WORDsd.com | ICBWB: My Slant on Writing, and Living

Life Is But A Dream

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

—Songwriters: Micahel Stipe; Peter Buck; Mike Mills

I know what will happen the moment you die.

But if I tell you now, you won’t join me in rambling though the rest of this essay. And if I put the answer at the very end, you will skip down there, read it, and leave. So there’s no getting around it, friend. If you want to know what will happen the moment you die, you’ll just have to miss several brilliant advertisements on television, and read on.

When I was much younger and much smarter, about age five, I had the measles. Or the measles had me. It was a toss up for a while. Whether from contagion or competitiveness, my two brothers had the measles at the same time. For several days and nights, the three of us lay in our beds, separately but equally struggling to shut the door on one of Life’s many exit strategies. In the deep end of one long, hot, bed-soaking night, I had, what I’ve since learned is called, a “waking dream.”(Note: If you would like to experience a waking dream, attend any production of any play written by William Shakespeare.)

In my waking dream, I watched, petrified with fear, fever, and fascination, as a small flying saucer appeared near the ceiling. It was round, as flying saucers should be, and spinning. From its dome top, blue and red lights flashed. The flying saucer zigzagged across the black room and came to hover directly above me. I watched, petrified with fear, fever, and fascination, as a tiny rope ladder dropped from the bottom of the tiny flying saucer, and tiny people began clambering down the tiny rope ladder. When I realized that I knew the two-inch tall people clambering down the rope ladder beneath the flying saucer, I should have felt tremendous relief. But I remained petrified with fear, fever, and fascination, as the romantic triangle of Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Bluto, followed by the Zen master, Jeep, each held the ladder with one three-fingered hand, while waving the other three-fingered hand down at me.

Now, nearly a half-century later, I don’t remember anything more of that dream, except this: As I lay there, petrified with fear, fever, and fascination, I was certain, absolutely certain, that I was awake, that I was not dreaming.

Which, it occurs to me, is exactly how we feel about being alive; we are certain, absolutely certain, that we are awake.

Around the age of eleven, I discovered that I could manage my dreams. No one taught me how. I just learned. Which, it occurs to me, is how anyone of us learns anything, from breathing, to walking, to flying an F-111 fighter jet. Sure, we can have a doctor slap us on our ass, and have parents encourage us to get up and try again, each time we forcibly imprint our face on the living room carpet, and have computers run cockpit simulators for us. But at the very heart of these events, it is only we, all alone, teaching our minds and our bodies exactly what to do, and what not to do.

At age eleven, I liked having dreams. And, being an American, I felt entitled to more of them. I was frustrated how, each morning when I awoke, my dreams, like the steam rising from my bowl of oatmeal, evaporated. Eventually, I noticed that on the mornings when I would awake—but not completely—not getting out of bed, and not letting my naked feet touch the hard cold floor of reality—and then fall back into sleep— a funny thing happened: I would have lots more dreams. Practicing this technique of sleepus interruptus, I soon became a prolific generator of dreams. But satisfaction still eluded me, for what good is it to sleep, perchance to dream, if we cannot recall the dreams we dream?

My solution to that problem was simple, if not elegant. I began training myself to, the moment I realized I was awake, keep my eyes closed tight and ask myself, “What was I just dreaming?” I made myself recall and relive, as much as I could of the dreams I had woken from. No matter what might be happening around me. Even if my mother was leaned over my bed shouting at my tightly shut eyes, “Get out of bed and get ready for school! I’m not going to say it again!” Patiently, I developed my archeological skills until soon I could exhume two or three or even half-a-dozen scenes from my dreams, much like gathering shards of a vase broken and buried 2,000 years ago. Gluing the pieces together, the flowing contours of my dreams would reveal themselves. By the time my mother had returned to yell, “Get out of bed and get ready for school! I’m not going to say it again!” I was, behind my clenched eyes, wholly absorbed in expertly directing excavations of my dreams. “After the monkey grabbed the knife, what happened? And then what? And the girl in the blue dress on the red bicycle, what did she say when she rode past? Hey, if the parachute didn’t open, how come I didn’t get hurt when I landed inside school?”

About that last part? The Ripley’s Believe It Or Not® headline—Eleven-Year-Old Boy’s Parachute Fails! Crashes Through School Roof And Lands In Social Studies Class Without A Scratch! But Forgets His Homework on the Kitchen Table! That is important. Because I had noticed that my dreams were rich with such death-defying exploits. Eventually, I understood I had the power not only to make myself dream, and to recall my dreams, but to manipulate the dreams I dreamed. I was not only the Hero of my dreams, but the Author of my dreams, as well.

Which, it occurs to me, is exactly how we think about our lives; we are not only the Hero of our Life, but the Author of it, as well. (Note: Take that, David Copperfield Charles Dickens.)

At age eleven, discovering that I never ever had to die in my dreams, I began to suspect that I was immortal. This delusion would persist through my teenage years.

