Dead Dream

Last night I watched the pilot episode of Twin Peaks, so that may be why I had this dream.

———–

I’m a child, probably nine or ten.  I’m living in a farmhouse.  I look out of a first floor window into the night.  There is a full moon, I remember being surprised at how the stars seemed to be fighting for room in the black sky.  The interior of the house is completely unfamiliar to me as I recall it now, but in the dream it felt like home.

Rachel is sitting at a table in the kitchen, not doing anything inparticular.  I step into a dark bedroom, lit only by the light of an open window.

A figure shrouded in a gray, hooded garment is kneeling on the bed and is hunched over.  I don’t know how I knew the clothing, or robe I guess, was gray since all I was able to see was the figure’s silhouette.

Without my knowing I have had a physical transformation.  I’ve grown up, probably to the age I am in reality.  I discover that this figure is a man and we begin to fight.  I’m not sure why but it’s probably because he was an unwelcome intruder in the house.  The fight ends and I am its winner.

I go to the kitchen but it seems to take a really long time to get there.  Rachel is still sitting at the table.  I go to a drawer and take out a small serrated knife with a black handle.  I hold it in front of my face and examine it.  Rachel finally asks what’s wrong.  I tell her that I just fought someone in the bedroom and won the fight.  We get up and walk together to the bedroom without a word.

The man in gray seems to have disappeared at first, but it turns out he was lying prone behind the bed, out of sight.  He gets up and stands before Rachel and I, looming over us.  I can’t make out his face because of the hood.  The man undergoes a transformation then.  The gray garment disappears, he shrinks in size, his body widens.  Now standing before Rachel and I is a middle-aged, heavy set, balding man.  He wasn’t recognizable to me in the dream, nor is he now that I recall it.  He wears a long-sleeved button down blue shirt, no tie, equipped with pens in the breast pocket.  The shirt is tucked into ironed khaki slacks, held up by a black leather belt.

The man holds up his hands in front of him and says, “Don’t worry about anything, it’s all right.  It’s me, it’s Lawrence.”

I say, “What the fuck Lawrence?  Fuck Lawrence, what the fuck.  Fuck.”

Lawrence says, “I know, I know.  There is this.”

A wave of relief washes over me, I remember my muscles actually relaxing.  What harm could this fat little man do to Rachel and I?  I think I even smiled a little.

Lawrence reaches into his pocket, pulls out a .32 caliber revolver, points it at my chest, and shoots.  I am killed instantly.

Rachel and I are walking down Saint Mary Blvd, in front of PJ’s and Campus Copies.  We are walking on the street, heading towards Johnston.  There are cars on the road but they aren’t moving.  There are hundreds of people around us on the street and sidewalks, all walking towards Johnston.  I look at Rachel’s face and it is literally glowing with happiness.  Her smile is so big it’s abstract.

I am suddenly filled with terror and dread.  I realize I am dead, but Rachel is alive.  I then either realize that Rachel does not know I am standing next to her, or that the memory of me is quickly leaving her.  I suggest the latter because as I was looking at her I could feel myself draining out of her mind.  My eyes widen then shut.  I grab my head with my hands and begin squeezing it like a vice.

——-

I’ve been having a lot of vivid dreams like this one lately.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the weird films and texts I’m studying in the Freud class.  Something that I was thinking about is that all the people walking down Saint Mary might have also been dead, but I’m certain that Rachel was alive.