

The dream went on for a while longer; the last thing I remember is being in a cab en route to some further destination. When I finally did wake up, all I could think was, "You've got to be kidding me!"

Note: My suspicion is that it is actually the very diligence with which I've been practicing this RC for the past few days that made it fail this time: every time I pinch my nose in waking life and can't breathe through it, I reinforce the sense-impression of what that feels like, which is perhaps what allowed the dream to duplicate the sensation.

Note: In reflecting on dreams in which I perform an RC but fail to recognize that I am dreaming, I have noticed something odd. The moment during which it occurs to me to think, "Hey, I wonder if I'm dreaming. I'd better check," actually feels like lucid-type awareness, even if the failed RC quickly leads to a passive resorption in the narrative.