― John Fowles
I'm a writer and draw on my experiences, however limited they may be. I like to think I'm basically honest and try to depict accurately the world as I see it, but how objective can we really be?
Writing for me is a catharsis—a purging of what's inside and that's why I draw on my past.
But there’s a difference between what happened and what we remember.
I recall the words of Cormac McCarthy—What we alter in remembering has a reality, known or not.
I edit my writing. I probably edit my memories. What’s real? I haven't a clue and that’s very disturbing.
As I mentioned before, like Hamlet—I have bad dreams. That's the reason I go to the sleep clinic hoping they can fix me.
But Nat Sawyer, a friend, says I've got it all wrong. He’s already failed in one career as an engineer and is now reinventing himself as a psychologist, so I’m doubtful.
He thinks my night terrors are my subconscious talking back to me and I shouldn't repress them but let them out. Easy for him to say and then, of course, he wants all the juicy details.
I think he's made the wrong career choice again. He's not a psychologist but a spy-chologist and I have no intention of divulging my soul to him.
Truth is, I don't know if he's right.
I may be running from my past and rewriting things to suit my present. Yeah, that’d be a revisionist nightmare because I couldn't tell what was real or what I imagined. But I’m not going to stress about it because, to quote Lear, that way madness lies, let me shun it.
Anyway, I know people have used lucid dreaming to control their night terrors and whether or not its my subconscious talking back to me, those dreams disturb me and upset the peaceful order I've created inside me.
Selfish? Maybe, but sometimes it just comes down to survival.
So, here am I in my front room before the fireplace, ready to embark on this great experiment. I chose this room because it always relaxes me. I can shut off the lights and light a fire and the warmth of the flames will lull me to sleep.
I feel safe in this room because I've never experienced a night terror here.
This is my refuge where I end up sleeping on the couch after a nightmare has driven me from my bedroom. So, to help me relax, I make a rum hot chocolate in the hopes it will make me sleep.
My front room with its bay window and huge fireplace is my place of refuge. That's what this room means for me.
And I've purchased a lucid dreaming aid from the clinic—a Dreamweaver sleeping mask that delivers flashing lights as stimuli to induce lucidity into my dreams. The lights will cue my subconscious to enter a REM state of sleep where I can exert some control over the content of my dream.
Well, at least that's the plan. I'll see how it works and judge the results.
I make another hot chocolate with extra rum to mellow me out and then sprawl out on the couch staring into the fireplace flames.
There's a wintry mix of sleet and snow outside but the warmth of the rum and heat of fire turn the trick and before long I’m fast asleep.
I dream I’m back in the loft apartment I rented in University, back when I first met Emma.
But this dream is not like all the others—it’s very realistic as if I’m reliving it.
I want to move out of the loft into the campus residence but Em is trying to dissuade me.
”You say you want to marry me, Jase—why not stay here so we can get married and live here, off campus, in our own little world?”
She’s incredibly beautiful and I can’t fault her reasoning, but truth is, I’m not ready yet to settle down and don’t know how to break it to her.
“This property’s going to be re-zoned and a real estate developer wants to turn it into tract housing, " I tell her. "I’ll move into residence ‘till the end of the semester and we can get married next year.”
Her face falls and I know she’s hurt.
She pleads with me. “But you said you didn’t want to wait. Why can’t we get married now and live in the married students’ residence?”
“I hear the place is run-down and noisy—not exactly what I’m used to—a year isn’t that long.”
I win the argument, but the look on her face is unmistakable—I let her down. To cheer her up, I tell her I’m going out to get her favourite take-out Chinese food and the wine she loves.
She puts on a brave face and I hurry out feeling like the heel I am, only to discover when I get to the restaurant I left my wallet back at the loft.
I hurry back and sneak in hoping she won’t hear—I don’t want another round of explanations. But when I retrieve my wallet from the hall table, I hear her softly crying in the back bedroom.
It’s a Rubicon I don’t want to cross. I tiptoe out and come back later having added her favourite dessert to the menu.
And when I finally wake up, I’m feeling desolate and forlorn because that’s not the way I remembered it.
I’m trembling and shaking from fear. This wasn’t at all what I intended. I was trying to manipulate my dreams, not relive an episode from my past.
It was all so real but distorted. This wasn’t the narrative I told myself whenever I recalled our ‘Loft Dream’, as I termed it.
Still, the truth was, the distortion wasn’t in the dream, but me—I had totally redacted it.
I had blacked out all those painful details and completely altered the story to change the sense.
I felt as if I had run straight into a brick wall that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, but as I thought about it, the wall had always been there—it was me who simply denied it…
And if I was wrong about this, what else had I rubbed out with my giant eraser?