Case in point. In my teenage years, I began to have a recurring dream in which I stand on the shore of an infinite black ocean under an infinite black sky. The only light in this black world comes from a spray of glittering stars, indicating a galaxy billions and billions of light years away. Everything is still, silent. Until the moment when I realize a giant wall of black water has been swiftly rising and is suddenly a mile high, looming over me. All hell breaks loose. The sound of the collapsing wave is stunning. But I know that I am about to be drowned, about to be crushed under the massive impenetrable black weight of this impossibly high wall of water.

I know I am about to die.

Except.

I never do.

Because, just as the wall of water has begun its horrifically loud and dark descent down to snuff the flickering candle flame that is my Life, I change to a new dream. I do it as easily as if I were grabbing the remote and changing the channel on a television. Or, should I fail to switch to a new and safer dream—because I have misplaced the damn remote under the damn sofa cushions again—I simply wake myself up. The dreamy equivalent of turning off the television

Am I an optimist? Or a coward?

Why am I afraid of dying in my dreams? After all, these are dreams, right? It’s not like I’d really die, is it?

What if I remained in the dream? What if I deliberately did not exit stage left? What if I allowed the machete-wielding monkeys to slice and dice me like a carrot in a Ginzu knife commercial? What if I just up and told the guy with the gun, “Go ahead! Shoot me, you dumb bastard! This is just a dream!” And I allowed the dream bullet heading toward me in ultra-slow-motion, to pass right between my wide open eyes and slam into my brain? What if I were to resolutely stand fast inside my dream, looking defiantly skyward, as the giant wall of black water was dropping down to obliterate me?

Might I be given a preview of what happens the moment when I die?

The night after I wrote the above questions, as fate would have it, I went to bed, and fell sleep. And my recurring dream of the giant black wall of water… recurred. (Note: Bumper sticker wisdom warns us, “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.” I would add, “Be careful what you write about. It just might happen.”)

But this time, my dream of the giant wall of water did not happen as I stood on the black shore of a black ocean. It happened inside a men’s clothing store, where it seemed, for reasons I cannot fathom, I had been hired to assist customers. It was a stressful start to the dream, as I know nothing about men’s clothing, other than to wear the clothes that do not smell bad, and to put the clothes that do smell bad into the washing machine. But that stress fell away when the love of my life and my former domestic partner of 11.5 years, a golden retriever named Newton who had departed this world of forms nearly three years ago, appeared in my dreamed up mens clothing store. Newton was decidely alive and happily chasing and retrieving the blue raquet ball I was throwing past the tables of cashmere sweaters and rep ties. (Note: Being the authors of our dreams, we often use them as a time travel machine, transporting ourselves wherever and whenever we want to go, or transporting anyone, from a cherished dog, to Napoleon, to Marisa Tomei in a negligee in a hotel room in the Plaza, right into our timeless dreams.) In this dream, I was now feeling a deep peace and joy, once again in the company of my beloved dog. But, as Newton and I were walking down an aisle of the men’s clothing store, the aisle instantly morphed into a country road. I wasn't phased. This was a dream, after all. Looking past the distant trees at the setting sun, I noticed a greenish-white glow that seemed to be growing bigger. Of course, being the author as well as the hero of my dream, I somehow knew what the eerie greenish-white glow was. I said, “Oh, shit, Newton. That’s the water! It may be greenish-white this time, not black! But I’m not fooled! That’s the motherfucking water!”

I broke into a sweat, and watched, petrified with fever, fear, and fascination, as the water simultaneously rose to an impossible height, blocking the setting sun, and flooded across miles of rural landscape, erasing hills, and splintering trees and crushing boulders in its path. I had just enough time to say, “Good-bye, Newton!”

The next instant I was swamped and submerged and flailing inside an infinitely vast, impenetrably greenish-white and churning world.

But this time, I was defiant. Things were going to change.

I was pissed off that the black water had somehow become greenish-white and had busted into my dream in which I was so happy to be briefly reunited with my dog. This anger compelled me to decide that this time, I would not reach for the remote, I would not change the dream, I would not wake myself. Quoting some other idiot adrift in this world of forms, I taunted fate even while drowning inside the wave of water, “Bring it on!”

I was resolved. This time, I would stay inside the dream. I would stay until I discovered whatever might be inside the huge wave of water. I would face it, and face it down.

Or so I thought. Or so I dreamed.

But I woke up.

Against my will, I was suddenly awake.

Call it the instinct for survival, or self-preservation, or The Force, or God.

So, there it is, your reward for being my fellow traveler as we’ve wandered and wondered through this rambling essay. In case you missed it: The moment you die, you will wake from your dream.

Just as the moment I die, I will wake from my dream.

Now. Would you like to know what happens the moment after you die? The moment after we wake from this dream?

I would, too.

But not just yet.

Life Is But A Dream

Click this link to BackTalk db!