So, last night Jean informed me she was pregnant again—and that she was leaving me for someone else, and she suggested, although we both know the truth, that Sasha was this other guy’s. The strange thing, though, was that the other guy was also me, my doppelganger, and that Jean and I (that is, the me that is writing this) weren’t married to begin with—for some reason had never gotten married, and that was part of why she was now dumping me … for me.
Please know: This was a dream, not reality. And yet it wasn’t exactly a nightmare either, although in the dream I recognized that these were not fortuitous events. But they came across in a very neutral way, as if we’d known all along what was going to happen, and were just acting out prescribed roles.
Now, I hate reading too much into dreams. Actually, I hate reading anything into dreams. In fiction, especially, they substitute symbol for plot, and fail to recognize the essential randomness of what happens during REM sleep.
But when you’ve had a particularly vivid or surprising dream, it’s hard not to wonder what’s behind it. And I know what’s behind this one: “Lost,” for one thing. All season the show has been shifting between what’s happening on the Island and what’s going on in “sideways time,” the world in which the Island no longer exists. This dream had the distinct feeling of sideways time—a world that might have come to be if things had happened differently.
And the other part of the dream is that, well, I’m ready to go home. I’ve been telling people here that Jean only lets me travel two weeks at a time; any longer than that and I might as well not come home. The dreamworld encounter with Jean definitely had a subtext of “You stayed out too long too often, and look what happened. What did you expect?” So this must be my subconscious telling me to hurry on back to Brooklyn.
You know what, Subconscious? Shut up. I’ll get home soon enough—three or four more days, I think—and life on my little island can resume. Till then, just let me sleep through the night, okay?
Last evening I was late to pick up Sasha (thanks F train!), and when I got there I found the cleaning lady watching Sasha. That night in my stuffy room I dreamt that I was 2 hours late, and found Sasha in the “nightcare”, where the weird and mentally retarded kids hang out. Needless to say I was horrified, both in the dream and outside of the dream.
I can’t say I have “wife is leaving me” nightmares, but the recurring ones I have is cheating on my wife then getting caught. It usually ends with her packing up her shit, but this is a much different scenario that Matt’s. I get that same helpless panicked feeling that I get in other nightmares, and usually startle awake.